Artificial intelligence, deep learning, big data, self-driving cars …, these are words that have become familiar to most people and have captured the imagination of the public and have brought hopes as well as fears. We have been told that artificial intelligence will be a major part of our lives, and almost all of us witness this when decisions made by algorithms show us commercial adds that are specifically targeting our interests while using the web. In this paper, the conversation around artificial intelligence focuses on a particular application, agricultural machinery, but offering enough content so that the reader can have a very good idea on how to consider this technology for not only other agricultural applications such as sorting and grading produce, but also other areas in which this technology can be a part of a system that includes sensors, hardware and software that can make accurate decisions. Narrowing the application and also focusing on one specific artificial intelligence approach, that of deep learning, allow us to illustrate from start to end the steps that are usually considered and elaborate on recent developments on artificial intelligence.
Agriculture importance as not only providing the world with food but also as an economic factorAgriculture plays a significant role in Canada's economy. From a recent release from Statistics Canada, we can highlight that the sector contributed $49.0 billion to Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015, accounting for 2.6% of total GDP. Agriculture industries contributed $25.1 billion or 51% of GDP in the sector, while agri-food manufacturing industries contributed $23.9 billion or 49%. In the future, the industry is expected to grow at a considerable rate. "Canada's agriculture industry can generate $11 billion for the country's GDP annually by 2030 if the government invests in people and technology" as indicated in [1]. Canada is a global leader in agricultural production and by taking on research and development on new technologies this can be of great benefit to the country and the world, as this activity is vital and will help the country to remain competitive.