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Ep.93: Should Flower Farmers Be Using AI?
2.1k Plays12 days ago
I've been using AI on my flower farm for over a year, and up until recently, I've only told a handful of people. Today I'm opening a conversation I haven't heard many in our industry having. It's a conversation every farmer deserves to be part of, whether you end up using AI or not.
In this solo episode, I share what I actually use AI for in my business, what I refuse to touch, and the ethical questions I've been living with: the data centers threatening the Hood River watershed, the training data taken without consent, the job displacement that's already real. I'm not here to convince you of anything. I'm here to make sure you have enough understanding to make the choice that's actually yours.
I talk about why the plow is the perfect metaphor for this moment. Why rare is going to matter in the age of AI-generated content. Why two things can be true at the same time. And why, on May 2nd, I'm hosting a workshop for flower farmers who want to learn how I use these tools to get back in the dirt.
Key Takeaways:
- AI isn't new. What's new is the speed and the agentic leap. AI used to answer questions. Now it takes action.
- The farmers who care most about the earth should not be the last ones at the table. They should be the first.
- You can't advocate for or against a tool you have never touched. Curiosity is how you earn your seat in the conversation.
- Two things can be true at the same time. AI can give small farmers their time back, and the data centers that power it can be threatening our watersheds. Both are real.
- Boycotting is also a form of advocacy. The farmer who chooses not to use AI is doing something meaningful, and that choice deserves respect.
- When everything online sounds the same, the voice that sounds like a real human is going to matter more than ever. Like a unicorn dahlia. Rare. Real. One of a kind.
You're Invited to Join Us For A 2 Hour AI Workshop on May 2nd:
On May 2nd, I'm hosting a workshop called AI That Gets You Back in the Dirt. Two hours. Five tools. Live demos on a real flower farm business. No tech jargon. No rocket ships.
It's $47 to attend live, or $97 for VIP access which includes the lifetime replay, my Flower Farmer's AI Prompt Vault with over 50 prompts written for our industry, and my Voice Profile Builder so when AI helps you with your work, it keeps you sounding like you and not like every other AI-generated post on the internet.
Whether you decide to use AI or not is your decision alone. I respect whichever option you choose. What I do believe is that this is a conversation our industry needs to have. We need a voice at this table. And to have one, we have to understand what we are talking about.
Save your seat for May 2nd →: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.mykajabi.com/AI-That-Gets-You-Back-in-the-Dirt
Connect With Jennifer
- Website: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/thefloweringfarmhouse
- Newsletter: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.myflodesk.com/backyardbouquetpodcast
- Substack: https://substack.com/@thefloweringfarmhouse
Show Notes: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/2026/04/25/ep-93-should-flower-farmers-be-using-ai/
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Transcript
Introduction to Backyard Bouquet Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Backyard Bouquet Podcast, where stories bloom from local flower fields and home gardens. I'm your host, Jennifer Galizia of The Flowering Farmhouse. I'm a backyard gardener turned flower farmer located in Hood River, Oregon.
00:00:17
Speaker
Join us for heartfelt journeys shared by flower farmers and backyard gardeners. Each episode is like a vibrant garden, cultivating wisdom and joy through flowers.
00:00:28
Speaker
From growing your own backyard garden to supporting your local flower farmer, The Backyard Bouquet is your fertile ground for heartwarming tales and expert cut flower growing advice.
00:00:39
Speaker
All right, flower friends, grab your gardening gloves, garden snips, or your favorite vase because it's time to let your backyard bloom.
Embracing AI in Flower Farming
00:00:54
Speaker
Hey, Flower Friends. Before I say anything else today, I want to thank you for being here. This podcast exists because of all of you. The community we've built together is the kind of community that listens deeply, thinks for itself, and really, truly cares about where our industry and the world is headed. And I don't take any of this lightly.
00:01:16
Speaker
So with that in mind, today's episode is going to be a little bit different. It's one that I've been wrestling with for a while, and you guys are the ones that I'm going to talk to about this.
00:01:29
Speaker
And here goes. Up until recently, I've only told a handful of people that I've been using AI on my flower farm for over a year. And I know some of you are probably thinking, what?
00:01:42
Speaker
Turn this episode off right now. i don't want to listen. I'm against AI. Please stay with me for a minute. Hear me out. This is not an episode on why you should use ai This is a conversation that I think our industry needs to have And I want to give you a little bit of a background as we get started today.
00:02:01
Speaker
Over the last year, i have invested in multiple masterminds with people who are deeply involved in technology, not as something to sell to me, but so that I could really understand what is actually happening, not the hype, but really know what's real.
00:02:18
Speaker
because as farmers, we're tending to the earth on a daily basis. We see what damage and destruction can be done to soil.
00:02:30
Speaker
And I think we are approaching AI with a different lens than most other industries. So I want to start by telling you what I've learned about ai And then I want you to stay with me because if you're thinking that this is going to be me cheering for AI It's not, I'm not paid by any AI companies. i I've tried some tools. I've walked away from some of them because I don't agree with the ethics or how those companies run.
00:02:59
Speaker
It's hard. It's a hard thing to talk about. i was nervous to even hit record on this episode, but this is a conversation that I've, I'm seeing over and over again on the news. I'm seeing it every time I open social media. I've posted a few things myself on social media and most of the feedback I get is how you don't want to hear about it.
