I-FARM | Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment | Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation

In 2021, iSEE helped establish the I-FARM, securing seed-funding through the Campus as a Living Laboratory program. The project was later fully funded in 2022, thanks to a three-year, $3.9 million grant from USDA NIFA.

Naveen Uppalapati, a National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Research Scientist on the I-FARM Operating Team offers answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about the I-FARM.

What is the I-FARM?

The I-FARM, short for Illinois Farming and Regenerative Management, is an 80-acre agricultural testbed funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) for three years and $3.9 million. I-FARM researchers test new synergistic, sustainable, and regenerative practices for growing commodity crops and raising livestock.

I-FARM researchers will begin to study the implementation and adoption of novel farm management practices enabled by a wide range of digital technologies developed at the University of Illinois. These technologies include autonomous robots and remote sensing powered by artificial intelligence. Before I-FARM technologies can be brought to production farming, researchers must evaluate their benefits in production settings and mitigate any costs or risks.

How can autonomous robots help farmers?

The I-FARM’s autonomous robots can aid in cover crop planting and spot reseeding, scout under the crop canopy, implement variable rate nutrient management, and perform mechanical weeding. Additionally, they can assist with pest monitoring, targeting spraying, and harvesting delicate crops such as berries.

I-FARM researchers envision that low-cost, compact, and intelligent agricultural robots will enable the large-scale adoption of sustainable farming practices. This research project aims to make robots more accessible and profitable for farmers.

What technology does the I-FARM use to collect data?

From satellite remote sensing to proximal soil moisture sensors, the I-FARM employs a large variety of data collection technology. Stationary trail cameras collect dense temporal data about canopy structure and leaf color, while drones capture images from above the field. Along with traditional data collection, I-FARM robots collect plant trait data and are equipped with cameras for the precision management of livestock.

How do researchers measure the success of I-FARM experiments?

For an I-FARM experiment to be successful, it should improve sustainability on the farm while remaining practical for farmers. This past year, researchers measured the impact of autonomous cover crop planting (cereal rye) before the harvest of the commodity crop (corn). The success of this experiment will be based on how well the cover crop emerges and reduces soil erosion compared to traditional planting on cover crops after the commodity crop is harvested.

In the long run, the I-FARM aims to develop a team of autonomous robots that a single person can operate simultaneously. This will increase the efficiency of using the robots for individual farmers.

What are the deliverables of the I-FARM project for farmers?

The I-FARM offers demonstration days for farmers to meet with researchers, engineers, economists, and farm managers who study our testbed. Farmers can interact with autonomous robots, advanced equipment, and computational systems. Demonstration days provide farmers with detailed information on how the technology works and how it integrates sustainability and profitability.

As part of I-FARM outreach efforts, researchers are developing a multi-faceted training program called I-FARM University. This program aims to familiarize farmers with AI-based digital agriculture technologies and increase their comfort with the testing and adoption of these technologies.

What are the deliverables of the I-FARM project for industry?

I-FARM researchers hope to commercialize the digital technologies developed on our testbed. The I-FARM testbed is open for collaboration with outside industries so those industries can utilize our team’s technology, equipment, space, and expertise.

What barriers exist to the adoption of I-FARM solutions?

A significant hurdle for the I-FARM team to overcome is the current cost of implementing these technological solutions. Much of the technology employed by the I-FARM is not produced in bulk or available commercially. If we can scale these technologies up, they will become more affordable for farmers.

The other complication is that the new technologies developed at the I-FARM testbed are constantly improving and evolving monthly (or even daily). Because of this, farmers looking to implement our solutions face a steep learning curve.

How do we incentivize people to adopt I-FARM solutions?

Many farmers understand the benefits of regenerative and sustainable farming practices but need assistance adopting novel digital technologies. More farmers will become comfortable with the new technology through I-FARM outreach and engagement.

Our technologies are also scale-neutral, meaning they are beneficial at both small scales and large scales. Therefore, farmers can try out the technology in a small portion of their farms first and then adopt it to more significant portions of their fields.

Additionally, the I-FARM plans to create a decision support system by providing fact sheets based on data collected from the I-FARM testbed. This system will explain regenerative practices’ long-term costs and benefits to encourage more farmers to implement them. The data will be available online and promoted at events attended by the I-FARM team.

How will I-FARM research impact conventional agriculture practices?

Our team hopes that conventional agriculture will be redefined so that environmental health — from soils to ecosystems — is as highly valued as crop yield. Hopefully, many more farmers will adopt digital technology to enhance regenerative farming practices.

What’s next for the I-FARM?

Thanks to the new NIFA grant, the I-FARM will incorporate more regenerative practices powered by digital agriculture on the testbed. Over the next two years, the team will collect reliable long-term data to fully evaluate the testbed experiments’ success. Researchers will focus on improving I-FARM technology, making it more robust and accessible to farmers.

