This Irish Farming Start-Up Has Come To Realise That AI Holds Environmental and Climate Value - The Gloss Magazine

This Irish Farming Start-Up Has Come To Realise That AI Holds Environmental and Climate Value

Holly Hughes discovers how an Irish start-up uses AI…

Perhaps it is the career I am in, but over the past few months it has increasingly felt like AI is taking over the world. Thoughts on AI range from, “It’s the end of the world!” to, “It’s the beginning of a whole new world!” However, in one sector and with one Irish company in particular, the emergence of new AI technology has undeniable advantages (admits, begrudgingly, this writer whose career is threatened by a little thing called ChatGPT).

Proveye is an Irish agri-tech start-up that uses image correction technology to evaluate agricultural land at scale and provide a faster, more accurate picture of everything from crop yields to soil health and productivity, enabling farmers to make informed decisions that will increase their farms’ profitability and sustainability simultaneously. Paul Kennedy, one of Proveye’s founders and its Chief Revenue Officer, explains further: “Farming occurs in all kinds of environments, from dairy farms here in Ireland to vast rangelands in sub-Saharan Africa. In all these environments, it is impossible to visually inspect every crop in every field to fully and accurately assess what interventions may be needed to ensure farming is as profitable and sustainable as possible.”

“Proveye solves this problem by enabling remote analysis of crops at scale without requiring hands-on technology or support from the farmer. In fact, no technology is needed on the farm whatsoever. Instead, we take raw images from satellites or drones and apply specialist proprietary image-processing technology and artificial intelligence to them to extract information farmers need, like how their crops are performing, or the health of their land. This information empowers farmers to make more profitable and sustainable decisions around land and crop management as it tells farmers when and how to best rotate crops or livestock.”

“For example, in the dairy industry, it can help farmers decide when to put cattle in paddocks or when to apply fertiliser to optimise milk production. For arable crops, it indicates when to spray crops and shows if there is drought or disease to be dealt with.” The impact is considerable. Not only does it create increased efficiency and profitability on farms at a time of global economic uncertainty, it also holds potent environmental and climate value.

Not only does it create increased efficiency and profiability on farms…it also holds potent environmental and climate value.

Using AI technology and remote sensing imagery can stop land from being overworked and over-fertilised with chemicals – both of which carry significant environmental consequences. If crops are rotated more effectively, this boosts soil retention and crop health, bolsters biodiversity and biomass, and safeguards a resilient and thriving ecosystem that is never driven to the edge of survival.

More than this, Proveye’s technology and interest is zeroing in on another significant environmental opportunity in agriculture: carbon sequestration. Paul tells me that there is one crop that holds massive potential for effective carbon storage – and it happens to be the most common crop on the planet. “Grass is the largest crop in the entire world. It accounts for 40 per cent of the world’s agricultural land and is not just an essential crop, it is also a very sustainable one if we manage it correctly.”

“What has been coming to the fore over the past couple of years is that grass has massive potential as a carbon store. Recent research published by UCD shows that multi-species grass is highly effective at sequestering carbon in the ground due to a deeper root system and can reduce the need for chemical fertilisers by up to 60 per cent.”

Multi-species grass is exactly what it sounds like – a mixture of varied species of grass, herbs, and legumes that, when planted together, create greater biodiversity than traditional ryegrass found in Ireland.

Due to the mix of species, the nutrition content of this grass is also greatly improved. The same research from UCD showed a 15 per cent reduction in the carbon footprint of beef farmed on multi-species grass as well as additional benefits such as enhanced earthworm diversity and activity, increased water infiltration rates, and enhanced invertebrate diversity. “However, in order to optimise all of this potential, you need to be able to measure and monitor grass crops at a tremendous scale,” Paul tells me. “You can’t do that as a human, which is where remote sensing and Proveye comes in.”

“We can measure how much grass is an area and learn from the height of the grass if it’s being under or overgrazed. Our technology can give lots of information about species, density, composition – all of these benefits that enable farmers to opt for a more productive, sustainable, resilient crop that stores carbon, drastically reduces chemical use, and improves biodiversity.”

The implications of this kind of knowledge are global. Think of places like sub-Saharan Africa where grasslands are disappearing due to desertification and farmers are struggling to keep their crops, livestock, and livelihoods alive in a landscape eroded by climate change. A technology that provides fast and accurate knowledge to increase productivity, improve land management, and protect ecosystems from drought, disease, soil erosion and other weather events is a gamechanger.

Proveye is already effecting change. “In sub-Saharan Africa, we’ve been involved in projects that tell pastoral farmers precisely where to go to graze their cattle,” says Paul. “This spares them a day of walking several miles just to find somewhere to graze. And it doesn’t just save farmers time or improve the health of their livestock, it is protecting vulnerable land and introducing climate mitigation and adaptation methods into farming practices.”

Proveye looks beyond traditional methods to extract better information from new technologies. It looks beyond crops and arable lands to their hinterlands (hedgerows, nature corridors, buffer zones) to find new ways to store carbon, protect ecosystems, and improve the agricultural industry for everyone. And it looks beyond Ireland to the environmental, economic, and social benefits of this technology on a global scale, so that everyone might achieve a just transition. @holly_hughes_words

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