February 5, 2026 • 8 mins
Today on a special interview from DairyNZ, Michelle Watt talks to DairyNZ senior scientist Callum Eastwood, about what generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is, and what opportunities it can provide to enhance farming systems.
To find out more about how AI can help drive productivity on your farm, and check out the DairyNZ tool Daisy, got to www.dairynz.co.nz
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to a new interview series on the Country Podcast
with dairy in Z. I'm your host Michelle Watt, and
today we're talking to dary In Zed senior scientist Callum
Eastwood about the use of generative artificial intelligence in farming.
Of course, people confuse AI AI can mean different things
in farming, right, so let's figure out what generative AI is.
(00:20):
And of course we're not talking about artificial insemination, are
we now, it's the other AI nowadays.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, and even within artificial intelligence, there's a whole there's
a whole lot of stuff people might have heard of
from things like machine learning, which have been around for
you know, since the nineteen fifties or something like that.
But I guess what we're interested at the moment is
generative AI, which is the stuff people would have heard
(00:47):
about with chat, CBT, Gemini or clawed those kind of products,
which really it's been about three years now since they
sort of became I guess sort of hit the market
and became well known.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
With these machine learning or the chat GBT things like that,
they become better over time, don't they the more information
they gather. And that's I'm guessing that's how your tool
that darien Z has called Daisy. You've got your own
tool there for generative AI.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, yeah. I mean when I think when chat GBT
came out three years ago, it was version version one
or two. They're up now up to something like version five,
and the advancement is quite remarkable if you've been sort
of using it through time. For people that went and
used that when it first came out, that's quite quite
(01:39):
different now. And I guess since about November darien Z
it is a product on our website called Daisy, So
that generative AI tool has just driven out of the website,
I guess. And so when farmers or anyone goes in
there ask the question out of Daisy, it'll it'll essentially
use the knowledge that's in the darien Z website. So yeah,
pretty pretty cool thing. And I guess a lot of
(02:01):
organizations are starting to build those kind of tools into
their services as well, so they're seeing a lot of
expansion and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And currently in farming, I know that this artificial intelligence
has been used for a lot of different things, but
what kind of stuff are you seeing on New Zealand
farms at the moment.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, I guess probably about a year ago, we heard
a lot of farmers are sort of asking us, what
is this AI junior to AI? So we peered up
with a consultancy firm called per and ag or do
a lot of stuff in agriculture, to go and work
out what farmers were doing. So they have a really
interesting report that is up on our website now. But
(02:42):
what they found was, I guess. There's a quite a
few farmers. They're using I guess tools like CHETCHBT for
sort of basic things, essentially what you would have done
in Google for searching. They're asking the AI tools, how
should I eat my cows? How should I respond to
this thing on farm? But there are a few farmers
(03:04):
out there we might call power users who are actually
writing their own GPTs, their own more or less AI
chatbot systems that are based off maybe their own farm
standard operating procedures or information they have about their own farm,
and then they can actually ask the system, you know,
(03:27):
what should I be doing on my farm? Or you know,
some are building them for their staff so their staff
can sort of say here's a problem, what should I do,
and maybe not having to go to the manager or
the owner to ask those questions all the time. They
can ask it, but they get farm relevant information. Yeah.
And then then there's sometimes out there that are actually
(03:49):
using these tools to analyze their data and suggest which
bulls to use over matings that match their goals and things.
So there's some pretty cool use out there already.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Now, it's so interesting. I know there's a lot of
automotive processes that are happening to with AI on a
lot of dairy farms and all sorts of things. But
the fact that you can just go to a computer
now and ask it, like you said, what do I
feed my cows? And on some of those farms, those
farmers are building that towards their own farms. So whatever
they're using is very specified, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, that's right. That's the beauty I guess. And you
can put your own information in there, and you know,
there's all of these tools out there. They have a
free version which is great for people to try out
some questions on I guess. There's also the subscription versions
which can be something like thirty or forty dollars a month,
(04:41):
and they give you more capability around privacy. You can
put your own data and then it doesn't go beyond
your account kind of thing, so there's sort of more
functionality the more you pay for them. But yeah, some
really good applications about having essentially your own digital farm
assistant uses your own farm data, and.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Talking about digital farm assistants a little bit more about Daisy,
how does that work worth darien Z.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, so it's the same as all those other products.
