Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko

4,033 agri jobs. 122 countries. One place. 🌾
Everyone's asking whether AI will take jobs in agriculture. My answer so far is that AI can bring them all together, so you can actually find them.

My experiment continues: AgriGrok now spans six continents and updates every day, with PhD positions, jobs and events in agriculture, food and agritech. 🌱

I hope you find something there for you 🙏💚🌏

#AgriGrok #AgriJobs #drmarynakuzmenko

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21 hours ago | [YT] | 1

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko

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 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.

A few insightful things:

1. Around 400 ag automation startups are on the latest crop robotics landscape. A very dynamic market.

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.

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

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 Hugging Face incident, brilliantly explained by Elliot 🤗).
-> AI becomes smarter than us and decides it doesn't need humans anymore.

So what to do? As usual, dont 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 Ive seen at least a dozen GitHub repositories where someone builds physical AI just for fun, but with obvious commercial potential. So, lets not be scared, but aware.

--
You are not alone, we are all in this unclear time together.

--
The only absolutely clear thing is that the era of permissionless AI innovation in agriculture is happening right here, right now 🚀

And I felt it at World Agri-Tech 💚

#worldagritech #agritech #drmarynakuzmenko

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1 week ago | [YT] | 0

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko

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.

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.

2. One person told me that the biostimulant market is really crowded, and:
-> the practical question "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.

3. Input dependency is the real risk.
So now the focus is less on maximising yield and more on:
(a) cutting fertiliser,
(b) cutting pesticides and
(c) 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.

4. 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 :)

5. Regarding resilience: with natural disasters and wars, it now means working offline. In Ukraine, farm tools must run without GPS or internet & 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

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.
I've heard that Dyson Farming has collected 1.9 billion data points in 5 years.
Feels like, data collection is solved. Next: quality & actions 👍

So it's clear that with the power of AI + tech today, invention is not the problem. Data is not an issue too.
Adoption is.
Trials, regulation, finance and trust.

By the way, AI in agriculture was Day 2 🤗

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

#worldagritech #agritech #drmarynakuzmenko

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1 week ago | [YT] | 0

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko

One day someone smart told me in the LinkedIn comments something like:
"Are you teaching about automation? And you still haven't automated your own "AI in Agriculture" Udemy course certificates???"
Yes, shame on me!
But finally, the job is done 😉

I moved most of my "AI in Agriculture" educational activities into one place.
And yes, I can confirm - a bit of automation is added on the way but more is coming.

-> The free certificates are now generated automatically after you complete the course on the website "AI in Agriculture".
-> Plus I added more quizzes.
-> Additionally, we have now the verification of the certificates and other bits.
But I will write a separate post about those things later this month.

As of now - beta version is alive 🌱
As always, the "AI in Agriculture" course is free, the certificates are free.
All you need - your desire to learn and your passion to feed the Planet in 2050 and beyond 💚

PS: my dear Udemy students, if you have finished the course on Udemy and are still waiting for a certificate (since July, I know, it's a bit long) - please stay with me for a few more days, I have a plan for us :).
I will try to work harder and bring your certificates to you in these coming days.

More good news are coming 🚀🤗 🌍

#AIinAgriculture #drmarynakuzmenko #freecourse

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 3

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko

"Finally, moo!" — said all 650 cows at Major Farming after reading the latest update from ‪@Innovateuk‬ (Innovate UK) about the Women in Innovation winners 🎉

This time, apart from the 100 women who reached the top recognition of this prestigious competition, dairy cows are the real winners. Because at ‪@MooMoreCows‬ (Moo More) we are doing something for them: bringing AI and thermal imaging to help dairy farmers detect lameness earlier.

𝗦𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀?

It's such a pain! 😭
Literally — for the cows.
And the same scale of pain for dairy businesses: lost milk yield, treatment costs, extra labour.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗹𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴?
Because it's expensive.
Lameness costs UK dairy farms an estimated £330 per case in lost milk yield, treatment and labour (AHDB).
Cows instinctively hide pain. It's their nature.
By the time the limp is visible, the damage inside the foot is often already done.
Every day you spot a problem earlier is a day of discomfort saved for the cow — and money saved for the farm.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴?
Something different from the leaf area measurements this time :)

