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www.etasr.com Eli-Chukwu: Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture 

 

Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture: 
A Review 

 
Ngozi Clara Eli-Chukwu 

Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering 
Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu Alike, 

Ebonyi, Nigeria 
ngozieli@gmail.com 

 

 

Abstract—The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been 

evident in the agricultural sector recently. The sector faces 

numerous challenges in order to maximize its yield including 

improper soil treatment, disease and pest infestation, big data 

requirements, low output, and knowledge gap between farmers 
and technology. The main concept of AI in agriculture is its 

flexibility, high performance, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness. 

This paper presents a review of the applications of AI in soil 

management, crop management, weed management and disease 

management. A special focus is laid on the strength and 

limitations of the application and the way in utilizing expert 
systems for higher productivity. 

Keywords-artificial intelligence; agriculture; soil management; 

crop management; disease management; weed management; yield 

I. INTRODUCTION 

Agriculture is the bedrock of sustainability of any economy 
[1]. It plays a key part in long term economic growth and 
structural transformation [2-4], though, may vary by countries 
[5]. In the past, agricultural activities were limited to food and 
crop production [6]. But in the last two decades, it has evolved 
to processing, production, marketing, and distribution of crops 
and livestock products. Currently, agricultural activities serve 
as the basic source of livelihood, improving GDP [7], being a 
source of national trade, reducing unemployment, providing 
raw materials for production in other industries, and overall 
develop the economy [8-10]. With the global geometric 
population rise it becomes imperative that agricultural practices 
are reviewed with the aim of proffering innovative approaches 
to sustaining and improving agricultural activities. The 
introduction of AI to agriculture will be enabled by other 
technological advances, including big data analytics, robotics, 
the internet of things, the availability of cheap sensors and 
cameras, drone technology, and even wide-scale internet 
coverage on geographically dispersed fields. By analyzing soil 
management data sources such as temperature, weather, soil 
analysis, moisture, and historic crop performance, AI systems 
will be able to provide predictive insights into which crop to 
plant in a given year and when the optimal dates to sow and 
harvest are in a specific area, thus improving crop yields and 
decrease the use of water, fertilizers, and pesticides. Via the 
application of AI technologies the impact on natural 
ecosystems can be reduced, and worker safety may increase, 

which in turn will keep food prices down and ensure that the 
food production will keep pace with the increasing population. 

II. CONSIDERATION OVERVIEW 

Farming entails a great deal of choices and uncertainties. 
From season to season the weather varies, the prices of farming 
materials fluctuate, soil degrades, crops are not viable, weeds 
suffocate crops, pests damage crops, and the climate changes. 
Farmers must cope with these uncertainties. Although 
agricultural practice is broad, this research considers soil, crop, 
disease and weeds as major contributors to agricultural 
production. It is paramount to review the application of AI to 
agriculture in respect to soil, crop, diseases and pest 
management. 

• Soil is a critical part of successful agriculture and is the 
original source of the nutrients used to grow crops. Soil is 
the basis of all production systems in agriculture, forestry 
and fishery. Soil stores water, nutrients and proteins in 
order to make them available for proper crop growth and 
development.  

• Crop production plays a crucial role in Nigeria’s economy. 
It does provide food, raw materials, and employment. In 
modern times, marketing, processing, distribution and after-
sales service are also accepted as parts of crop production. 
In places where the real income per capital is low, emphasis 
is being laid on crop production and other primary 
industries. It is seen that increased crop production output 
and productivity tend to contribute substantially to the 
overall economic development of a country. It will hence be 
appropriate to place greater emphasis on further crop 
production development. 

• As agriculture struggles to support the rapidly growing 
population, plant diseases reduce crop production quantity 
and quality. Agricultural losses due to post-harvest diseases 
can be disastrous. 

• Weeds consist one of the major threats to all agricultural 
activities. Weeds reduce farm and forest productivity, 
invade crops, smother pastures, and in some cases harm 
livestock. They aggressively compete with the crops for 
water, nutrients and sunlight, resulting in reduced crop yield 
and poor crop quality. 