It's driven by a very similar engine underneath. And if
people go to our website, you'll see a thing to
click on for Daisy and then essentially you just ask
it whatever question you've got. And with Daisy and all
of these tools, it's best just to consider them as
(05:29):
another person that you might be talking to, so you
can use your natural language, just as you would with
a workmate or a friend at the pub kind of thing. So,
and we sort of always say, you know, Days is
pretty good because it's driven off the darien Zi knowledge
and the Darian said website with the other commercial tools
that are driven out of all the knowledge that's on
(05:50):
the internet essentially, so you have to be careful that
what you get back might not always be correct through
something like chat, Gibt and others, So treat it like
a quite intelligent novice about farming. It might be quite
quite sort of strong in its recommendation to do something
which may not be correct. So yeah, take care of there.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
I guess the potential opportunities of course, these must be
absolutely vast for this technology for farmers.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, I think so. And you know, people are talking
about these generative AI models as being kind of the
next big transformation even for society after the Internet, and
I think we're just sort of scratching the surface about
what they can do and at their Indeed, we're trying
to get alongside farmers to explore that. So we've actually
(06:39):
just had a workshop yesterday with a group of farmers
sort of trying to codesign what would you use these
tools for and test them out of this and see
what the opportunities might be, but also what the potential
pitfalls might be that you need to be aware of
around areas and the responses than not working as you'd like.
(07:03):
But there we are over the next year or two
will be continuing to do that, build a research program
around working alongside farmers to essentially work at with the
with the big opportunity and how do we safely use
these tools to improve our efficiency and productivity on farm.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
You said you have workshops and then also of course
they can look on the website. So how can farmers
find out more if they have questions about using AI
or starting out to use AI as a farming tool
as an assistant.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, so they can go and try the Daisy tool
out because it's a good place to start and it's
very new Zealand dairy farming focused, so you get quite
good relevant responses there. We have this work that we've
done with per and Egg and so there's a summary
of that on our website. So if you just googled
steering z generative AI, it should lead you straight to it.
(07:52):
So there's there's sort of some information about what is it,
tips about its use, and a link to that full
report on there. You can just try some of these
tools out for free and see how they go and
start from there.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Thanks Callum. That was darien Zed's senior scientist Callum Eastwood
talking about generative AI. To find out more about how
artificial intelligence can help you drive productivity and strengthen your
farm systems, go to Daryanz dot co dot MZ
Welcome to a new interview series on the Country Podcast
with dairy in Z. I'm your host Michelle Watt, and
today we're talking to dary In Zed senior scientist Callum
Eastwood about the use of generative artificial intelligence in farming.
Of course, people confuse AI AI can mean different things
in farming, right, so let's figure out what generative AI is.
(00:20):
And of course we're not talking about artificial insemination, are
we now, it's the other AI nowadays.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, and even within artificial intelligence, there's a whole there's
a whole lot of stuff people might have heard of
from things like machine learning, which have been around for
you know, since the nineteen fifties or something like that.
But I guess what we're interested at the moment is
generative AI, which is the stuff people would have heard
(00:47):
about with chat, CBT, Gemini or clawed those kind of products,
which really it's been about three years now since they
sort of became I guess sort of hit the market
and became well known.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
With these machine learning or the chat GBT things like that,
they become better over time, don't they the more information
they gather. And that's I'm guessing that's how your tool
that darien Z has called Daisy. You've got your own
tool there for generative AI.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, yeah. I mean when I think when chat GBT
came out three years ago, it was version version one
or two. They're up now up to something like version five,
and the advancement is quite remarkable if you've been sort
of using it through time. For people that went and
used that when it first came out, that's quite quite
(01:39):
different now. And I guess since about November darien Z
it is a product on our website called Daisy, So
that generative AI tool has just driven out of the website,
I guess. And so when farmers or anyone goes in
there ask the question out of Daisy, it'll it'll essentially
use the knowledge that's in the darien Z website. So yeah,
pretty pretty cool thing. And I guess a lot of
(02:01):
organizations are starting to build those kind of tools into
their services as well, so they're seeing a lot of
expansion and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And currently in farming, I know that this artificial intelligence
has been used for a lot of different things, but
what kind of stuff are you seeing on New Zealand
farms at the moment.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, I guess probably about a year ago, we heard
a lot of farmers are sort of asking us, what
is this AI junior to AI? So we peered up
with a consultancy firm called per and ag or do
a lot of stuff in agriculture, to go and work
out what farmers were doing. So they have a really
interesting report that is up on our website now. But
(02:42):
what they found was, I guess. There's a quite a
few farmers. They're using I guess tools like CHETCHBT for
sort of basic things, essentially what you would have done
in Google for searching. They're asking the AI tools, how
should I eat my cows? How should I respond to
this thing on farm? But there are a few farmers
(03:04):
out there we might call power users who are actually
writing their own GPTs, their own more or less AI
chatbot systems that are based off maybe their own farm
standard operating procedures or information they have about their own farm,
and then they can actually ask the system, you know,
(03:27):
what should I be doing on my farm? Or you know,
some are building them for their staff so their staff
can sort of say here's a problem, what should I do,
and maybe not having to go to the manager or
the owner to ask those questions all the time. They
can ask it, but they get farm relevant information. Yeah.