-> MooMore is a visual AI system designed to detect the early signs of lameness in dairy cows using thermal (infrared) imaging — before visible symptoms appear. Inflammation shows up as heat. Heat comes before the limp.
-> The output is deliberately simple: NORMAL / WATCH / CHECK, for farm staff to act on.
It is a screening aid, not a diagnosis. We are not replacing the vet, the mobility scorer or the hoof trimmer.
-> Final point: MooMore is an experimental direction for ‪@petiolepro‬ (Petiole Pro)
Now we combine not only computer vision and deep learning, but also physical AI 🤩

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄?
Not yet there 😉
I mean our 12-month pilot is underway.
Huge thank you to Will Sanders and his brilliant team at Major Farming 🙏
I will share more details on our partnership soon.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗨𝗞 𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻?
Perhaps you've seen my purple-style posts... But if not: Women in Innovation is an ecosystem programme at Innovate UK that supports women founders (the prize is big: an extra £250bn for the UK economy if women will be supported at the same rate as men). This year, the programme marks its 10th anniversary with its largest ever cohort.
100 women founders, from a record 1,590 applications 🚀

Sincere congratulations to every female founder in this cohort.

I am so honoured to be part of it — and to represent the interests of 650 dairy cows in Staffordshire, and a few million more across the UK and worldwide.

I believe NOW is the right time to bring some AI to cows :)

Thank you for the opportunity to
🙏 Innovate UK
🙏 Emily Nott
🙏 Karen Souza
🙏 Ashley Petrons
🙏 Alex Taylor
🙏 Maria Basilisco
🙏 Gaia Hudson - MCIM
🙏 Richard Roberts

Moo! 🐮🚀🌍

#WomenInnovate #drmarynakuzmenko #DairyFarming

2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 7

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko

To announce something business-serious in early August?
Yes, I'm joking - I won't do this 😂.

I just decided to show a bit of our current direction at Petiole Pro (‪@petiolepro‬ )

So it won't be a huge surprise for you in September, and so on.

That's why it's not really an announcement.
I wanted only to say that we are testing our desktop version of Petiole Pro 🤩.

For the last 11 years, growers and agronomists have told us the same thing. Particularly if the farm is mid-size (more than a few people but still SME-size).

The phone is great in the field
But the real work piles up back at the desk.
A folder of hundreds of leaf photos — or photos of fruit flowers, fruits on the trees, etc. — assessed one tap at a time: it's just not working.
The day is full of so many things.
This "one tap" approach should be automated.

We absolutely understood this pain and kept saying "someday".
So finally, this someday is almost done :).

Over the last month, we finally put the Petiole Pro desktop platform in front of a few growers and researchers. They shared some positive feedback 🙂.

Why did it happen?
Obviously not because our team worked hard but because:
-> Drop in a whole folder,
-> Assess every image the same way,
-> Export results you can actually use.

This sounds like a simple, clear plan — and it works.
And the accuracy?
You know we love attention to detail, and for us, numbers matter 😍

Plus, one more size aspect.
The number of users is unlimited, so you can have your whole lab working in the same workspace — measuring, converting to CSV, and sharing insights to move on.

So the only question now is: why didn't we do this years ago? :)

If you'd like to try Petiole Pro desktop for leaf area measurement, greenness assessment, object counting, object measuring and everything else — please, let me know: right here, right now 👍

Or let us know at support@petioleapp.com.

What a lovely mid-summer day :)

What do you think? 🌿

#petiolepro #AIinAgriculture #drmarynakuzmenko

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2 months ago | [YT] | 6

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko

08 July 2026, Fruit Focus 🍇🍓🫐

1. AI for yield counting

Counting fruit for money —
each vendor names its own price.
Walk on. Compare. Choose.

-

2. Integrated Pest Management

Small wasps, hoverflies —
but know your pest curve first,
then trust the natural enemy you buy.

-

3. AI for fruit disease detection

Late detection is a verdict—
proof of what's already lost.
Find it early: a drone, or the phone in your hand.

-

4. Postharvest AI

Gate to shelf, wrapped in paperwork—
computer vision checks the boxes today.
Tomorrow, its view reaches the field.

-

5. Packaging & circularity

Recycle is good,
but "biodegradable" sells.
Look past the bright words.

-

6. No moat but trust

The AI black box turns clear—
anyone can build the tool now.
The moat is price and trust: read the small print.

-

7. Data lock-in / Sovereign AI

You bought the machine.
Now ask: can you walk away,
with your harvest in hand?