Corresponding author: Ngozi Clara Eli-Chukwu 



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www.etasr.com Eli-Chukwu: Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture 

 

III. SOIL MANAGEMENT  

Soil management is an integral part of agricultural 
activities. A sound knowledge of various soil types and 
conditions will enhance crop yield and conserve soil resources. 
It is the use of operations, practices and treatments to improve 
soil performance. Urban soils may contain pollutants which can 
be investigated with a traditional soil survey approach [11]. 
The application of compost and manure improve soil porosity 
and aggregation. A better aggregation indicates the addition of 
organic materials that play an important role in preventing soil 
crust formation. It is possible to adopt alternative tillage 
systems to prevent soil physical degradation. The application of 
organic materials is essential to improve soil quality [12]. 
Production of vegetables and other edible crops is often 
significantly affected by several soil-borne pathogens that 
require control through soil management [13]. Sensitivity to 
soil degradation is implicit in the assessment of the 
sustainability of land management practices, with recognition 
of the fact that soils vary in their ability to resist change and 
recover [14]. 

A summary in AI soil management techniques is shown in 
Table I. Management-oriented modeling (MOM) minimizes 
nitrate leaching as it consists of a set of generated plausible 
management alternatives, a simulator that evaluates each 
alternative, and an evaluator that determines which alternative 
meets the user-weighted multiple criteria. MOM uses “hill-
climbing” as a strategic search method that uses “best-first| as a 
tactical search method to find the shortest path from start nodes 
to goals [15]. Knowledge of engineering for constructing the 
Soil Risk Characterization Decision Support System (SRC-
DSS) involves three stages: knowledge acquisition, conceptual 
design and system implementation [16]. An artificial neural 
network (ANN) model predicts soil texture (sand, clay and silt 
contents) based on attributes obtained from existing coarse 
resolution soil maps combined with hydrographic parameters 
derived from a digital elevation model (DEM) [21]. The 
dynamics of soil moisture are characterized and estimated by a 
remote sensing device embedded in a higher-order neural 
network (HONN) [22].  

IV. CROP MANAGEMENT  

The crop management techniques are summarized in Table 
II. Crop management starts with sowing, and continues with 
monitoring growth, harvesting, and crop storage and 
distribution. It is summarized as the activities that improve the 
growth and yield of agricultural products. In-depth 
understanding of class of crops according to their timing and 
thriving soil type will certainly increase crop yield. Precision 
crop management (PCM) is an agricultural management system 
designed to target crop and soil inputs according to field 
requirements to optimize profitability and protect the 
environment. PCM has been hampered by lack of timely, 
distributed information on crop and soil conditions [26]. 
Farmers must combine various crop management strategies to 
cope with water deficit resulting from soil, weather or limited 
irrigation. Flexible crop management systems based on 
decision rules should be preferred. Timing, intensity, and 
predictability of drought are important features for choosing 
among cropping alternatives [27]. 

TABLE I.  AI IN SOIL MANAGEMENT SUMMARY 

Application Technique Strength Limitation 

[15] MOM 
Minimizes nitrate 

leaching, maximizes 
production. 

Takes time. Limited 
only to nitrogen. 

[16] 
Fuzzy Logic: 
SRC-DSS 

Can classify soil 
according to associated 

risks. 

Needs big data. 
Only a few cases 
were studied. 

[17] DSS 
Reduces erosion and 
sedimentary yield. 

Requires big data 
for training. 

[18] ANN 

Can predict soil 
enzyme activity. 

Accurately predicts and 
classifies soil structure. 

Only measures a 
few soil enzymes. It 

considers more 

classification than 
improving the 

performance of the 

soil. 

[19] ANN 
Can predict monthly 

mean soil temperature 

Considers only 
temperature as a 

factor for soil 
performance. 

[20] ANN It predicts soil texture 

Requires big data 

for training. Has 
restriction in areas 
of implementation. 

[21] ANN 
Able to predict soil 

moisture. 

The prediction will 
fail with time as 

weather conditions 

are hardly 
predictable. 

[22] ANN 
Successfully reports 

soil texture. 

It does not improve 
soil texture or 

proffers solution to 

bad soil texture. 

[23] ANN 
Cost-effective, saves 

time, has 92% accuracy 
Requires big data. 

[24] ANN 
Can estimate soil 

nutrients after erosion. 

Its estimate is 
restricted to only 

NH
�	
. 

