Insights on AI in Agriculture — Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko

Business Networks, and the Organisation I Wish I'd Called on Day One

2026-10-11T00:00:00.000Z

I arrived in the UK ten years ago, and from the very first day I wanted to do business here and establish a company 🚀

After setting up the basics of life, I finally registered Petiole Pro, and it felt like the job is done 😂. Oh, what a naïve happiness before the sharp question: so what's next with my innovation & business?

Once the company was alive, I discovered a whole new mountain of business problems to solve. And, as you might remember, back in 2017 there were no AI assistants around to help :)))

The one thing that never changes

But there has always-always-always been one thing in business. Whether a thousand years ago, in Medieval times, in the pre-Internet era, or in today's AI-powered world.

It's called "business networks" 🤝

So I'm not the first, and definitely not the last, to find value in them and use them to grow my innovation beyond just my head.

Why am I writing this today?

Because I want to invite you to an online event by Innovate UK Business Connect 👇 This is the organisation that helped me a lot.

They are

(a) connected to ALL the business networks in the UK, and
(b) systematically helping innovators become part of the ecosystem (even me: a foreigner, an immigrant with a strong Eastern European accent :))

Jumping back to my story: I didn't go to Innovate UK Business Connect straight away. Not on day one, no.

However, I think if I had, my journey would have been faster and more productive, without a few years of thinking-overthinking-rethinking.

And, frankly speaking, I was not moving my business forward during that period...

Understanding the Innovation Journey, online, 19 October 2026.

What can you expect from the webinar?

The answers to the hottest questions ever 🤩

What is Innovate UK Business Connect, and what is it NOT?
When should you actually get in touch, so nobody wastes their time?
How have they helped real founders? (I'm just one of the examples :))
All your money questions: the money pots, the money part, and money in general.
And the big one: Innovate UK, Innovate UK Business Connect, Innovate UK EDGE, Innovate UK KTN... what on earth is the difference?! 🤯

Are you still thinking? No way, just save the date 😉

Understanding the Innovation Journey

New webinar series: When to Engage with Innovate UK Business Connect

📅 Monday, 19 October 2026
🕐 13:00–14:00 (or in British manner it's 1.00–2.00 PM of yet-British-Summer-Time 🤗)
💻 Online

Don't miss this opportunity, because of rule No. 1 for every founder (and my personal one too): missed opportunities never come back 😎

See you on Monday, 19 October!

Fruit Attraction 2026: The Festival of Fresh Connections, Attractive Technologies and Fruitful Opportunities

2026-10-08T00:00:00.000Z

Do you know the real name of Fruit Attraction? 🍎🫐🍓

It's the Festival of Fresh Connections, Attractive Technologies, and Fruitful Opportunities :)

Plus DJ music, palms, old and new friends, and mind-blowing stand designs (I recorded some of them, I'll show you 😉)

A pillar of fresh fruit on a stand.

Mushrooms growing on a log, on a produce display.

And as a bonus, Fruit Attraction is also kind of a fashion show (especially female business style 😍). But since we are here for a different purpose, let's talk about technologies.

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Juliana Bolaños Castro at IFEMA Madrid.

1. AI in offices

The main point is AI in offices: processing warehouse documents, forms, reports, etc. It's built on Generative AI, the strongest AI capability right now. It's great to see service providers filling this niche for fresh produce 🚀

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Kacper Dach from Agro Contracts.

2. Sensors are everywhere

Good news: more AI in fields, orchards and greenhouses.

Weather stations: I lost count, it's already kind of a commodity.
Irrigation & soil sensors: often together with weather stations.
Image sensors: a few industrial-level cameras (looked pretty like IP65). But most providers in yield forecasting, computer vision & quality control don't invent cameras. They use market hardware & optimise the software.

3. Visual AI for quality control

Since we're on quality control already: several companies offer the same product, visual AI for fresh produce. The scheme is the same; the difference is in price (VC-backed ones ask more), accuracy (hugely depends on how modern your line is), and trust.

So, as usual, please do due diligence before anything serious.

4. Biologicals get their own delivery tech

Biologicals as part of IPM are getting their own delivery tech. Releasing beneficial insects by drone seems to be 4–6 times more effective than manual release.