-

8. UK self-sufficiency

UK fields, UK glasshouses —
we could grow more than we do.
So what stops us? Or... who?

-

9. British wine & digital viticulture

A cold island grows good grapes.
Britain uncorks a surprise:
vineyards run on data now.

-

10. Scottish berries

New signature of the North region —
Not the biggest crop, but the finest:
a jewel in the UK fruit kingdom's crown 🫐🇬🇧🚀

-

Petiole Pro (‪@petiolepro‬ )

#softfruit #berryindustry #drmarynakuzmenko

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2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 15

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko

Investing in Women Code report 2026 — with... hidden agriculture 🌱
And I'm saying this without looking through pink glasses (no traditional pinkish light detected 😉).
Just the real numbers, heard at the launch event kindly hosted by BGF.

So I went looking for agriculture in the UK's most comprehensive gender-and-finance dataset.
337 signatories.
Six years of reporting.

Here's what I found in the Report.

1. No agriculture line in the sector table.
Angel groups made 224 investments in 2025. Technology and IP — 158 deals. Industrials — 23. Retail — 21. Business & professional services — 12. Leisure, media, personal services — two each. Other — four.
That's the whole taxonomy.

2. Farming, food production, agritech, agri-food, land use aren't a category (I checked every variation). Agrifood is probably folded into "industrials," "retail" or "other"

3. Where women-led agrifood does surface, it's on the debt side 🤝
The case studies show where capital actually lands: exclusive cake production, craft beer, bakery, plant supply and floristry.
All financed largely by loans, not equity.

4. One genuine bright spot: CDFIs 🌸
Community Development Financial Institutions — mission-driven lenders serving people and businesses that traditional banks turn away.
37% of CDFI business loans and 45% of microenterprise loans went to women-led businesses in 2025 — more than double women's share of small business leadership. 88% of those borrowers had already been declined elsewhere. Average loan: £97,694 over 4.5 years.

Having spoken with a few dozen female founders in agrifood this year, I can say that's a workable shape for a food producer or a rural business. Relationship-based and flexible.

5. Grants? Grants! 🤩
Innovate UK ‪@Innovateuk‬ joined this year as the first grant-giving Code Partner.
Grants from them as well as financial support from DEFRA including the ADOPT scheme — are how a great deal of agritech actually starts.

6. So, the honest read.
Agriculture isn't underrepresented here.
I suggest it's unmeasured.

But it's not the first time.
Agriculture is usually counted by direct GVA alone - just around 0.6–0.8% of the UK economy.

That badly understates it.

7. Farming underpins food processing, transport and logistics, wholesale and retail, hospitality, machinery & inputs, rural tourism.

Include the whole chain and agrifood is roughly 6% of UK GVA and more than 4 million jobs (check Farming Profitability Review from Baroness Batters for more details 👍).
This means one in ten UK workers is linked to agriculture.

8. So women in agriculture are still fighting for their sector to be visible at all.
The Investing in Women Code is a brilliant initiative and building an industry data dashboard for 2027.
They are actively reviewing what it collects.
That makes this the moment to re-think which UK industries get a line of their own.

Agriculture should be there.
What do you think?

‪@petiolepro‬ Petiole Pro 🌱
‪@MooMoreCows‬ Moo More 🐮

#InvestingInWomenCode #Agrifood #Agritech

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3 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 12

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko

In AI we have a movement called vibecoding.
So now I can tell you in one word what Groundswell is?
It's vibe-farming 💚

Officially, this is the festival of regenerative agriculture. 10 years old this year, held at the Cherry family's Lannock Farm in Hertfordshire.
Thousands of visitors, hundreds of exhibitors.
But one of the main reasons Groundswell exists is a spirit of freedom and love for our planet 💚

My takeaways from a one-day visit:

1. Technology is definitely on the way, because productivity is not optional. Regen farms must be profitable, and one route there is efficiency in the daily grind — precision ag, autonomous machinery, controlled-traffic farming and variable-rate application. Resilience is fertile, but only if it pays.

2. Soil.
Fewer synthetic fertilisers thanks to nitrogen-fixing legumes like vetch, field beans, peas and alfalfa. They partner with rhizobia bacteria to pull nitrogen from the air. Clover? Yes, it's definitely five-stars from the planet and a big thumbs-up from farm animals.

