Op-Ed: Automated farming: AI goes to the hoedown, or a grim mix of big, difficult issues?

It was inevitable that AI and related automation have grafted onto farming. AI and autonomous machines are a natural thematic mix. It’s a very saleable thing in Big Agriculture. It looks good. It can recite productivity stats until the cows come home.

The image and the facts may or may not stay on speaking terms for long in any given agricultural sector. In a purely market-driven sector like farming, however, the mix gets complex.

There’s another life-or-death issue in farming realities long since buried in media consciousness. It’s called the murderous and incredibly brutal reality of commercial farming.  Farm sector crises are real enough for anyone.

Farming is an extremely high-stress environment. Decades of bankruptcies, suicides, increasing foreclosures and astronomical debt, and often very shaky supply chains are just a few of the symptoms.

Then there are drought, water shortages, commodity prices, coercive market practices, seed supplies, and even basic farming issues in every rural region to consider.

Market realities don’t generate a lot of reassurance, either. If you remember back before empty grocery shelves became normal, you may get that message. The pre-automation farming market dynamics were no great monument to efficiency and cost management.

Farming and automation hubris don’t mix

In this skittish and untrustworthy environment, putting straw hats on Big Tech can’t work. This gravy train isn’t going anywhere unless it delivers real value to the farms. A single bad season can trash the supply chains for any commodity.  Irrational food supply deserts and food swamps make the overall mess a lot messier. Consumer price spikes go badly with entrenched supply and undersupply.

Some healthy skepticism is now entering the argument about automated farming. Even phys.org is running stories about the basic assumptions of farming automation.  

A quick breakdown of the basics is required:

Automation is geared to big monocultures. These monocultures and their technologies date back to the pre-Agricultural Revolution. The easiest way to ensure massive crop losses and financial disasters is with big one-trick crops. Best practice for farmers is to diversify, not put all the eggs in one basket with monocultures and their associated risks.

Big Ag and the entire commercial supply chain aren’t about ensuring food supplies. Constant pressure on farmers to reduce their prices is usually ruinous, sooner or later.

Modern farming methods like vertical farming and hydroponics do fit with automation very effectively, and supply is reliable. The added value here is that this type of farming also fits with community gardens and similar operations. The trouble with that is that the market still isn’t commercially well geared to these ventures. You can’t feed the world or support the local and wider markets with “boutique” food.

Automated systems are expensive and very high maintenance. Full automation is definitely not for everyone’s budgets. These systems must have support ASAP. There’s no getting around maintenance costs. Downtime can mean sudden significant losses. Services may or may not be available. Technical expertise also may not be just a phone call away.

Automated systems make mistakes. That’s certain. How do you assess risk of system failures for a specific business? How do you cost risk aversion?

AI systems are typically remote server-dependent. Your business can be hamstrung by a data centre outage thousands of miles away. Local servers can help, but the wider issue of dependency may not suit some farmers.

Food commodity market price moves are hyper-reactive. The financial aspect of automation in agriculture is, to put it mildly, neurotic at best. Food commodity prices have been rising throughout 2026.

Food futures are another acquired taste. Food futures are a constant potential true spanner in the works for farmers at any level, directly impacting market prices throughout the supply and distribution networks.

Canoe and paddle required

Nobody in recorded history has ever been able to pretend that food supply is simple, stable, or that the markets are even theoretically trustworthy. There is absolutely no doubt that full automation could be the final straw for traditional farms.

However…

Even if automated farming looks like a really fun 360-degree throat-cutting exercise for the entire Ag sector, there’s a small but provable bright spot.

One thing AI and automation can do, and do well, is customize and scale down as well as up.

There’s no need to hyperscale anything at all at the farm business level.

Sanity can be preserved with a bit of sales resistance and strict focus on deliverables.

Costs and risks can easily be restricted. Farm budgets can dodge blowouts with careful due diligence. You can get support in the form of SaaS for the software and hunt down some local tech-savvy people to ensure services before spending a cent.

Keep the experienced experts and thinkers around. Retain the fixers. You will definitely need them.