00:03:20
Speaker
But I think it's important that we have this conversation and hopefully after today's episode, you'll agree with me. Every other industry is talking about this right now. And I have looked on Facebook groups. I've looked on social media.
00:03:35
Speaker
I can tell that there are some people using AI in their work. but there's not really the acknowledgement or the conversation. So let's have that conversation today.
00:03:46
Speaker
i want to tell you what I've found, what I won't touch, the things that I'm wrestling with with AI. And at the end, I'm also going to invite you to join me on May 2nd for a workshop that I'm hosting.
00:03:58
Speaker
But most of this episode is just me talking out loud about what's been in my mind for the last year. And if you ask my husband, there's a lot of thoughts running through my mind. I spent a lot of time out in the field thinking as I'm pulling weeds, harvesting flowers like so many of you. So I want you to walk away from this episode feeling like this gives you information to decide for yourself.
00:04:22
Speaker
Is AI something that you want to be a part of? Do you want to use it? Are you going to boycott it? The whole point of this episode is to give you agency to make that decision for yourself.
00:04:33
Speaker
So before we go any further, I want to acknowledge something right away. And that is that some of you who are listening today probably know a lot more about AI than I do. Some of you probably use it every day, and some of you have probably been using it a lot longer than I have. So I'm not here to explain AI to a room of beginners today.
00:04:53
Speaker
I'm sharing with you where I've landed after over a year of using it on my farm with my ethics and my limits. If you're already fluent in ai which I have come to realize that there's a lot of countries where farmers are using AI a lot more than we are outside of flower farming. I think there's a lot of farming industries and groups that are using AI a lot more than we are.
00:05:18
Speaker
If you're listening to this today and you're one of those people, i would love to hear from you. I'd love to know... how you're using it, what your thoughts are, because right now we're all figuring this out at different paces and I'm not here to talk down on anyone. I'm just trying to open a conversation because I don't feel like it's really happening in our industry in the US. And I really started thinking about this conversation after i recorded with Linda and Marley's from Fam Flower Farm. And that episode just came out. That was our last episode, episode 92.
00:05:53
Speaker
And i realized that AI is something that is a lot more normal in conversation in other countries and countries are using it. And they're talking about it more openly. So maybe it's time that we have this conversation as well. And this podcast, we have listeners from all over the world. I've tried really hard to curate guests that are in other parts of the world because I think it's beautiful that we can learn from one another. and that we can implement things that others are doing. And also, I truly believe that when we work together as a collective, we only grow stronger. it's
00:06:30
Speaker
I mean, we look at already in the US, 80% of our flowers are imported, 20% are grown locally. So the only way to move that needle is to work together. So I want to take you back to a year ago.
00:06:42
Speaker
And I was sitting at my kitchen table where I do pretty much everything these days. Since we moved to our new farm, I no longer have an office. You see me recording this podcast in a little corner in our guest room. So right now, for the last year and a half, I sit at my kitchen table, write my emails, newsletters, respond to inquiries, take care of invoicing, all my planning.
00:07:05
Speaker
There's days where I'm up at four o'clock in the morning trying to do this. I'm up at 10 o'clock at night some days, and my daughter's at the table doing her homework. The dogs are waiting by the door or maybe sleeping on my feet going, when are we going to go for a walk?
00:07:20
Speaker
And I just felt like I was half present and everything. And maybe some of you are nodding to being a flower farmer is hard because we signed up to grow. We didn't sign up for the administrative piece.
00:07:32
Speaker
And I felt like my to-do list was getting so long. I probably have undiagnosed ADHD, ADHD. If I said that right there,
00:07:42
Speaker
My mind is constantly spinning. I have 100 sticky notes everywhere. I have to-do lists that are for to-do lists for to-do lists. And I'm always feeling like I should be done and I'm not. So if you're there too, some of this might relate.
00:07:58
Speaker
um And I want to tell you the real version, not a marketing, not a sales pitch. Honestly, since I've started learning how to use ai some of this overwork, over exhaustion has not gone away. i still have a lot on my plate.
00:08:14
Speaker
I'm a flower farmer. i host this podcast. I host the Dahlia Growers Collective. And if I wasn't doing all of those things, my days would probably look a lot calmer. But I choose this and I continue to choose to do this and I enjoy it. So I'm not complaining about any of this, but I'm learning new tools that are allowing me to manage things more effectively. And I want to share that with you so because just like I'm taking you along on our farm journey, I want to take you along on this journey also.
00:08:43
Speaker
So a year ago, as I was trying to do all three of these things, I literally felt like everything was breaking and I couldn't keep anything together. There's days that I still feel like that. So I'm not saying that that has gone away. And AI has not taken away my to-do list, what AI has done for me it has given me enough time back that I can stay on top of the work that I care about the most. That is recording these podcasts, that is leading the Dahlia Growers Collective, that's continuing my Dahlia hybridizing and healing 20 acres of new farmland.
00:09:16
Speaker
ah Because of AI, I can keep the podcast going, I can keep the farm going, and I can keep teaching, and I don't have to be half-present version that I used to be every night. My life certainly isn't perfect.
