“If AI [artificial intelligence] means someone gets through the gate at the end of the day and has dinner with their family instead of sitting at the computer for another two hours, that's technology solving a real problem.”

Regen Farmers Mutual (RFM) co-operative co-director and cattle farmer Christophe Bur suggests the uptake in the use of AI by farmers, while slow, means reducing administration which could then have an impact beyond productivity.

“The opportunity isn't to replace the farmer's judgement. It's to stop valuable information disappearing into notebooks, different systems or someone's memory and reduce the amount of time farmers spend entering the same information more than once,” he said.

RFM says that just three per cent of Australian agriculture, forestry and fishing businesses are using AI – the second-lowest rate of any industry, and well behind the 12 per cent national average – while new international research shows AI is quickly finding its way onto farms overseas, with 17 per cent of farmers surveyed across 10 countries now using generative AI for farm-related tasks.

RFM co-director Andrew Ward believes one reason for the slow uptake from Australian farmers is that much of the AI available wasn't built for the reality of running a farm.

The company is developing Farm Assistant with Australian farmers, creating an AI assistant that learns how each farm operates and helps manage the information, record keeping and administration behind it.

“Low AI uptake shouldn't be mistaken for farmers being reluctant to embrace technology. Australian farmers have been using GPS, automated machinery, sensors and remote monitoring for years,” Mr Ward said.

Farm Assistant is designed to work alongside existing sources of farm and business information, including farm-management software, weather information, machinery systems, sensors and commodity data.

It allows farmers to record what is happening as they work using voice notes, photographs or text from the paddock, tractor or yards. A farmer treating livestock, for example, can tell the assistant what they have done, allowing treatment records and inventory to be updated and associated documentation prepared without re-entering the information later.

Twenty farmers are currently piloting the technology and meeting weekly in what RFM calls an ‘AI gym’, testing Farm Assistant on their properties, sharing what works and helping shape its development.

Narromine cotton, beef and sheep farmer Andrew Gill is one of those using the technology and says this new tool has allowed him maximise hidden data of his farm, including being able to drag and drop mops of sheep to show which paddock they are in and overlaying it with satellite imagery to predict how much feed is left, all in real time.

More than 40 farms are now waiting to join the program.