 
Proper understanding of weather patterns helps in the 

decision-making process that will result in high and quality 
crop yield [28]. PROLOG utilizes weather data, machinery 
capacities, labor availability, and information on permissible 
and prioritized operators, tractors, and implements for 
evaluating the operational behavior of a farm system. It also 
estimates crop production, gross revenue, and net profit for 
individual fields and for the whole farm [30]. Crop prediction 
methodology is used to predict the suitable crop by sensing 
various soil parameters and parameter related to the 
atmosphere. Parameters like soil type, PH, nitrogen, phosphate, 
potassium, organic carbon, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, 
manganese, copper, iron, depth, temperature, rainfall, humidity 
[31]. Demeter is a computer-controlled speed-rowing 
machine, equipped with a pair of video cameras and a global 
positioning sensor for navigation. It is capable of planning 
harvesting operations for an entire field, and then executing 
its plan by cutting crop rows, turning to cut successive rows, 
repositioning itself in the field, and detecting unexpected 
obstacles [32]. The use of AI in harvesting cucumber 
comprises of the individual hardware and software 
components of the robot including the autonomous vehicle, 
the manipulator, the end-effector, the two computer vision 
systems for detection and 3D imaging of the fruit and the 
environment and, finally, a control scheme that generates 



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collision-free motions for the manipulator during harvesting 
[33]. Field-specific rainfall data and weather variables can be 
used for each location. Adjusting ANN parameters affects the 
accuracy of rice yield predictions. Smaller data sets required 
fewer hidden nodes and lower learning rates in model 
optimization [38].  

TABLE II.  AI IN CROP MANAGEMENT SUMMARY 

Application Technique Strength Limitation 

[29] CALEX 

Can formulate 
scheduling guidelines 
for crop management 

activities. 

Takes time. 

[30] PROLOG 

Removes less used 

farm tools from the 
farm. 

Location-specific. 

[31] ANN Predicts crop yeild. 

Only captures 

weather as a factor 
for crop yeild. 

[32] 
ROBOTICS-

Demeter 

Can harvest up to 40 

hectares of crop 

Expensive: Uses a 

lot of fuel. 

[33] ROBOTICS 
Has 80% success rate 
in harvesting crops 

Slow picking speed 
and accuracy. 

[34] ANN 
Above 90% success 
rate in detecting crop 
nutrition disorder. 

A little number of 
symptoms were 
considered. 

[35] 
FUZZY 
Cognitive 

Map 

Predict cotton yield and 
improve crop for 

decision management. 

It is relatively slow. 

[36] ANN 

Can predict the 
response of crops to 

soil moisture and 
salinity. 

Considers only soil 
temperature and 

texture as factors. 

[37] 
ANN and 

Fuzzy Logic 
Reduces insects that 

attack crops. 

Shows inability to 

differentiate 
between crop and 

weed. 

[38] ANN 
Can accurately predict 

rice yield. 

Time-consuming, 
limited to a 

particular climate. 
 

V. DISEASE MANAGEMENT 

To have an optimal yield in agricultural harvest, disease 
control is necessary. Plant and animal diseases are a major 
limiting factor regarding the increase of yield. Several factors 
play role in the incubation of these diseases which attack plants 
and animals, which include genetic, soil type, rain, dry weather, 
wind, temperature, etc. Due to these factors and the unsteady 
nature of some diseases causative influence, managing the 
effects is a big challenge, especially in large scale farming. 
Table III lists the AI applications in disease management 
available in the literature. To effectively control diseases and 
minimize losses, a farmer should adopt an integrated disease 
control and management model that includes physical, 
chemical and biological measure [39]. To achieve these is time 
consuming and not at all that cost effective [40], hence the need 
for application of AI approach for disease control and 
management. Explanation block (EB) gives a clear view of the 
logic followed by the kernel of the expert system [42]. A novel 
approach of rule promotion based on fuzzy logic is used in the 
system for drawing intelligent inferences for crop disease 
management. A text-to-speech (TTS) converter is used for 
providing capability of text-to-talking user interface. It 

provides highly-effective interactive user interface on web for 
live interactions [45]. A rule based and forward chaining 
inference engine has been used for the development of the 
system that helps in detecting the diseases and provide 
treatment suggestion in [46]. 

TABLE III.  AI IN DISEASE MANAGEMENT SUMMARY 

Application Technique Strength Limitation 

[42] 

Computer vision 

system (CVS), 
genetic algorithm 

(GA), ANN 

Works at a high 

speed. Can multi-
task. 

Dimension-based 

detection which 
may affect good 

species. 

[42] 
Rule-Based 
Expert, Data 
Base (DB) 

Accurate results in 
the tested 

environment. 

Inefficacy of DB 
when implementing 

in large scale. 

[43] 
Fuzzy Logic 

(FL), Web GIS 
Cost effective, eco 

friendly. 