00:09:30
Speaker
And I want to tell you what's shifted and how that shift has been made possible. And I'm also going to share what I've learned along the way today. And then I'm also going to talk about some of the ethics and some of the deeper questions today. So hang with me. um i think this is going to open some doors. Maybe you're going to have some new questions. Hopefully this is going to open the doors for conversation in our industry, conversations that should and need to happen.
00:09:59
Speaker
But here's the thing, AI is not new. What's new is the speed. AI has actually been around for decades. When your phone auto-corrects your spelling, that's AI.
00:10:10
Speaker
The spam filter in your email ah inbox, that's AI. AI stands for artificial intelligence.
AI's Role in Efficiency and Ethics
00:10:16
Speaker
Artificial intelligence is not new, but what's changed so fast is the speed.
00:10:23
Speaker
And what's also new, you may have heard the term agentic. What that means is that AI, artificial intelligence, is now able to take action, not just suggest things. It's no longer just your thought partner. It's no longer something you can ask for a quote or a sounding board. It is actually doing tasks for real people.
00:10:46
Speaker
You see people making avatars and videos that look real. I don't know about you. Sometimes I have to do do a double take. I'm like, is that even real? And there is a flood of content online right now. And it feels like there's no soul in it. Honestly, some days I'm like, do I even want to scroll through Instagram? Because I feel like everything is selling me AI or it's been created by the same AI agent.
00:11:11
Speaker
And that's what people are reacting to right now. And people have a right to react. Our industry, our world is being turned upside down faster than ever before.
00:11:23
Speaker
But here's the thing, AI is a tool and it's still a tool and we get to choose how we use it or if we even use it at all. And i have to tell you, i have been very selective of how I use AI.
00:11:37
Speaker
I don't use AI for everything. I see people making avatars, images. might've been guilty of trying a few when it first came out. Now that I know environmental impacts, I don't use AI for generating images.
00:11:51
Speaker
I use Canva. I was a photographer for 12 years. i can log into Canva. If you don't use Canva, it's amazing. You can upload your photos. You can act like a graphic designer.
00:12:02
Speaker
it is It does have AI built into some of the tools. i use the Canva without the AI portion. I am creating my graphics. I am creating all of that still myself. Dinner recipes, I know you'll see some people online saying, go to chat, it can give you your dinner recipes.
00:12:18
Speaker
Google can still do that. i I'm selective of what I use AI as a tool. And some of you are probably going, okay, Jen, you are talking about AI. How does this relate to farmer flower farming? Hang on, hang with me. We're going to get there, I promise.
00:12:35
Speaker
and And if you're a gardener or someone that just has a garden, maybe you're curious too because AI is going to impact and disrupt all of our lives if we don't understand it So I try to use AI for things that can't be handled as efficiently anywhere else. So for me, that's analyzing my spreadsheets. I now have two years of data for our soil testing from our soil agronomist. I can put that data into AI.
00:13:02
Speaker
AI is really good at recognizing patterns. It can spit out spreadsheets for me. I can, in the morning time, pull my email and my calendar together every morning, see what I need to do. It can help me with my email drafts. It can help me with my captions. It can help me think of ideas. i use it as a thought partner, not as my writer.
00:13:26
Speaker
And by that, I mean, it is still my voice. I am still the one. i am dictating everything that goes through AI. And so I want to tell you a story. My life now, I wake up in the morning, I drink my Americano or a cup of coffee. My preference is an Americano every morning. And as I sit there drinking my coffee, I can open up my computer at four o'clock in the morning. and my AI agent will pull up my calendar and my emails, and it will tell me what is a priority today, what is pressing, what needs my attention before I ever have to head out in the field. It also tells me right now we're in April, it's seed sowing time. It will tell me what seeds I need to sow, and it'll tell me on my spreadsheets, what am I behind on, what do I still need to be focusing on succession sowing for the season?
00:14:13
Speaker
It will check in out with me on my Dahlia dividing. How are my Dahlias looking? Do I have the field organized? Do I have my amendments ordered? It pulls from all of my files. My ADHD brain used to have five different calendars sitting in front of me in the morning, and I'd have my sticky notes and I would flip through all of them. And it would take me an hour to figure out what I needed to do. Now that hour is 15 minutes because I can put it in one place and I can talk back to it. i I look at AI as an employee. So I talk to it. I tell it, this is working for me. I need to remember to do this. And it can create those reminders for me.
00:14:51
Speaker
And so that's what I really want you to understand is that it can be used as a tool. um And it's something that allows me to grow flowers and not be stuck in the administrative piece. I still have plenty of administrative work. It has not gone away.
00:15:08
Speaker
Maybe someday it will. But right now it is freeing up some of my time so I can do the work that matters.
00:15:16
Speaker
And I know people are concerned about AI, and I've heard some really great metaphors about how AI is changing things. And some of them I would love to share with you today to help you maybe shift your mindset or look at things in another way.
00:15:32
Speaker
And I go back to when I was in high school, my high school leadership teacher said, the only thing constant in life is change. And I try to look at it that way now, like things are changing fast.
00:15:46
Speaker
And that's the only thing that's going to be constant. If we can adapt, if we can take the next step, if we can learn, if we can stay curious, that's what's going to help us out. So the first thing I want to remind you about is the plow.
