Farmers are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor the wildlife on their land. A system called Chirrup, developed by Conrad Young, has been designed to identify bird species from recordings of the dawn chorus. The technology logs these recordings to build a picture of bird populations, helping to determine the level of biodiversity on the farm. The more sounds that are recorded, the more detailed the database becomes. Farm manager, Peter Cheek, has already started using the technology on his Godminster farm, which converted to organic in 1999. Cheek says the technology is an affordable way of measuring farm diversity on a regular basis. He hopes that the information gathered from the birds will help him to better understand the security of his crops. The system’s value increases over time as it becomes more capable of assessing the sounds it detects.
Mike Jones, who works as part of pioneering farm engineering projects from a center in Shepton Mallet, believes that AI is revolutionizing productivity in farming. Jones says, It is about learning how to use this technology to the advantage of the environment, the farm business itself and just to make everything more efficient. Jones’ farm engineering project aims to make agriculture more profitable and efficient while looking after the environment. The AI technology incorporated in the Chirrup system is just one part of this project.
According to Young, the technology essentially involves having a real human sitting here 24/7 and listening when we tell it to listen. The system is not really listening to sound, but rather looking at a spectrogram, which is a picture of the sound. The AI technology records bird sounds which can inform farmers what type of insects are about. This information is valuable to organic farms as they do not use any insecticides, so the birds eating the insects can also eat other bugs that are trying to damage the crops.
In conclusion, AI technology is revolutionizing the way farmers monitor wildlife on their land. The Chirrup system is a valuable tool for measuring farm diversity by identifying individual bird species. The data collected is used to determine levels of biodiversity on the farm and can inform crop security measures. The potential uses of AI in agriculture are limitless, and it is exciting to see these technologies being developed to make agriculture more profitable and efficient while looking after the environment.
