Each November, the outlook issue of Wallaces Farmer — including this year’s “Smart Moves for 2027” package — contains some surprising developments.
This year, it’s artificial intelligence. It’s not so much the technology that’s an eye-opener; it’s also farmer interest.
You’d normally expect younger farmers to embrace AI more than older producers. That’s not happening, said Marc Rosenbohm, a senior grain and oilseeds analyst for Terrain.
An analysis by Rosenbohm — Bushels’ 2026 State of the Farm — shows that AI use spreads across all age groups. Instead, the split occurs in farm size. Those in the lower two-thirds of farm sizes — less than 5,000 acres — hesitate more to use AI than farmers with large farms.
“Concerns about time constraints exist,” Rosenbohm said. “There is also uncertainty about how it could benefit them.”
Rapid AI adoption
“This is a book that has yet to be written,” said Ryan Schaefer, vice president of New Holland North America.
However, agricultural companies are rapidly using AI.
“We are leveraging AI to enhance machine technologies and data analytics to deliver value to farmers in terms of the quality of the crop as it's coming to the combine,” Schaefer said.
Syngenta uses AI to develop new chemical formulations.
“We are using AI to help anticipate what comes next,” said Jeff Cecil, president of North American crop protection for Syngenta. “We take products that we've formulated or developed to help us understand what worked and what didn’t. Then AI can help identify the most promising paths for the next wave of new formulations.”
Syngenta uses the same AI pattern to search for new chemical active ingredients.
“Using AI, we can quickly narrow 150,000-plus molecules down to 50,000 for further evaluation,” Cecil said. “We developed our very first completely AI-driven molecule and launched it in Brazil this last year.”
On the farm
Rosenbohm’s analysis found farmers mainly deploy general-use AI tools — such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot — more than agriculture-specific AI ones. Office-based tasks such as drafting or editing documents so far make up the main use of AI by farmers.
“Among mid-to-upper-sized farms, we’ve seen AI use venture into business and financial analysis,” Rosenbohm said. “We don't have good insights on how deep it goes, but they are experimenting with and using it.”
Rosenbohm said AI could potentially piece together data across various agricultural platforms.
“Some of the survey results showed that there may be some data silo issues occurring,” he said. “AI can help make connections to integrate those data insights.”
Schaefer noted that early adopters in agriculture use AI for tasks they normally would have directed off the farm, such as legal or business advice. He added a major future opportunity for farmers is using AI to match production volume with commodity market moves.
But benefits aren’t limited to large farms.
“You can drive efficiencies on every farm of every size through adoption of AI tools,” Schaefer said.
The way it works
If AI use seems far off, think of the smartphone that many of you have.
“If you rewind 10 or 15 years ago, we couldn’t have imagined having this supercomputer in our hands,” said Jim Knuth, senior vice president of Farm Credit Services of America. “You no longer have to print off a paper map. You don’t have to watch the 5 o’clock news to figure out what the weather's going to be. We have gotten so used to the way it works.”
Knuth sees the same trend occurring with AI in agriculture.
“I know some people will say, ‘Oh, it’s going to wreck the world,’” he said. “No. This is not stopping. In a few years, AI use will be common, just the way things work. It will be another way we can drive needed efficiency in our businesses.”
Comments? Email gil.gullickson@farmprogress.com.