00:15:59
Speaker
This one hits hard for a lot of farmers. It used to be that it took hundreds of people to clean up a field, prepare it for planting, and then the plow came out and it literally transformed farming.
00:16:12
Speaker
It allowed farmers to scale quickly and fast. However, i will point out you hear a lot of stories right now about the plow. But what you don't hear being mentioned is the consequences. And those consequences affected the soil.
00:16:26
Speaker
And some of those consequences we didn't fully understand for a long time. And only now is the regenerative agriculture movement really bringing light to that. Of course, there are other consequences too. Lots of jobs were displaced when the plow came out.
00:16:42
Speaker
And here's what's interesting for our industry. Most of you probably don't even use a plow or have a need for a plow. And that's probably because you made a choice. Flowers don't take up a lot of space. Your fields might be small. Maybe you farm regeneratively.
00:16:57
Speaker
You have diversified crops. we have chosen We've chosen to have a different relationship with our soil. And we didn't make that choice necessarily by ignoring the plow.
00:17:10
Speaker
We made that choice by understanding what it does and how it would work for our land. And if you have a maybe if you have a smaller piece of land, you don't need a plow. Maybe that's a road to tiller. If you have a larger piece of land that you're farming or gardening,
00:17:26
Speaker
Maybe you chose not to use a plow because you know how hard it is on the soil. And I'm not saying don't ever use a plow here. I'm trying to use this as an example. And it's an example that I want us to look at when we use AI, not as a blind adaptation where we're going to say, OK, I'm all in Let me use AI. And not also saying I'm not going to use it.
00:17:47
Speaker
Farmers had to make a choice, and they had to pay attention to what it did and how it worked before they said yes or no. And many flower farmers use tools in their business every day. Maybe you have a hand tool that makes planting faster. Maybe you have a pair of scissors that help you harvest your flowers. Maybe that's not the best example here you're thinking, but we have tools in our business that allow us to do our job efficiently. Yeah.
00:18:16
Speaker
And right now, you see people in the media, you see the developers of ai they're trying to sell you a rocket ship right now. They have, and on social media, you see people, they have hundreds of agents who are running their business for them. You see cinematic AI created movies, you have voice clones, you have things that are being built like a rocket ship.
00:18:42
Speaker
I'm not saying go build a rocket ship with AI. There's another way. And I am trying to look at AI as if I'm riding a bicycle. You can get to the same destination with both. A rocket ship can get you to a destination, and a bicycle can get you to a destination. You might get there a lot faster with the rocket ship, but you might also be able to argue that there's some ethical reasons why you want to take that bicycle. Or maybe you compare it to a car and a bicycle.
00:19:10
Speaker
For me, i am trying to use AI like a bicycle. It's still powered by me. It gets me to where I need to be, but it's still me doing the work. If you think about it, a rocket ship, you press a button and it full-on speed goes to the moon.
00:19:26
Speaker
On a bicycle, maybe if you have an e-bike, there's some assist to it, but on a bicycle, you still have to pedal it. You are still doing the like the work. Yeah. So here are some more ways that AI can be like a bicycle instead of that rocket ship.
00:19:41
Speaker
If it's nine o'clock at night and you're thinking, i have my CSA tomorrow and I need to send a note to my subscribers, you could use an AI app that lets you voice talk while you're out in the field harvesting your flowers and you can write a message to your audience and And it might not be clean, but it's getting your thoughts off your head. You can then give that to your AI, whether that's ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude. And you can say, here's what I would need to tell my CSA subscribers for tomorrow's delivery. Can you help me put this into a caption?
00:20:19
Speaker
AI generates it. And then you read it. You tweak it so that it's your voice. It's still you. It's not a robot. um For me, some of the ways that AI is saving me time is just that. It can help me polish my email newsletters.
00:20:36
Speaker
The other day, I was literally sowing seeds. I had Whisperflow running on my phone, and I was talking to it, telling a story. And I wrote out what I, er with WhisperFloat, I said what I wanted my newsletter to be. Then I put it into Claude, cleaned it up, made sure it sounded in my voice. It was what I was saying. So nothing was made up. AI didn't generate the content or the topic. It was 100% me, but it was cleaned up and it was ready. It was as if I had a copywriter cleaning up my work. Yeah.
00:21:09
Speaker
Sometimes when I don't know what to post on social media, i will say, today I harvested, and obviously it's not right now, but as an example, I harvested 10 buckets of dahlias and I harvested these cosmos and I'm preparing for a wedding. And here's the picture that I have. And I describe the picture and I say, can you come up with some ideas? Give me five ideas that I might be able to create a story with.
00:21:34
Speaker
So I'm using it as a thought partner. I also can have it sort through my emails and prioritize. Do I have emails that are coming in from Pottery Barn or Macy's and Target? Or do I have a wedding inquiry? And sometimes those wedding inquiries, they get buried with everything else. So in the morning, when I have my AI summarize my day and my calendar, it will say, Jennifer, You have this wedding inquiry for August 5th.
00:22:02
Speaker
It's a hot lead. You need to respond to this today. And so I can use it that way so that I am not spending my time scrolling through that. I have used it with my sewing schedules. I gave Claude all of my past year's sewing schedules in Excel. I highlighted all of the flowers that I'm growing this year, gave it my first and last frost dates, all of my data that I've used for the last five years, and then said, help me with my sewing schedule based on this data, and then create a list of what I need to sew every day so that I hit this on time. And then it adds it to my daily briefing so that I'm reminded, okay, today i need to sew amaranth or I need to sew cosmos, whatever it is.
