New computer science study offers a radical new way to think about agriculture and its potential benefits for farming.
On November 15, 2022, the 8 billionth person on the planet was born. With concerns about food security on the rise, experts are asking: how will we feed everyone? Climate change, natural resource depletion, soil erosion, and fossil fuel use in farming make the task even more challenging. We need to do something differently, but what?
Barath Raghavan, an associate professor of computer science at USC Viterbi, is rethinking traditional farming practices by developing computational tools to help farmers design, develop, and manage sustainable farming methods. Raghavan, a member of the California Rare Fruit Growers organization, currently grows more than 150 different edible plants in his yard. A decade ago, he started to combine his interests by researching how computing could make agriculture more sustainable.
Raghavan calls this new area of research “computational agroecology,” uniting technology and farming expertise to develop diverse agricultural landscapes based on natural ecosystems. From crop selection to planting to irrigation, the method allows farmers to explore thousands of different potential designs to optimize food production without fossil fuel-derived pesticides.
Read more at University of Southern California
Image: Horticulture enthusiast and computer scientist Barath Raghavan is rethinking traditional farming practices. (Credit: Photo/Noe Montes)