Robert Scott, who farms 1,450ha of arable land in mid-west Norfolk for seven landowners, used an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to turn soil test maps into a variable-rate liming plan in a couple of minutes, he writes in his Farmer Focus column for Farmers Weekly.
He sent field maps showing soil pH samples, as a PDF, to Meta AI through WhatsApp and asked it for a LimeX70 recommendation to correct the pH in selected fields, the total volume to order, and a variable-rate application plan for his spreading contractor. The AI then offered to email the plan to the contractor in the correct file format. He did it all from his tractor cab, during a rare spell of mobile signal.
His takeaway is that such tools can bring practical efficiency by cutting administrative time and cost. But he adds that efficiency only goes so far against wider economic pressure: the Andersons Centre has reported "agflation" running at double headline consumer price inflation, and he is feeling it in diesel, wages, fertiliser and, above all this autumn, the price of spare parts.
Scott writes that the continuing squeeze on margins makes the long-term future of arable farming in the East look increasingly questionable, and calls the 2027-28 beet contract price announced by NFU Sugar and British Sugar underwhelming, arguing the crop must be priced higher to reflect inputs that have not fallen back to pre-2022 levels and greater agronomic risk.
On the farm, autumn cereal drilling is in full swing, with unusually dry weather giving swift progress and level, clod-free seed-beds that should help autumn herbicides work. The views are the writer's own.
Photo: Richard Humphrey / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Farmers Weekly
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