Across Europe, there’s growing interest in the commercial and environmental benefits of paludiculture. Like any farming, it’s not without its challenges, but artificial intelligence could help unleash paludiculture’s potential.
Earlier this year, experts from Ireland, the UK, Netherlands, Lithuania, Belgium, Germany and Finland came together at the fourth RRR (Renewable Resources from Wet and Rewetted Peatlands) conference at the University of Greifswald. The group included academics, conservationists, policymakers and business professionals.
Now, three Palus Demos team members – project coordinator Niall Ó Brolcháin (pictured above, leading the talk), our smart paludi expert Dr Saaed Alsamhi and biosystems analyst Al Waskow have published a short report from the event.
Participants at the RRR confernece discussed:
- How AI can monitor water levels, greenhouse gas emissions, soil conditions and crop growth – all monitored using sensors, drones, remote sensing technology.
- How AI models can be developed to forecast crop yields, determine the optimal harvest times, assess the environmental and economic impacts.
- The need to develop user-friendly toolkits such as dashboards and application to aid farmers in choosing crops, managing water, determining eliginbilty for subsidies, proving market viability, refining business plans, estimating revenue from carbon credits and other ecosystem services, establishing a uniform EU framework, harmonising measures to track and quantify environmental benefits.
Participants also reflected on the challenges and potential problems with using AI in paludiculture. These included data privacy and the risk of “drowning in data” generated by AI without discernable, valuable insights. Could it be too expensive for farmers? How can AI be trusted, and will its techniques and algorithms be clear and transparent. Speakers also highlighted the need for ecologists and agronomists to monitor and validate AI outputs and compare them with farm conditions.
The report avoids academic terminology, is accessible to a wide audience and will be of particular interest to anyone currently working in paludiculture as well as farmers, researchers and industrialists who are interested in the topic.
You can acccess the full report in the Palus Demos document library.