00:22:45
Speaker
It has given me back probably four to five hours every week, sometimes more. What AI doesn't do for me though, is it's not digging my dahlias, it's not arranging my flowers, it's not replacing my voice, and it's definitely not making decisions for me, and it's 100% not posting anything for me.
00:23:07
Speaker
I am still posting everything. i am still coming up with the ideas. I am using AI as an employee that I have trained to help me with some of the middle administrative work.
00:23:20
Speaker
not allowing it to post anything. And then I'm taking that information. I am reviewing it. I am editing it. And then I am putting it out um or delivering it, whatever I need to do with that information.
00:23:34
Speaker
Some of the things that I have decided on and what I think is good is I think you should, if you're going to use AI, I think you should decide what will you use AI for and what won't you use AI for. When you get clear on those things, it helps you make your decisions faster and with more clarity. So for me, i know a lot of people are experimenting, creating videos. I'm not going to create videos with AI. I'm definitely not going to create videos that are a fake me. I'm not going to generate pictures of flowers that I didn't grow in my field. I'm not going to allow it to post on social media and pretend to be me.
00:24:09
Speaker
There are times, I don't know if you've ever looked online and you're like doing a double take, is that a real, is that a person or is that AI generated? And some of the AI generated content looks identical. It's like everyone has used the same app, changed the wording and posted the exact same thing on social media these days.
00:24:29
Speaker
I have made myself a promise. I would rather show up inconsistently than unauthentically. We are farmers, we already have real beauty in our hands every day.
00:24:42
Speaker
And when we're not surrounded by flowers, we're doing the messy, dirty work that people are craving right now. people want to see real, they're craving that authenticity. When you can show up as your true self and show your audience who you are and what you're doing for your business, that's something that AI can never replicate.
00:25:04
Speaker
And people who are able to show up and be their true self, talk with honesty, share what they're doing, what's hard, what's real, not being 100% camera ready. are the people that those are the people
00:25:20
Speaker
our audiences are going to choose to follow because it's real.
00:25:26
Speaker
And you may have heard, i keep hearing the word we're heading into the slop. What is it? The sloppy slop summer. I feel like it's already maybe here.
00:25:36
Speaker
Social media is flooded with AI generated content and it feels like it has no soul. There's no life to it. You can tell when something has just been rushed or there's not a human behind it. You can tell when those captions are written by bots or,
00:25:52
Speaker
um or they've, i'm I'm lacking the word here, but you can just tell when something's not real and it just doesn't sit right and you just keep scrolling. And maybe when you were first getting curious with AI, maybe you posted one.
00:26:07
Speaker
There's no shame in that. We're gonna learn. And I think that's the thing is that so many people, everyone has access to these tools. They're not expensive. You can get a pro plan of many of these AI tools for $20 a month. So it's accessible to a lot of people.
00:26:25
Speaker
A lot of people are experimenting and they don't necessarily know what they're doing because they're learning. So that's where we're seeing that slop. People are getting excited. They're trying to put something out.
00:26:36
Speaker
And when everyone sounds the same, the voices that have a real human behind them are going to stand out more than ever before. That photograph with you holding that first bloom in your field or the caption you wrote at nine o'clock at night where you're exhausted or the weekly newsletter that you send from your kitchen table telling people what you're doing in your business, what your hopes and dreams are, those are the ones that are going to land and be real.
00:27:05
Speaker
If you think about it, for those of you who are Dahlia growers like me, you're going to become that unicorn Dahlia. You're going to be real You're going to be one of a kind and people are going to remember you because you're different.
00:27:19
Speaker
And this is what's really exciting. Rare is going to matter. So I'm not rushing to make any AI content. I'm using AI to free up time so I can make more of only what I can make. What makes me, me and my farm unique.
00:27:37
Speaker
I also protect my data. When I use Claude, I turn off a setting that lets my conversations be trained for future versions so others can't learn from what I'm doing. It also doesn't give feedback then to the developers.
00:27:51
Speaker
Not every tool allows you to do that. I've chosen to use Claude because of ethical considerations that they have baked into the application and the software itself.
00:28:03
Speaker
um If you take anything away from this episode on using AI, it's finding AI tools that are created ethically and that allow you to protect you and your information.
00:28:17
Speaker
I have tested multiple tools over the last year on my business and I decided after learning a lot of it and having sharing with some people that I'm using this and them asking me questions, I decided that I wanted to teach, but I wanted to wait and teach you about this until I felt it was safe for our industry and that I had enough knowledge to actually share something valuable with you.
00:28:42
Speaker
This last week, I was preparing to do this episode, and I saw a post on social media from Reese Witherspoon. This post, you guys, it had 172,000 likes, but more than that, it had 14,000 comments. It's a reel that she posted, and what she said in her voice, in her kitchen, with her blender, she said, "'The AI revolution has started.'" Jobs women hold are three times more likely to be automated.
00:29:14
Speaker
Women are using AI at a rate of 25% lower than men um There was an ai I've never seen this before, but social media had this AI annotation on it when I looked at it and it said, the comments have exploded. Thousands of women are pushing back.