And then then there's sometimes out there that are actually
(03:49):
using these tools to analyze their data and suggest which
bulls to use over matings that match their goals and things.
So there's some pretty cool use out there already.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Now, it's so interesting. I know there's a lot of
automotive processes that are happening to with AI on a
lot of dairy farms and all sorts of things. But
the fact that you can just go to a computer
now and ask it, like you said, what do I
feed my cows? And on some of those farms, those
farmers are building that towards their own farms. So whatever
they're using is very specified, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, that's right. That's the beauty I guess. And you
can put your own information in there, and you know,
there's all of these tools out there. They have a
free version which is great for people to try out
some questions on I guess. There's also the subscription versions
which can be something like thirty or forty dollars a month,
(04:41):
and they give you more capability around privacy. You can
put your own data and then it doesn't go beyond
your account kind of thing, so there's sort of more
functionality the more you pay for them. But yeah, some
really good applications about having essentially your own digital farm
assistant uses your own farm data, and.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Talking about digital farm assistants a little bit more about Daisy,
how does that work worth darien Z.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, so it's the same as all those other products.
It's driven by a very similar engine underneath. And if
people go to our website, you'll see a thing to
click on for Daisy and then essentially you just ask
it whatever question you've got. And with Daisy and all
of these tools, it's best just to consider them as
(05:29):
another person that you might be talking to, so you
can use your natural language, just as you would with
a workmate or a friend at the pub kind of thing. So,
and we sort of always say, you know, Days is
pretty good because it's driven off the darien Zi knowledge
and the Darian said website with the other commercial tools
that are driven out of all the knowledge that's on
(05:50):
the internet essentially, so you have to be careful that
what you get back might not always be correct through
something like chat, Gibt and others, So treat it like
a quite intelligent novice about farming. It might be quite
quite sort of strong in its recommendation to do something
which may not be correct. So yeah, take care of there.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
I guess the potential opportunities of course, these must be
absolutely vast for this technology for farmers.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, I think so. And you know, people are talking
about these generative AI models as being kind of the
next big transformation even for society after the Internet, and
I think we're just sort of scratching the surface about
what they can do and at their Indeed, we're trying
to get alongside farmers to explore that. So we've actually
(06:39):
just had a workshop yesterday with a group of farmers
sort of trying to codesign what would you use these
tools for and test them out of this and see
what the opportunities might be, but also what the potential
pitfalls might be that you need to be aware of
around areas and the responses than not working as you'd like.
(07:03):
But there we are over the next year or two
will be continuing to do that, build a research program
around working alongside farmers to essentially work at with the
with the big opportunity and how do we safely use
these tools to improve our efficiency and productivity on farm.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
You said you have workshops and then also of course
they can look on the website. So how can farmers
find out more if they have questions about using AI
or starting out to use AI as a farming tool
as an assistant.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, so they can go and try the Daisy tool
out because it's a good place to start and it's
very new Zealand dairy farming focused, so you get quite
good relevant responses there. We have this work that we've
done with per and Egg and so there's a summary
of that on our website. So if you just googled
steering z generative AI, it should lead you straight to it.
(07:52):
So there's there's sort of some information about what is it,
tips about its use, and a link to that full
report on there. You can just try some of these
tools out for free and see how they go and
start from there.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Thanks Callum. That was darien Zed's senior scientist Callum Eastwood
talking about generative AI. To find out more about how
artificial intelligence can help you drive productivity and strengthen your
farm systems, go to Daryanz dot co dot MZ
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