3. Soil. Better fertility with biochar.
Across the events I've been to this year, I see a small but interesting biochar cluster forming in the UK. I had also a live debate on biochar and carbon credits (money from air :) — but please check Verra's VM0044 methodology and the European Biochar Certificate C-sink approach before counting the profits).

4. Water retention is the heart of regenag. In numbers? 1% more soil organic matter stores approximately 25,000 L of water/ha.

5. Crops — rotations, intercropping, and underutilised or neglected crops: heritage grains like spelt, emmer and einkorn, plus amazing buckwheat, millet and lentils.

6. Crops like maize in regen ag?
Yes, please (think no-till and companion cropping). And hazelnuts? Also big YES — perennial nuts are a solid profit stream in a silvoarable system.

7. The Agroforestry tent as the heart of it all (and in my heart 💚) — silvopasture, alley cropping, trees & crops growing together. Plus some animals to add dynamics and manure feeds organic matter.

8. Agroforestry as specific action — hedging.
Native hedgerows for biodiversity, windbreaks, carbon and living field margins.

9. Livestock in the loop — mob and rotational grazing and holistic management. I publicly asked a question on forage crop monitoring with remote sensing — definitely an area of interest for farmers with large acres and herds.

10. In my conversations I was so glad to talk not only about Petiole Pro but also about Moo More (not on the stage yet, but moving in the right direction). It's visual AI for cows — more details soon 💚

At the end of the day, resting on the clover after 10,000+ steps around Groundswell, I thought about the inspiring spirit of this event and the amazing people around...

And then I heard the sound of a drone.
Yes, real one with camera right above me! Last photo is a proof.
Did I tell you that technology and regenerative ag walk hand-in-hand? 💚

#regenerativeag

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3 months ago | [YT] | 10

Dr. Maryna Kuzmenko

Bittersweet news, or perhaps it is more reasonable to say: salty news 🥺

The good thing is that the ‪@petiolepro‬ - Petiole Pro app was trusted once again to measure leaf area in an international consortium project in the largest continuous mangrove forest on Earth - Sundarbans 🌏

The bad news: we are losing the diversity of this priceless ecosystem.

Regarding salt.
In mangrove forests, salinity is silently but confidently reshaping the whole ecosystem.

The question is: what happens to mangrove functional diversity when salinity increases?

Not only “which species are present” but a bit deeper:

→ What traits do the leaves have?
→ How do plants adjust to salt stress?
→ Does the ecosystem become more functionally rich — or more similar, narrow, and vulnerable?

The researchers from Bangladesh, Canada, China, USA, UK, and Australia, measured eight foliar traits across mangrove plots, including
-> leaf area
-> specific leaf area
-> leaf dry matter content
-> chlorophyll
-> stomatal density
-> leaf shape
-> succulence
-> leaf carbon content.
-> and they also analysed functional diversity indicators.

The main message is serious: higher salinity reduced functional diversity, especially trait dissimilarity.

In simpler words it means that as the environment became saltier, mangrove communities became more similar in the way they function.

This is called trait convergence.

Under stress, nature starts to “select” species and traits that can survive. Plants with similar salt-tolerant strategies dominate. The community may still look like a forest, but functionally it becomes narrower.

The leaves also changed in predictable ways.

With higher salinity, the study found reductions in leaf area, leaf dry matter content, stomatal density, chlorophyll, and leaf carbon content.

And increases in:

→ leaf succulence
→ specific leaf area

This tells a story of adaptation. Plants shifting toward water storage, osmotic balance, and survival under salt stress.

But survival is not the same as resilience.

When many species begin to rely on similar strategies, the ecosystem may lose functional “options”.

And fewer functional options can mean lower capacity to adapt to future stress — especially under sea-level rise, freshwater reduction, and climate-driven salinisation.

___

One more important detail: species abundance also mattered.

High abundance of a few stress-tolerant species reduced trait dissimilarity and evenness. So the problem is not only salt itself, but also how salt reshapes dominance inside the plant community.

This is why trait-based ecology is so powerful and here is where technology can help.

👉 Remote sensing, computer vision, spectral imaging, and AI-assisted trait monitoring could support future mangrove conservation by detecting changes in canopy traits, greenness, chlorophyll, and stress signals at larger scales.

Not as a replacement for field ecology.
But as a way to scale it.
What do you think?

#Mangroves #ClimateChange #Biodiversity

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3 months ago | [YT] | 9