The Country 08/07/26: Brian Dela Rue talks to Hamish McKay

It’s Innovation Week, thanks to Herd-i. Today, we talk to a DairyNZ research engineer who discusses how farmers are using AI to improve decision-making, productivity and administration.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Innovation Week on the Country with herd Ie Score Leanness.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
And BCS Every Cow, every Day powered by AI.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is the Country Innovation Week with HEARD. I great
to have your company today and we've talked about some
incredible things over the week. But I guess the topic
that keeps coming up, and you know, I've reached the
stage of my life where I know that AI is
going to be very important to my longevity and productivity,

(00:30):
and it certainly is going to be on farm now.
Brian Delarue is research engineer at dairy en Z based
out of the Mighty Wakeout. I grew up on a
whiteouto dairy farm, knows the drill and is an expert
in this field. Brian, good afternoon, Welcome into the country, Hims.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
How are you doing today? Yeah, not so much an
expert and AI, but we're working with farmers around that space.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah yeah, Well you know a bit about it, you know,
I think, and the fact that it's the ability to
deliver it in an understandable, comprehensible and useful way. I
think the farmers is I guess what we're we're sort
of looking at here. How are farmers embracing this new technology?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
To date, well, many of the technologies that farmers already
using have AI built in, but it's still early days.
The farmers sort of using AI technologies themselves, So some
farmers are using chatbots and other tools, but they probably
using is a fairly simple way in the moment, but
there are some who are really skilled and look that
they're writing their own code. So some of the common

(01:34):
uses of technology include just general farming questions and problem solving,
So that might be searching out relevant information, say feed
planning or transitioning your cows onto crop and you want
to know the real details are how to do that? Well,
business admin like we all do, you know, drafting emails,
reviewing contracts, you know, summarizing farm data and comparing products

(01:58):
or fixing fixed equipment and pulling up the right information.
But also operational uses creating instructions I soops, better spreadsheets,
using AI to create those formulas. And then farmers are
actually finding AI really useful in the people space HR
advice and particularly like recruiting people. Now it can create

(02:20):
the job descriptions, the interview questions help you review your notes,
so you're trying to pick the right person for the job.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
You've got yep, great stuff, and so much of that's
so helpful, and so much of that's so time consuming, Brian,
But you don't. You don't have to bar to write
the code. I mean, that's nice if you've got the
time and the ability to do that, But really, if
that's ten out of ten on the AI uptake scale,

(02:46):
you can still be at three or four and get
a hell of a lot of benefit.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah. I absolutely love the opportunity. You know, tell it
what you want with some real context around it. It'll
chat away with you till it gets enough information to
give you a really good response. So that's the beauty
of it. I think you don't need to be great
with software, just use your farming knowledge and experience and
what you want to get something really good back.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah. Look, the word opportunity just bounces off the walls
with us one, doesn't it. Yeah, just endless opportunity to
get the uptake there. If the opportunity is there, and
then what are the barriers to not taking advantage of that?

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, well, some of the barriers I guess maybe less
about farmer capability, because I think training become easily available.
AI is already really good at chatting through those scenarios
of farmers. As I've just mentioned, it's tell me more
about access to good quality AI ready data. And one
of the biggest challenges around that, I guess is data ownership.

(03:51):
You know, what data do the farmers have that they're
actually allowed to use and integrate with other farm technology data. So,
you know, technology companies understandably a huge investment in their
software and they don't want to lose control of that
data at the stage. So you know, darians is likely
to have a role in there by clarifying data ownership,

(04:12):
demonstrating the value where farmers can can gain through integrating
that data across the farm, and advocating for the sort
of appropriate data access for farmers with the sector industry.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
What are some of the things daryan Z is doing
in a space to help farmers progress. What some of
the sort of concrete plays that are in action.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, well, we see AI as a real opportunity for farmers,
you know, improve those workplaces, improve your decision making, and
lead to more attractive jobs and profitable farms. The sort
of things that we're doing, and we're a little bit
of work to do getting our resources AI ready, so
they can be more widely used, and that includes improving Daisy,
our web chatbot, to make it really easy for farmers

(04:53):
to get really trusted information on all topics when they
need it. You know, I really think Daisy is that
ideal starting point for farmers to get familiar with using AI.
If you read the next version next issue of Inside Dairy,
there's a comparison between daily in a common chat bot
whereas asked the question on nitrogen use, and you'll see

(05:15):
that it's really important to have good comprehensive data to
give a good response back that's useful to farmers. I'm
currently involved in a new science project working with two
groups of farmers in Waikato and Canterbury to build the
farmer AI capability and to bebble share those learnings at
all farmers. So it's it's farmers learning for farmers on

(05:35):
solutions that they see as valuable. So we've got in
the groups, we've got a range of AI experience from
very little to very skilled. You know, we're starting off
on the one oh ones of AI, like how it works,
you know, protecting the next word incentives data security, that's
important AI hallucinations, it does make mistakes so you do

(05:56):
have to sense check things and the value of good
comps to be able to get good information back. So
we'll be giving them some technical support learning fro about
the challenges and benefits of AI and their farms.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yep, fantastic. There we go, Brian, have a great rest
of your day and thank you very much for joining us.
As Brian Delarue, who's research engineer at Dairy Inns. He
based out of Hamilton, grew up on a way Caddow
Dairy Farm, knows the drill and doing some great work
in the AI space with our farmers.