Inefficiency due to 
scattered 

distribution. Takes 

time to locate and 
disperse data. The 
location of the data 

is determined by a 
mobile browser. 

[44] 

FL Web-Based, 

Web-Based 
Intelligent 
Disease 

Diagnosis 
System 
(WIDDS) 

Good accuracy. 
Responds swiftly to 

the nature of crop 
diseases. 

Limited usage as it 

requires internet 
service. Its potency 

cannot be 

ascertained as only 
4 seed crops were 

considered. 

[45] 
FL & TTS 

converter 

Resolves plant 

pathological 
problems quickly. 

Requires high speed 
internet. Uses a 

voice service as its 
multimedia 
interface. 

[46] 

Expert system 
using rule-base 

in disease 
detection 

Faster treatment as 
diseases are 

diagnosed faster. 

Cost effective 
based on its 
preventive 

approach. 

Time consuming. 
Needs constant 

monitoring to check 

if pest has built 
immunity to the 

preventive measure. 

[47] ANN, GIS 95% accuracy 

Internet-based. 
Some rural farmers 

will not have 
access. 

[48] 

FuzzyXpest 

provides pest 
information for 
farmers. It is also 

supported by 
internet services. 

High precision in 
forecast. 

Internet dependent. 

[49] 
Web-Based 

Expert System 
High performance. 

Internet and web 

based. 

[50] ANN 

Has above than 

90% prediction 
rate. 

The ANN does not 

kill infections or 
reduces its effect. 

 

VI. WEED MANAGEMENT 

Weed consistently reduces the farmers’ expected profit and 
yield [51]. A report confirms a 50% reduction in yield for dried 
beans and corn crops if weed infestations are not controlled 
[51]. There is about 48% loss in wheat yield due to weed 
competition [52, 53]. These losses may at times rise up to 60% 
[54]. A study on the impact of weed on Soybean showed about 
8%-55% reduction in yield [55]. A study on yield losses in 



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sesame crops accounts them to about 50%-75% [56]. The 
fluctuation in yield losses may be attributed to the length of 
exposure of the crops to the weeds [57, 58] and spatial 
heterogeneity of weeds [59]. Beyond these, weed has both 
positive and negative effects to the ecosystem. According to the 
relative Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) report, 
weed effects include flooding during hurricane, some species 
of weeds can pave their way during rampant fire, some cause 
irreparable liver damage if consumed, and they muscle out 
plants or crops by competing for water, nutrients and sunlight. 
Some weeds are poisonous and cause allergic reactions or even 
may threat public health. Table IV lists a summary of the AI in 
weed managements uses.  

TABLE IV.  AI IN WEED MANAGEMENT SUMMARY 

Application Technique Strength Limitation 

[61] ANN, GA 

High 

performance. 
Reduces trial and 

error. 

Requires big data. 

[62] 

Optimization 
using invasive 

weed 

optimization 
(IVO), ANN 

Cost effective, 
enhanced 

performance. 

Adaptation 
challenge with 

new data. 

[63]. 

Mechanical 
Control of Weeds. 

ROBOTICS. 

Sensor machine 
learning 

Saves time and 
removes resistant 

weeds. 

Expensive. 
Constant use of 
heavy machine 

will reduce soil 
productivity. 

[64] UAV, GA 

Can quickly and 

efficiently 
monitor weeds. 

Has little or no 

control on weeds. 
Expensive. 

[65] 

Saloma expert 

system for 
evaluation, 
prediction & 

weed 
management. 

High adaptation 
rate and 

prediction level. 

Requires big data 
and usage 
expertise. 

[66] 
Support Vector 
Machine (SVM), 

ANN 

Quickly detects 

stress in crop that 
will prompt 
timely site–

specific remedies. 

Only detects low 
levels of nitrogen. 

[67] 

Digital Image 

Analysis (DIA), 
GPS 

Has above 60% 

accuracy and 
success rate. 

Its success was 
achieved after 4 

years and as such, 
it is really time 
consuming. 

[68] UAV 

High rate of weed 
detection within a 
short period of 

time. 

It is really 
expensive and 
requires vast 

human expertise. 

[69] 

Learning Vector 

Quantization 
(LVQ), ANN 

High weed 

recognition rate 
with short 

processing time. 

The method of 

data input used 
affected the AI’s 
perfromance. 

