“The United States has been the world’s largest supplier of cattle genetics since at least 1992. In 2022, the US exported $295 million in bovine semen, 47 percent of the world’s exports. Few countries even come close to this market share: the next biggest exporters are Canada at 14 percent and the Netherlands at seven,” reports Works in Progress:
America’s cows are now extraordinarily productive. In 2024, just 9.3 million cows will produce 226 billion pounds of milk (about 100 million tons) – enough milk to provide ten percent of 333 million insatiable Americans’ diets, and export for good measure. And that’s despite the fact that none of the cattle breeds the US exports are indigenous to the country. The world’s most popular dairy cow breed, the Holstein-Friesian, hails from the border between the Netherlands and Germany; the Jersey and Guernsey dairy breeds both originate from islands in the English Channel.
In many low-income countries, livestock products, including dairy cows, are critical for providing both nutrition and farming livelihoods. As a result, the US’s role in the global livestock genetics market lends it an outsize role not only in the genetic improvement of cattle but as an arbiter of rural development worldwide.
How did the US achieve this? In a word: data. This is the story of how the power of big data, combined with an ambitious public-private partnership between dairy farmers and the US Department of Agriculture, enabled the US to engineer the modern dairy cow and transform the dairy industry.
A fascinating discussion of this is found at this link: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-big-data-created-the-modern-dairy-cow/
Kenyan farmers are using artificial intelligence to produce much more food. The African nation of Zambia has used artificial intelligence to find new mineral wealth.
Artificial intelligence is also greatly improving the detection of many different diseases. Artificial intelligence has discovered a new material that could reduce lithium use in batteries and thus reduce our dependence on China. Artificial intelligence is outperforming radiologists in detecting prostate cancer. Artificial intelligence is also being used to generate highly-effective antibodies to fight disease. Doctors overseas are using artificial intelligence to detect cases of breast cancer more effectively.
Robots with artificial intelligence are spreading on Japanese farms. In the U.S., farming robots now use artificial intelligence to kill 100,000 weeds per hour. Drones with artificial intelligence will make farming easier.
Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells to repair damaged cells. Nanorobots are also being used to fight cancer by cutting off the blood supply of tumors.
Artificial intelligence has discovered a new material that could reduce lithium use in batteries and thus reduce our dependence on China.
Artificial intelligence may help you control some of your dreams. The usefulness of artificial intelligence is a reason to fight federal legislation to micromanage AI algorithms, such as legislation described by Stuart Baker at Reason Magazine’s web site, which could stifle innovation and increase harmful red tape.
