Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
2001 S. Lincoln Ave.
URBANA,IL 61801
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Innovation across the field of agriculture is necessary to reach and exceed the required yields for feeding an expanding global population. Conventional technologies are insufficient to tackle these challenging agriculture goals; they must be augmented with AI-driven techniques. Agricultural problems can drive significant and novel advances in foundational AI questions such as transfer learning, domain knowledge, autonomous systems, computer vision, and edge computing. The agriculture domain has a wealth of data heterogeneity, with complex and unique environments and domain-specific knowledge ideal for application to foundational AI. The broad goal of this summit is to develop a long-term technical vision and a comprehensive strategy for the utilization of AI advances to tackle challenges facing U.S. and world agriculture. This summit will be a collaboration between the five USDA-NIFA funded National AI-Institutes and will bring together a diverse set of participants. A short-term outcome of this summit will be to produce a white paper with a set of recommendations based on the discussion held during the meeting. The long-term outcomes of this event will be to encourage continued support of AI-driven solutions. Strong research benefits U.S. and global agriculture by improving on-farm technologies, crop improvement, climate resilience, farm labor challenges, reduced disease, farm income, and sustainable environmental practices.
Animal Health Component
40%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
40%
Applied
40%
Developmental
20%
Goals / Objectives
The broad goal of this summit is to develop a long-term technical vision and a comprehensive implementation strategy for the utilization of AI advances to tackle challenges facing U.S. and world agriculture. A short-term outcome of this summit will be to produce a white paper with a set of recommendations based on the discussion held during the meeting.Long-term goals and objectives for the summitThe workshop will examine the challenges and opportunities for AI advances to influence U.S. agriculture with three themes addressed within the workshop agenda.Showcase agricultural challenges as the ideal applications for foundational AI research advances.Highlight the role of public, private, and joining investment in AI for Agriculture.Discuss the significant policy concerns government officials must address to enable impactful research.The summit organizers aim to build a resilient and engaged AI/ Agriculture community to address motivation and best practices across disciplines and organizations.
Project Methods
The summit will be held at the National Academy of Science building in Washington D.C. on July 29- 31st. The National Academy of Sciences traditionally approves the utilization of their Washington, D.C. facility for affiliated academics. Our summit was approved to host the event at the NAS building. We are honored to be part of the 1% of outside organizations deemed worthy of this opportunity.We expect up to 150 attendees for day 1 and 2 of the summit, with 20-25 participants involved in the white paper planning workshop on day 3. Day 1 of the summit will focus on scientific topics critical to developing a long-term vision for AI and Agriculture research challenges. During the first day, each session will consist of three presentations with a joint Q&A session. After the conclusion of the session, a breakout discussion will be held. The purpose of the breakout discussion will be to expand upon, discuss, and organize the participants' thoughts about the session's theme. Each breakout will be led by a member of the white paper writing team who will lead the discussion and organize the notes to be brought to the day 3 planning workshop. Session 2 and 3 will have parallel breakout discussions, because of time constraints and largely disjoint communities.Day 2 of the summit will focus on the implementation of the use-inspired research discussed during Day 1. The sessions will focus on the policy, development, and social concerns to be considered and addressed to accelerate the future of agriculture within the U.S. This will include a representative from the 2-year community college programs to speak on the importance of workforce development outside of traditional 4-year degrees. The morning of day 2 has been organized for policy makers; congressional staffers will be invited and encouraged to attend the morning sessions.The afternoon presentations will be given by two invited government officials, from USDA, NSF, DOE, or related government agency to speak. This will be followed up by a panel of funding agency representatives to discuss the outlook for AI-Ag funding and private-public partnerships.Day 3 of the summit will be a half-day workshop to plan the white paper, which the writing team will attend. The members will produce a white paper with the findings and suggestions obtained during the summit. The white paper will be semi-technical material for distribution across diverse audiences, including academics and the wider community. The writing team will comprise 20-25 individuals from all five USDA Institutes. The co-authors will be pre-assigned sections of the white paper before the summit.The planning workshop will start with a welcome session to outline the plan for the day and debrief from the summit. Following this, the group will break into small groups to discuss specific paper sections. These breakouts will outline the significant and critical topics addressed during the summit. Following the breakouts, we will reassemble as a whole group for an open discussion. The workshop will organize the co-authors around recommendations for AI- Agriculture research to be described in the white paper. The final authorship list will be organized during the half day workshop.The white paper will be written following the summit with the proposed final submission aimed for December of 2024. The final timeline will be agreed to by the full writing committee, to be discussed on the third day of the summit.Following the event, all recorded materials, with presenter permission, will be shared with the wider community. The recording will be linked within the white paper for continued distribution. The videos will be hosted on YouTube or a similar platform for ease of access. ?