 

An intensive management with herbicides has been 
deployed over the past decades to reduce its effect on crops. 
However, even with this management pattern, it was predicted 
that crop losses due to weed in western Canada field crops are 
estimated to exceed $500 million annually [60], hence the need 
for a more expert weed management technique to compensate 
for this loss emerges [51]. A system can utilize an unmanned 
aerial vehicle (UAV) -imagery to divide image, compute and 

convert to binary the vegetation indexes, detect crop rows, 
optimize parameters and learn a classification model. Since 
crops are usually organized in rows, the use of a crop row 
detection algorithm helps to separate properly weed and crop 
pixels, which is a common handicap given the spectral 
similitude of both [64]. Weed control in sugar-beet, maize, 
winter wheat, and winter barley, can be done by applying 
online weed detection using digital image analysis taken by an 
UAV (drone), computer‐based decision making and global 
positioning system (GPS)‐controlled patch spraying [67]. The 
drone in [68] travelled at a speed of 1.2km/h, with 58.10ms and 
37.44ms execution time to find the tomato and weed locations 
to the spray controller respectively 

VII. CURTAILING CHALLENGES OF AI IN AGRICULTURE 

Expert systems are tools for agricultural management since 
they can provide site-specific, integrated, and interpreted 
advices. However, the development of expert systems for 
agriculture is fairly recent, and the use of these systems in 
commercial agriculture is rare to date [70]. Although AI has 
made some remarkable improvement in the agricultural sector, 
it still has a below the average impact on the agricultural 
activities when compared to its potentials and impacts in other 
sectors. More still need to be done to improve agricultural 
activities using AI as there are many limitations to its 
implementation.  

A. Limitation: Response Time and Accuracy 

A major attribute of an intelligent or expert system is its 
ability to execute tasks accurately in very short time. Most of 
the systems fall short either in response time or accuracy, or 
even both. A system delay affects a user's selection of task 
strategy. Strategy selection is hypothesized to be based on a 
cost function combining two factors: (1) the effort required to 
synchronize input system availability, and (2) the accuracy 
level afforded. People seeking to minimize effort and maximize 
accuracy, choose among three strategies: automatic 
performance, pacing, and monitoring [71].  

B. Limitation 2: Big Data Required 

The strength of an intelligent agent is also measured on the 
volume of input data. A real-time AI system needs to monitor 
an immense volume of data. The system must filter out much 
of the incoming data. However, it must remain responsive to 
important or unexpected events [72]. An in-depth knowledge of 
the task of the system is required from a field expert and only 
very relevant data should be used improving the system’s speed 
and accuracy. The development of an agricultural expert 
system requires the combined efforts of specialists from many 
fields of agriculture, and must be developed with the 
cooperation of the growers who will use them [70].  

C. Limitation 3: Method of Implementation 

The beauty of any expert system lies on its execution 
methodology. Since it uses big data, the method of looking-up 
and training should be properly defined for speed and accuracy. 

D. Limitation 4: High Data Cost 

Most AI systems are internet-based which in turn reduces 
or restricts their usage, particularly in remote or rural areas. 



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The government can support farmers by designing a web 
service enabling device with lower tariff to uniquely work with 
the AI systems for farmers. Also, a form of “how to use” 
orientation (training and re-training) will really help farmers 
adapt to the use of AI on the farm.  

E. Limitation 5: Flexibility 

Flexibility is a strong attribute of any sound AI system. It is 
perceived that much progress has been made in applying AI 
techniques to particular isolated tasks, but the important theme 
at the leading edge of the AI-based robotics technology seems 
to be the interfacing of the subsystems into an integrated 
environment. This requires flexibility of the subsystems 
themselves [73]. It should also have expansive capabilities to 
accommodate more user data from the field expert. 

VIII. THE FUTURE OF AI IN AGRICULTURE 

Global population is expected to reach more than nine 
billions by 2050 which will require an increase in agricultural 
production by 70% in order to fulfil the demand. Only about 
10% of this increased production may come from unused lands 
and the rest should be fulfilled by current production 
intensification. In this context, the use of latest technological 
solutions to make farming more efficient remains one great 
necessity. Present strategies to intensify agricultural production 
require high energy inputs and market demands high quality 
food. [74]. Robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) are set to 
transform global industries. These technologies will have great 
impact on large sectors of the economy with relatively low 
productivity such as agro-food (food production from the farm 
to the retail shelf). The UK agro-food chain generates over 
£108bn p.a., with 3.7m employees in a truly international 
industry yielding £20bn of exports in 2016 [75]. 

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