The Climate Corporation, aiming to increase agricultural productivity through the use of digital tools, announces facial recognition technology will enable farmers to recognize plant diseases from the cultivated area.

The Climate Corporation, a subsidiary of Monsanto announced 17 advancements accelerating through its R&D pipeline. “Our innovation pipeline spans many areas of research and combines machine learning, data analytics and predictive modeling with the industry’s most robust seed genetic library and farm scale research, to identify the many variables that impact crop production,” said Sam Eathington, chief science officer for The Climate Corporation.Eathington told researchers are working to train computers to recognize crop diseases from photos. He told they are using software similar to that used for facial recognition. Right now they are working with nine diseases and have 90 percent correct diagnosis. This technology advanced from development to the pre-commercial phase. Today, as much as 40 percent of global crop production is lost to disease, pest and weeds. Advanced disease insights can help farmers protect their crops from plant diseases that can devastate entire fields. Through Climate’s disease diagnosis research, the company is using artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose diseases in corn, soybeans and wheat. The machine learning model continues to demonstrate strong performance in categorizing stresses on an individual plant and providing the correct disease diagnosis through a mobile or tablet device, the company said.