AI and Potatoes From On High

Drone technology used to see what God/Nature already knew

[This post is a different version of a previous article. This initial draft was rejected by my editors as too pessimistic toward agricultural technology. You can see why….]

Hailed as “the beginning of a new era” and “a revolutionary way to improve agriculture,” scientists have employed Artificial Intelligence (AI) to monitor potato harvests and discover which soil microbes best feed crops. The circular irony here is that technological advances affirm that Creation is the foundation of life. This novel AI tool, praised as revolutionary, is more revelatory, exposing past (and current) technological follies and hazards in agriculture.

Drone-Farmed Potatoes

The December 27, 2024 publication of the study results in Nature Microbiology concluded:

“Seed tuber microbiomes are thought to influence plant health and crop performance, yet the precise relationships between microbiome composition and potato vigour remain unclear. Here we conducted microbiome sequencing on seed tuber eyes and heel ends from 6 potato varieties grown in 240 fields. By using time-resolved drone imaging of three trial fields in the next season to track crop development, we were able to link microbiome composition with potato vigour... This study shows that seed potato vigour can be reliably predicted based on the microbiota associated with seed tuber eyes, potentially guiding future microbiome-informed breeding strategies.”

Much like the telescope brought the heavens into human view, this vaunted drone-tracking of spud-spurting merely employed technology to confirm what organic farmers have observed for years: microbial life strongly influences crop yields. The techno-industrial age thwarted nature’s order for profit and power, especially using synthetic fertilizers to replace time-honored manure and compost, and modifications of plant genetics to increase yields and erase weeds (through GMO alterations, especially in crops designed to be resistant to glyphosate, which kills surrounding weeds). Many of these illusions of human “advancement” have turned out to be destructive or sickening, including the “marvels” of toxic chemical pesticides, herbicides and fungicides which all compromise the microbes AI now reveals are essential to plant health in soil (and to humans in their gut microbiomes).

Judeo-Christian scriptures offer insights from on high. Genesis relates humanity’s connection to agriculture following Adam’s transgression of chomping into a forbidden fruit, where God proclaims

“Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.

Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.

In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground….” (NKJV)

The Sins of AI

Adam’s descendants have fought against this decree ever since, seeking tools and gadgets to lighten the burden of arduous farmwork. Isaiah 2:8 (NVJV) warned that such machinations could constitute idolatry: “Their land is also full of idols; They worship the work of their own hands, That which their own fingers have made.” AI drone modeling implicitly challenges past idolatrous techno-transgressions, while confirming God’s divine artistry.

Humans will often contrive justifications for their manufactured creations to further monetary gain. Solar panel arrays are labeled “farms” and praised for restoring pastures destroyed by chemicals (News flash: grass blades are God’s renewable solar panels). Synthetic fertilizers rescued man from the drudgery of manure-slugging but erode soils, deplete minerals, and kill microbes: now they are touted as salvific and cows are denigrated for their methane while ignoring their manure. Fake meats are dependent on GMO plants, in turn dependent on glyphosate, pesticides, and… synthetic fertilizers.

In Dirt to Soil, farmer Gabe Brown chronicles the human plant-breeding processes that have divorced many food crops from vital connections to underground life:

“…many of today’s “new and improved” grain varieties do not have the ability to form symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi… Breeders have been selecting for traits such as yield and not noticing that in the process other traits – such as the ability to form relationships with fungi – are lost... Those varieties will be fully reliant on applied synthetic nutrients!” (p. 175)

Bird Flu Snafu

American poultry have been genetically selected much like plants, favoring increased production of eggs, or pounds of meat, generated per month. This has likely diminished traits such as immunity and long-term health, making modern birds more vulnerable to (gain-of-function?) bird flu. Humans have spliced pork genetics with soy plants and resurrected the woolly mammoth's genome – what could go wrong?

Satellites track the ear tags of most every sheep in Ireland, while that nation makes plans to eliminate cows (also tagged and trackable. BASF boasts of “farm-to-retail” traceability of products “thanks to a new technology developed by BASF” called e3 for being “socially equitable, economically viable and use environmentally responsible sustainable practices. (The three pillars of sustainability...)” Bayer (formerly Monsanto) “donated” drone technology to Ukraine to help implement the use of GMO crops in that formerly organically-farmed breadbasket of Europe. Bayer trumpets that “our mission “Health for all, hunger for none” always in mind, we are guiding our use of AI through a principled, purpose-led approach.”

The AI potato-drone researchers ominously predict the potential of their “discovery” that living microbes interact symbiotically with Americans’ favorite tubers:

“In the future, scientists might identify the perfect mix of microbes for specific crops—not just potatoes. “We could coat seed potatoes or seeds with these beneficial microbes,” said Berendsen. “Or even engineer plants to attract and retain the ideal microbes.” ”

Oh, but the techno-Icarus can fly so high! Modern science has engineered plants that don’t function with vital fungi, and now will do the reverse? God’s creation – and farming mandate – is never good enough for techno-idolatrous humanity. Ever more highly-paid researchers “improve” upon life’s complex cycles while farmers disappear and technocrats flourish, the latter peering down at the former through drone-mounted cameras or satellites. As with the AI-powered analysis of how microbes feed potatoes, perhaps more of these examinations will circle back to see the Earthly soil’s thriving ability to feed life without human intermeddling, or learn that peasant farmers in India knew all this stuff eons before Man landed on the moon.

Neither science nor AI possesses the moral rectitude required to navigate drones for good rather than evil. God is surveying His Earth from above even now, surveying His Creation and the ecotoxic nightmare of forever chemicals (PFAS), microplastics, pesticides, and myriad dystopian disasters generated by decades of human hubris. God doesn’t need a drone to know cows are good, not evil.