Economic Impacts of the Use of Artificial Intelligence for Australian Agricultural Production

Recent analysis of reports regarding the applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has highlighted the considerable potential for productivity gains in industries such as agriculture. This latter possibility has been shown by several published examples of AI use in the Australian agriculture sector, where they are currently at an early stage of development, testing and adoption. To date, applications have been noted in the berry industry, the grain and pulse industries, the cotton industry, the mushroom industry, and in assessments of farm survey activities, and in the rural property market. In this paper, we provide a broad review of the potential economic impacts of the use of AI in the Australian farm sector. Empirical estimates reviewed in our paper indicate that there are considerable potential farm sector benefits in Australia associated with the use of digital agriculture including AI. There are already several examples of AI use in some of these farm sectors although many of them are at an early stage of implementation. It has been pointed out that achieving these potential farm sector industry benefits in Australia require investment in all components of digital agriculture including AI. It is noted that the policy environment associated with the introduction of AI systems is characterised by considerable liability, ethical and moral issues. In this regard, industries may need to carefully determine the level of autonomy provided to Artificial Intelligence systems. It follows that Governments will need to play a role in developing a regulatory framework to ensure the building of public trust, guaranteeing trustworthiness in the application of new systems, and establishing transparent frameworks for data access and protections associated with AI use.