Additionally, and warmly welcomed for in-field application: robots on legs and on wheels for phytosanitary treatments and weeding. All of them are worth attention and looked ready for a real field trial :)

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Marc Jones from Antobot.

A humanoid robot on the show floor.

A wheeled robot built to carry produce crates.

5. RFID, if you're serious about traceability

RFID is an interesting direction if you're serious about traceability. Tracking produce from farm to supermarket shelf solves lots of compliance issues. One thing to remember: overlapping. I studied it for a Petiole Pro case study (it's a different story on another day 👍🏼).

Choosing an RFID provider is a responsible decision, like a marriage :) Why? Because once their RFID is in, they have kind of a monopoly for you, and everything next has to align with them.

So choose someone who doesn't just want your money but feels like a team member 🤝

There were also drones for spraying, software of all colours and sizes + lots of smaller physical AI projects for both in-field phenotyping and post harvest.

A robot arm on the show floor.

Back to the human experience

But to sum up, I want to go back to the human experience.

You definitely need fluent Spanish to get 100% out of the event. However, even with imperfect English you will be understood, welcomed, and sometimes even hugged 🤗

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Volodymyr Pechko, Head of Ukrsadvinprom, at the Ukraine stand.

And please, don't be scared with AI

It cannot replace all of THAT feelings and belonging to this place.

However, currently AI is the topic everyone wanted to speak about at Fruit Attraction 💚

Another of the stand designs.

World Agri-Tech London 2026, Day 2: AI in Agriculture, Excitement and a Healthy Alarm

2026-09-29T00:00:00.000Z

World Agri-Tech Party – Day 2.

We spoke a lot about AI in Agriculture, and I have such dual feelings about it right now. Two days in London only amplified them.

The first feeling: excitement

The first feeling is obvious: excitement. AI is already bringing a lot of positive change to farming. This was confirmed at the expert panel on autonomous and precision farming and at a 40-minute workshop on Agentic AI in Agriculture.

The headliner of both was Dr Elliott Grant, who knows the subject not from the news, but from the depth & inside.

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Dr Elliott Grant, Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge.

A few insightful things:

1. A very dynamic market

Around 400 ag automation startups are on the latest crop robotics landscape.

2. The drivers are real

I hear them on my own Zoom calls with farmers, especially in the Global South: labour shortages, rising input costs, pressure on pesticides.

3. Quick AI wins are simple

A robot that just moves fruit around a packhouse frees the best pickers to keep picking.

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Rob Lind from Syngenta, and a Spot robot.

A Spot robot on the summit floor.

4. Who owns the data?

Farmers run mixed fleets of different brands, so interoperability and "who owns the data?" come up every time. From my own experience: in most cases your tech is co-existing with the tech zoo already deployed on the farm.

5. Britain is still a bit British about it

And on AI in UK agriculture: Britain is still a bit British about it (from the stage, not from me :)

On stage: Dr Elliott Grant (Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge), Peter van der Vlugt (Kubota Holdings Europe) and Norbert Schlingmann (Agricultural Industry Electronics Foundation).

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Belinda Clarke from Agri-TechE.

The second feeling: a healthy alarm

So, the excited part is finished. Now the second, healthy feeling. Not fear, but inner alarm about the risks of AI.

You know that feeling when you meet a person with amazing depth of knowledge and unbelievable speed of work... but their emotional intelligence is still in its infancy? You don't know how to behave with that person...

Three scenarios if something goes wrong with AI (Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, said this, I'm just repeating):

Bad guys use AI on purpose & create new global biological risks.
Smart, good guys use it inaccurately and create something not in the plan (negligence; check the Hugging Face incident, brilliantly explained by Elliott 🤗).
AI becomes smarter than us and decides it doesn't need humans anymore.

From Dr Elliott Grant's workshop: 2026 is the start of the agentic era.

From Dr Elliott Grant's workshop: getting your organisation agentic-AI-ready.