00:29:33
Speaker
And so I started reading through those comments and underneath the anger, i saw fear. i saw real fear about losing jobs. I also saw real fear about what this is doing to the in excuse me to the environment and real fear that this tool could be used against us.
00:29:50
Speaker
That fear is legitimate and I'm not here to dismiss it. I want to talk about what we do with it. So the first thing is we have to be curious.
00:30:03
Speaker
I'm a regenerative flower farmer like many of you. Before I can improve my soil, I have to test it. AI is the same way. Before we can shape how this tool gets used, we have to actually understand what it is.
00:30:17
Speaker
just like you can't regenerate soil that you've never tested well maybe you can but it's going to take a lot longer you can't advocate for or against a tool that you've never touched And here's the thing, if women aren't in this conversation, men will define how AI gets used on us.
Balancing AI and Environmental Concerns
00:30:35
Speaker
And at the same time, if farmers aren't part of this conversation, tech companies are gonna define how it gets yeah gets used on our land, in our waters and in our businesses. And for me, I personally believe that the people who care most about the earth should be the should not be the last ones at the table.
00:30:54
Speaker
We should be the first. Can you imagine walking into your town hall and talking about water rights? If you lived in Hood River and your town hall had a conversation about water rights, you might have really strong feelings. If you raised your hand, though, and you hadn't read that bill and you didn't know how the data centers actually use water, everyone in that room is going to be able to tell that you didn't do your homework.
00:31:20
Speaker
And nothing will change because they will know that what you're saying does not come from knowledge. Or imagine if you're a parent and your school announces that the curriculum is changing next year and you have really strong opinions about how the math should be taught, but you haven't looked at your kids' homework for six months.
00:31:41
Speaker
If you are that parent and you show up at that board meeting and you want to make change, that conversation isn't going to land anywhere if you don't have knowledge about what's being proposed.
00:31:53
Speaker
Or if you're a farmer and you go to another farm and you tell someone, or maybe you post on social media, oh, make your dahlias grow better with more nitrogen, but you haven't actually tested their soil, you don't know what their soil needs, it's hard to actually make a difference.
00:32:11
Speaker
That might not be the root cause of why someone's flowers aren't growing well. So These examples, I hope, are also reminding you what it's like if you want advocate for or against AI if you've never used it.
00:32:26
Speaker
But here's the thing also, and it's okay. You don't have to fully understand AI because not even the people who are building it fully understand it. Sam Altman has said that they don't even know.
00:32:40
Speaker
Sam Altman is one of the founders of OpenAI, ChatGPT. He has said openly, they don't even know how AI is going to play out.
00:32:50
Speaker
So if those that are creating this technology don't even fully understand it, we don't have to be expected to fully understand it to be part of the conversation. But if you understand how it works, how you can use it, you can be better engaged in the conversation.
00:33:07
Speaker
So what I want for you is agency, not someone else deciding for you. And here's another thing that I've really been wrestling with with AI, and that is that job displacement is real.
00:33:20
Speaker
For some of you who are listening right now, I know you have lost your job to AI. And I really want to acknowledge that directly because it's no longer hypothetical. I have heard from some of you who have been displaced from work because of AI.
00:33:36
Speaker
It's not a future problem. This is already happening to people in your own community. And as I've been learning more about AI this year, i have watched it do things in a matter of minutes that I used to pay a human to do.
00:33:50
Speaker
And that's not a small thing either. If you can get work done for $20 a month that used to cost you $50 an hour, that is going to shift who gets hired and who doesn't.
00:34:02
Speaker
And I'm not pretending that that's only a good thing. But I also have to ask, what about that flower farmer who's listening right now who might be making $40,000 a year or less on a small piece of land, who's working themselves to the bone to keep their farm alive? Should they feel guilty about using a $20 tool to save their body or their family's time?
00:34:26
Speaker
These are conversations that I don't have an answer to. And I know our industry really hasn't had these conversations, but I think we need to have them. I also want to name something else that's a lot harder to talk about.
00:34:40
Speaker
And that is these data centers, these AI tools, they were trained on things that were taken from writers, photographers, and creators without their permission.
00:34:52
Speaker
And that includes work from people who look a lot like people in our audience, maybe those listening, some of you listening today. And I've thought about all of this and I don't have a clean answer.
00:35:05
Speaker
And what I can tell you is that I use these tools knowing that their origins are not perfect. And I don't pretend that's nothing. But I also think that two things can be true at once.
00:35:18
Speaker
I think it can be important for us to have a seat at the table, to be involved in this discussion, and to also be concerned about what the impacts are.
00:35:30
Speaker
So for my own use, I want to talk about some of the things that I have personally done. One of the things that I have personally chosen to do is I have trained AI in my voice, in my writing, my way of talking.
00:35:44
Speaker
I've shared only my own data with it. So I'm not trying to sound like someone else. I don't want to take anything from anyone else. So that way, if i work with AI to draft an email,
00:35:55
Speaker
It is my voice, my story, and it's only writing in my voice. It's not coming out with a version of something that has been stolen from someone else.
00:36:07
Speaker
And I know that's not a perfect answer to the training question, but it is my attempt to keep my contribution to AI pointed at myself and not taking information or someone else's skills.
