The state of AI in UK farming
In short On most UK farms AI shows up in three places. It is in the parlour camera that scores mobility and body condition, in the satellite or trap data that times an input, and in the chatbot someone uses to draft a form. The working tools are mostly in dairy: camera systems are now on hundreds of thousands of cows, and a major retailer has put one across its whole milk pool. Arable decision tools such as satellite nitrogen and AI pest traps are still at the trial stage with named growers and agronomists, not off-the-shelf products. Government money has gone up, but most of it goes to robotics and to developers rather than to farmers buying kit. Surveys show plenty of farmers trying general chatbots, very few paying for them, and trust still lagging. Rural broadband, not price, is often what stops a farm using these tools.
What it found
- Camera-based AI for lameness and body condition is the most established AI tool on UK livestock farms: CattleEye monitors over 200,000 cattle on more than 140 farms, and M&S is putting it across all 46 of its dairy suppliers.
- AI decision tools for arable farms are still being proven in trials, for example satellite nitrogen advice from Messium and AI pest traps in Tracer-Pest, rather than sold as finished products.
- Most new government agri-tech money in 2026 goes to robotics, automation and commercialising products, not to grants that help farmers buy AI tools.
- Many farmers use general-purpose generative AI, but few pay for it or trust it: McKinsey found 17% use and 4% paying, and only 6% count AI as a trusted source for decisions.
- The biggest practical barriers are connectivity and the risk of trying something new, not interest: 42% of farmers cite poor connectivity, and 76% of Tesco suppliers say getting new tech onto farm is challenging.
How it was made
Every development in the report comes from a public source dated from September 2025 to September 2026: trade press, regulators, journals and company announcements. Each one is dated and names its source, so you can read the original, and every link was checked when this edition was put together. It is a record of what happened, not advice.
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