I-FARM researchers hope to involve more industry and farm stakeholders in our experiments, and technology development, to implement sustainable management decisions, improve farm productivity, and enhance farm profitability.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today that it is funding a new collaboration between two institutes and a research center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that will create an integrated farm of the future in the U.S. Midwest.

Titled “I-FARM: Illinois Farming and Regenerative Management,” this $3.9 million, three-year project is funded through the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The Illinois-led study will develop an 80-acre agricultural testbed, where commodity crops (corn and soybean) and livestock are farmed using synergistic and sustainable practices.

“We will accelerate creation, maturation, and adoption of new management technologies that are fundamentally more sustainable, profitable, affordable, and scale-neutral. The new practices will be enabled by maturing digital agriculture technologies developed in wide-ranging research efforts at the University of Illinois,” said Primary Investigator Girish Chowdhary, Associate Professor of Agricultural & Biological Engineering and Computer Science.

NIFA’s “Farm of the Future” proposal process was extremely competitive, and only one was awarded from across the nation, said Co-Investigator and Center for Digital Agriculture (CDA) Co-Director Vikram Adve, the Donald B.Gillies Professor of Computer Science.

“This grant is a major endorsement of our growing strengths in digital ag,” Adve said.

The I-FARM is a unique partnership between CDA, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) at the U of I. Over three years, the I-FARM testbed will feature improved precision farming with remote sensing; new under-canopy autonomous robotic solutions for cover-crop planting, variable-rate input applications, and mechanical weeding; and artificial intelligence-enabled remote sensing for animal health prediction, nutrient quantification, and soil health.

“With the data gleaned from this project, the MyFarm app will provide farmers with an integrated dashboard that can be customized to the needs of their farm,” Chowdhary said. “Our focus on scale-neutral technologies can provide a solution to the worsening labor crisis for small farms and improve the sustainability of large and spatially heterogeneous farms.”

I-FARM technoeconomic simulations and farmer surveys will clarify barriers and incentives to adoption of sustainable technology to industry and farmers. Integrated extension activities will be conducted in a research space that is open to farmers, with demonstrations and training, easing the adoption of new technologies and opening new markets. The I-FARM team will also help the ag industry create new data-driven products and services for farmers, and an Industry Advisory Board and a Farmer Advisory Board will help the optimize impact on farming practices.

“Together, this integrated suite of solutions will lead to sustainable ways of meeting growing demand for agriculture in a changing climate,” said Co-PI and iSEE Interim Director Madhu Khanna, the ACES Distinguished Professor of Agricultural & Consumer Economics. “The CDA, iSEE, and NCSA built the strongest research proposal by reaching across disciplines and bringing together expertise from all over the University of Illinois — from computer science to economics to crop science and animal science, we are exploring as many aspects as possible as we seek to build a farm of the future.

“We look forward to a fruitful collaboration with this project — and similar multidisciplinary work in the future because it is the best way to solve most of the wicked problems this world will face.”

As the only “Farm of the Future” nationwide, “all eyes will be on this project as we lay the foundations for the future of agriculture,” Adve said. “We are excited to begin this venture and grateful for the support from across campus.”

Other U of I project members include Co-PI Kaiyu Guan, Associate Professor of Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences and Founding Director of the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center; and Co-Investigators Isabella Condotta, Assistant Professor of Animal Sciences; Deepak Vasisht, Assistant Professor of Computer Science; Shadi Atallah, Associate Professor of Agricultural & Consumer Economics; Hamze Dokoohaki, Assistant Professor of Crop Sciences; Salah Issa, Assistant Professor of Agricultural & Biological Engineering; Andrew Margenot, Assistant Professor of Crop Sciences; DoKyoung Lee, Professor of Crop Sciences; and Bin Peng, Senior Research Scientist at iSEE and NCSA.

The Illinois team will partner with Olga Bolden-Tiller, Dean of the College of Agriculture, Environment and Nutrition Sciences and Professor of Animal Sciences, and Gregory Bernard, Assistant Professor of Plant and Soil Sciences, at Tuskegee University.

“This is an exciting time to embark on this project, and it is a credit to our team, their expertise, and the thriving research programs we can bring to bear,” said Chowdhary, who also holds affiliations with Electrical & Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and the Coordinated Science Laboratory at Illinois. “I want to thank the institutes, CDA, our departments and colleges, and our Tuskegee partners for their help, the College of ACES for securing us the farm space, and especially those from the farming industry who graciously offered letters of support.”

Read the NIFA announcement >>>

— Article by Tony Mancuso, iSEE Communications and Public Affairs Director

Category: I-FARM

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