So what to do? As usual, don't panic :)

Be aware of the risks, but focus on your own universe, your best farm or agrifood production.
Be aware of the risks, but keep moving forward with AI step by step.
More people want AI for good: productivity, less routine, easier lives for growers.
There is huge progress in good AI with vibe coding, 3D printing and GenAI, even in business pipelines.
In the last month alone I've seen at least a dozen GitHub repositories where someone builds physical AI just for fun, but with obvious commercial potential. So, let's not be scared, but aware.
You are not alone, we are all in this unclear time together.

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Emma Chapelhow, Rising Star of the Year at the National Women in Agriculture Awards 2026.

The only absolutely clear thing

The era of permissionless AI innovation in agriculture is happening right here, right now 🚀

And I felt it at World Agri-Tech 💚

Day 1 of the summit, on what is actually slowing agritech down, is here.

World Agri-Tech London 2026, Day 1: Invention Isn't the Problem. Adoption Is.

2026-09-28T00:00:00.000Z

World Agri-Tech Summit London, Day 1. But I prefer to call it the World Agri-Tech Party 🤩

LinkedIn generously gives me 3,000 characters to describe a day worth a book at least. Or even two :)

The second book would definitely be about the beautiful view of Canary Wharf from the window. But the first big, thick book, printed on budget paper, would be about what is actually slowing agritech down.

It's definitely not only about biology. We're seeing interesting progress there, but there is also the people-money-government side. And this is where the attention goes.

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Jane Byrne, Conference Producer of World Agri-Tech London.

1. Biologicals and gene editing dominated the startup conversation

In England, Defra has now confirmed five crops as precision bred, the first step to market:

high-lipid barley,
low-asparagine wheat,
disease-resistant Maris Piper potato,
everbearing strawberries, and
the high-vitamin D "Sunshine" tomato.

Meanwhile, on approvals: EU approval for a biocontrol can take 10–12 years, against about 3 in the US and 2 in Brazil. Hence, European startups sell out or launch elsewhere.

The Ministerial Address by Stephen Morgan MP, UK Minister for Agriculture and Food.

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Stephen Morgan MP, UK Minister for Agriculture and Food, at World Agri-Tech London 2026.

2. "Does it work?" has become "How much does it cost?"

One person told me that the biostimulant market is really crowded, and the practical question has moved on:

"Does it work?"
has become "How much does it cost?"
and "How do we win the buyer's trust?"

So the startups that break through run independent, multi-season trials, and then keep working with those who bought, to measure their success and sell further with real names of happy clients.

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Mark Jarman from AgriTERRA.

3. Input dependency is the real risk

So now the focus is less on maximising yield and more on:

cutting fertiliser,
cutting pesticides, and
reducing irrigation dependency.

I heard that a tonne of urea now costs around 2.5 tonnes of wheat, up from 1.2 before the war in Ukraine.

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Professor Mario Caccamo from KAUST, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.

4. Pitch before the budgets close

I also noted down for myself (perhaps you are also curious 😉) a tip from Lely on how startups can succeed with global corporations: pitch before budgets are closed in October.

This is a real insight, I believe. Only two days left, though :)

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Ming Fung Chua from Elevate Dairy, Australia's first dairy-focused landing pad, by the Gardiner Foundation.

5. Resilience now means working offline

With natural disasters and wars, resilience now means working offline. In Ukraine, farm tools must run without GPS or internet, and mapping mines on fields is a digital priority.

It also matters for rural areas where connectivity is poor (thanks, Starlink, but it's a pretty expensive magic wand that many farmers can't afford).

Food security = national security.

Volodymyr Pugachov, Regional Director of Donau Soja Eastern Europe and Deputy Chair of the Agricultural and Food Committee, Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce.

Bonus: farmers want insight, not more data 🤔

I met an amazing farmer who told me they have terabytes of data collected by tractors in their fields and don't know what to do with it.

Dyson Farming has collected almost 2 billion data points in five years.

Feels like data collection is solved. Next: quality and actions.

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko with Chloe Marshall, Field Implementation Consultant at Hugh Lowe Farms.

So, what is actually slowing agritech down?

It's clear that with the power of AI + tech today, invention is not the problem. Data is not an issue either.

Adoption is. Trials, regulation, finance and trust.

By the way, AI in agriculture was Day 2.

Jane Byrne, Alexia Calles, Waveney Metcalfe — great job 🌟🌱🚀