UF’s technology is positively impacting Florida’s agriculture sector

Color inversion and oblong fruit shape are symptoms of citrus greening.

Florida’s farmers play a vital role in the health of our state and nation: growing the food we eat and supporting our local economy. According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, in 2020, Florida was home to 47,400 commercial farms, covering over 9.7 million acres. All told, Florida farms contributed $7.8 billion to the state’s economy.

As someone who is deeply rooted in our region’s agricultural industry, I’ve seen firsthand how technological innovations have helped propel production, reduce waste, and allowed producers to navigate challenges in more efficient ways. Right now, Florida ranks 15th highest in total number of farms in the nation, but tech can help us maintain and even grow our impact.

Here in our own backyard, the University of Florida has developed innovative, state-of-the-art technologies to give Florida growers a leading edge and our state agriculture a boost. These developments have positively impacted how crops are grown and treated, increased sustainability measures, and fostered stronger farm ecosystems.

Citrus greening symptoms of the fruit.

Building on that success, the University of Florida also recently announced a new dynamic tool that allows farmers to use artificial intelligence (AI) and drones to monitor crops and growth to make production more efficient. UF has also been testing the abilities of its supercomputer HiPerGator and how it can be used to mitigate citrus greening.

As any Floridian knows, citrus is vital to the state’s ag economy and AI tools help farmers monitor their crops to ensure trees are healthy and producing.

Tech like AI can also help the ecosystem around farmlands by minimizing herbicide use, allowing growers to find and target weeds, and then deploy herbicide on a specific plant rather than broader crops. Utilizing these innovative technologies can reduce herbicide use by up to 80% in some cases. In the nursery industry, AI is assisting growers by more efficiently identifying pests and diseases, as well as more accurately predicting water requirements for plants. All these greatly decrease the inputs needed to raise healthy plants

The Leon County Farm Bureau is passionate about helping farmers be sustainable and advocating for them to do their best work. The advancements in technology have made this possible. However, anti-innovation legislation is currently being debated in Congress that could jeopardize America’s largest innovators. This could impact research and development of critical technologies that are subsequently applied to ag tech. The result would be slow innovation, limit research and development, and weaken our domestic technology sector, leaving farmers without the latest state-of-the-art technologies.

Technological advancements in the industry are making our state’s agriculture more efficient and maximizing our farmers’ outputs and profits.

Simply put, technology is essential for today’s farmers and growers. I am excited about the future of agriculture, the future of Florida, and seeing how technology will continue to advance our ag sector. But we need Washington to support technology and innovation in order for all our farms and farmers to reach our full potential.

Sharon Spratt

Sharon Spratt is the national accounts manager for Florida-based Simpson Nurseries She serves as Leon County Farm Bureau president, Leon County 4-H Club Leader, and is Past Chair of UF/IFAS SHARE Council. She lives in Tallahassee on her farm with her husband Jim, their twins, and a menagerie of animals.

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