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Farming Today: 30/11/23 AI predictions for agriculture, Dorset landscape recovery scheme, agri-tech

30/11/23 AI predictions for agriculture, Dorset landscape recovery scheme, agri-tech

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 30/11/23 AI predictions for agriculture, Dorset landscape recovery scheme, agri-tech

Can ChatGPT really predict how reducing meat consumption will affect farming?

Climate Scientists, politicians, big business, food companies and agriculture leaders have all gathered for the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.  Discussions will be deep and meaningful, so we were rather surprised to be sent a colourful poster, published by an online casino site.  It has a timeline showing what the effects would be if everyone in the UK cut out meat, for just one day a week.  The poster shows the progression through the decades, from an increase in eating plant based foods, to fewer emissions from less livestock.  How was this work done? The whole thing was generated by the AI tool, ChatGPT.  We ask emeritus professor of food policy at City University in London, Tim Lang, what he thought of it.

All week we're travelling around England to see some of the 22 pilot schemes for landscape recovery.  They’re part of the Government’s post-Brexit farm policy; different schemes are being designed in the other home nations.  Today we're in Dorset in Poole Harbour at the Wareham ARC project, which focuses on improving water quality to benefit birds, wildlife, farmland and people.

Farmers are facing very different ways to fund what they do, especially when providing environmental goods, whether that be under government schemes or providing carbon offsetting for private companies.  To achieve that backing, farmers have to prove they are making a difference and that means they must measure what they are doing.   Anna Hill went to a Agri-TechE gathering, an organisation that connects farmers, growers, technologists and entrepreneurs. 

Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

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30/11/23 AI predictions for agriculture, Dorset landscape recovery scheme, agri-tech

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