00:36:20
Speaker
I'd rather add a real human voice into these tools than be a person drawing from a well that I didn't fill.
00:36:29
Speaker
When I read through rei's Reese Witherspoon's comments on that Instagram Reel, the loudest critiques was not about selling out, although there were a lot of those also.
00:36:40
Speaker
The loudest comments were about the environment. And honestly, that critique deserves to be loud. I struggle with this all the time. I live in Hood River, as most of you know. The town one over, so 20 miles east of us, is called the Dalles, Oregon. If you don't know, Google has some very large data centers there. And after I shared about these data centers a while back on my social media, so many of you reached out and said there were data centers popping up where you are. There's lots of farms that are losing farmland to these data centers.
00:37:15
Speaker
Right now in the Dalles, Oregon, 40% of their water is being used up by Google. There's a bill in the House and or excuse me, in the Senate right now. It's called H.R. 655. It's the Dalles Watershed Development Act.
00:37:31
Speaker
If it passes or excuse me, it passed the House of Representatives in December. It's currently sitting in the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee. If it passes, it will give 150 acres of Mount Hood National Forest to the Dalles so they can triple their reservoir.
00:37:50
Speaker
That water that they would be tripling their reservoir comes from the Dog River. You probably haven't heard of the Dog River, but Dog River runs off of Mount Hood and Dog River Running off of Mount Hood is the same water that eventually flows to feed my farm.
00:38:08
Speaker
It also directly affects the salmon and steelhead that swim upstream from the bottom of our property and the fish whose habitat are being endangered right now.
00:38:20
Speaker
All of this are threats and real dangers to these data centers. So AI is moving fast. There are certainly ethical and environmental considerations to ask.
00:38:34
Speaker
And I wrestle with all of this, you guys. I build my own compost. We are learning from our soil agronomist how to build compost. I put organic amendments in my soil. I am looking at my soil with a soil analysis every year. i care about the earth.
00:38:50
Speaker
And I'm using a tool every day in my business, AI, whose infrastructure is putting pressure on the water that grows my flowers and shelters the fish that swim upstream.
00:39:04
Speaker
And that's a contradiction that's not comfortable. And I live it every day. I'm sharing this because I want to name something. Some of you are listening to this and you're going to decide not to use AI at all because of the environmental cost.
00:39:19
Speaker
And that is a legitimate choice. It's a choice that I deeply respect. Boycotting is also a form of advocacy. The farmer who says, i won't use this until it's sustainable, is doing something real.
00:39:34
Speaker
My choice to engage is not any better. It's just different. So two things can be true at once. If you're wanting me to tell you that I figured out the climate math or the ethics or the employment parts, I definitely have not.
00:39:49
Speaker
But I've also come to believe that these two things can be true at the same time. AI can give small farmers time back and the data centers that power it can be threatening to our watersheds and our farmlands.
00:40:03
Speaker
AI can help me serve my customers better and it can be trained on work taken from creators without their consent. I choose to use AI and respect farmers who choose not to.
00:40:18
Speaker
I am hopeful and I believe that something beautiful can come from this, and I know that something harmful can also come from this at the exact same time if we're not careful. Two things can be true in each of these, and that's the honest complexity of the moment we are all at right now.
00:40:38
Speaker
I have made the decision that I don't want to sit this out. I want to keep learning. I want to stay curious. I'm going to ask questions and I will continue to stay honest about what I don't know.
00:40:49
Speaker
The thing is, this is happening right now, not in a decade. One of the best metaphors I've heard is that of a toddler. I recently heard someone say that AI right now is like a toddler learning to run.
00:41:01
Speaker
If you are a parent and you've had kids, if your kid was learning to run and they fall down, you don't get mad at them and say, why can't you run better? You cheer them on, you get excited.
00:41:12
Speaker
Right now, AI is that toddler that is trying to learn how to run. And you know, honestly, from the time that I heard that, AI could be a six-year-old child right now. It is changing that fast.
00:41:26
Speaker
But here's the thing. We are judging a tool that's in its infancy stage. Sam Altman, who I mentioned just a few minutes ago, runs one of the biggest AI companies in the world.
00:41:39
Speaker
He himself has said that there are multiple ways that agentic AI, will play out. And none of us know which one is coming. If the people who are building AI don't know how this ends, I'm not going to pretend that I do either. um But I also can't pretend that it's still a baby because it's not. It's moving fast.
00:41:59
Speaker
In March, I I'm pretty sure lost that while when I heard that. thought, no way. And then if you were watching the news this week, perhaps you saw that in China, a robot ran a house marathon faster than any human has ever run.
00:42:10
Speaker
In Japan, the same time, Twitter built a robot that plays basketball. And want to be careful here with what I'm about to say. But what you see in the news from China and Japan, these humanoid robots running and playing basketball. And these are physical robots and way bigger, but they're still early in development.
00:42:24
Speaker
And think things are changing fast, is what want to say. I so not sure that going to to be a while, I think, before robots can replace us.
00:42:35
Speaker
But I do think we need to know we need to aware of what's happening the world and in some of these industries. And that's I went to teach workshop on 2nd that is going be different from what to teach you how to use that can on laptop and help you simplify your work, the administrative side, your emails, your calendars, spreadsheets.
