by REBEKAH PIERCE
When we think about AI in 2024, we tend to think about robots shuffling words on a computer screen, of virtual assistants that answer our customer service inquiries for online stores, and of self-driving cars.
Very few of us realize the massive potential artificial intelligence has in the world of agriculture. Yet that’s exactly what EZ Ag Innovations — founded by Nathan Boyd, Martyn Ballestero, and Arnold Schumann — is doing.
According to the startup’s website, the mission of the organization is to help “farmers increase crop yields while minimizing waste and protecting the environment.” Currently, the team is focusing on targeted spraying through the use of AI machine vision technology. Its work is honing in exclusively on specialty crops such as strawberries, tomatoes, and watermelon.
The first startup to come out of the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture, EZ Ag Innovations is hoping to make it easier for farmers to find where pests, diseases, or weeds are occurring in the field and treat them in real time.
Boyd, the president of the company, says a key driver behind the startup’s creation was a demand for equipment addressing specialty crops. “The acreage is relatively small compared to agronomic crops like soybeans or corn,” he clarifies, speaking of his technology’s unique market demand. “It’s harder to get companies interested in them. We knew we had a technology that was very effective, but we didn’t have a way to get it to market.”
Because Boyd and his team had worked closely with players in Florida’s agriculture industry, he felt they had a unique position to design solutions with Florida’s one-of-a-kind systems in mind. “They might be able to [implement] the technology,” he says, referring to other, larger companies, but it wouldn’t be tailored specifically to Florida.
The paperwork for EZ Ag Innovations was filed in 2022 and it became a bona-fide startup shortly after. Since then, things have moved quickly, with the company receiving a USDA grant a year later.
Currently, the team is focused on developing technology to get solutions on the market. “It’s never as fast as you want,” Boyd says. “But as fast as you can.”
Local growers are excited about the startup’s creation, hoping that this will drive research and innovation forward — specifically, innovation that will directly benefit their farms and the work they’re doing in Central Florida.
They are working on a variety of different technologies, but the ones Boyd says they want to get to market first involve targeted weed control and plasticulture production, as well as targeted fungicide application.
“This is a really exciting time to develop the whole [agricultural] sector in Florida,” Boyd concluded, adding that he hoped to see Gainesville and Tampa develop their own version of the Silicon Valley — but for agriculture. “It’s a really bright time…a really bright future.”