00:42:50
Speaker
There's so different technologies AI right now. And all of them are moving fast at the same time. And that's just the reality of where we are right now. I keep hearing, and maybe you've heard too, that there's this 12 to 18 month window for the agentic leap. You have 12 to 18 months to really learn how this works that don't get left behind. And might be rolling your eyes right now saying, Jen, I'm not going to get left behind. I don't need to use this. But I think that the knowledge going to get wider. I'm already seeing it happen with what people are doing using AI and then those that not using AI.
00:43:11
Speaker
year ago, I used AI answer questions for me. ask a question. They would give me ideas. And I would edit. Today, it actually schedules for me. It runs things. It takes actions on my behalf without me having to do every step of the process.
00:43:27
Speaker
And honestly, that's what the difference is between a calculator and having an assistant. It's the difference between using a tool and having an agent that's working in your business.
00:43:38
Speaker
That shift has happened in less than 12 months. So much has changed in the last six weeks and AI. It's hard to believe. And as if if this rate holds steady, those who start to learn AI today will be so much further ahead come fall.
00:43:57
Speaker
You will be waking up in the morning with your emails ready to answer, your calendar laid out for the day. You will have that time back to be in your field, to spend that extra time walking your dogs in the morning, or maybe finding time to read a book or just relax. i mean, what farmer doesn't need a few hours or a few moments or an extra 20 minutes in your day to stretch after a long day in the field?
00:44:28
Speaker
The farmers who wait, though, for more than a year to get started on this will be starting from scratch on technology that has already moved really fast.
00:44:39
Speaker
And that's what I'm trying to hint at on this 12 to 8 month window. It's a curve that is constantly shifting. And even those at the top of this technology don't truly know how fast it's going to move.
00:44:55
Speaker
And what it feels like, ah Hood River sits between these two canyons and er it's not really a canyon, but there's the hills between us. And I kind of look at it as there's this valley and those that don't learn how to use AI are going to be sitting in that valley while people are climbing to the top of those peaks so fast. And I'm not saying jump on that rocket ship, but I'm saying maybe it's time to start pedaling that bicycle so that you can be part of the conversation.
00:45:26
Speaker
And those canyons are going to keep growing. Those hillsides, they're going to keep getting taller and it's going to be harder to catch up. And I say this gently because you also hear on the news right now that farmers in this country are struggling to survive.
00:45:45
Speaker
Most flower farmers I know are not as impacted by everything that's happening in the Middle East right now, but I watch orchardists in my town whose fertilizer costs are skyrocketing. Their diesel costs to run their tractors are up by 40%.
00:46:02
Speaker
There's farmers that are already worried about surviving in this economy, and I don't want the AI technology gap to be something else that makes farmers not able to join in in this conversation.
00:46:16
Speaker
The thing is, is that the businesses, the small businesses that learn to save four or five or maybe even eight 10 hours a week Those people, if they're saving eight 10 hours a week, are getting the equivalent of two and a half months of working time back every year.
00:46:34
Speaker
And maybe maybe that you won't get that far, but imagine having an extra hour back in your day that you don't have to spend drafting so many emails or organizing your spreadsheets. That gives you time back in the dirt. Maybe it's time back with your kids. Maybe it's time to grow that vegetable garden that you had to neglect so that you could grow your flower farm. Or maybe it's time to make yourself a bouquet that sits on your table. You know that saying the cobbler's kids have no shoes. I feel like my family rarely has flowers in our house in the summer because there's no time. so
00:47:13
Speaker
Maybe this is a tool that can get you back in the dirt, give you more time. I'm not saying replace your job by any means, but I'm saying maybe it gives you two or three hours back a day, or maybe it's an hour a day that you're not sitting behind the computer because who signed up to be a flower farmer and sit behind a computer?
00:47:33
Speaker
Or maybe it's time for self-care. Maybe you actually get a little bit of breathing room.
00:47:40
Speaker
So I know this was a long episode. I'm not here today to tell you whether or not you should use AI. That is a choice and a decision that is yours and yours alone to make.
00:47:51
Speaker
What I would love to do is to show you what I've learned and how I use the tools so that you have enough understanding to make the call that feels like it's your decision.
00:48:03
Speaker
I've spent the last year learning I've paid to be in masterminds with people who are building the systems that I'm talking about. I've had the chance to test the tools that serve our industry.
00:48:14
Speaker
And I've been very thoughtful and very careful with the tools that I've chosen to use and what I'm not using. I'm not wasting time on using or making cinematic videos. I'm not making fake images.
00:48:28
Speaker
That's not what a flower farmer needs. I'm focusing on what actually saves me time for my business.
00:48:36
Speaker
I've made mistakes in using ai and I've got caught up in the noise. And I want to show you how you can build AI tools that get you back in the dirt, that free up your time without having to make some of the mistakes that I've done. i want to show you the systems and the tools that I'm using. There's so much hype right now on social media. I'm not promising that I'm going to teach you how to make 100 agents. But I'm going to show you how you can use AI to analyze your data, how to free up your time and make it sound like you so that you don't sound like everyone else who's posting on AI.
00:49:17
Speaker
I want to give you the tools to understand and decide how you want to use this in your business. So on May 2nd at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, I'm teaching AI that gets you back in the dirt.
00:49:30
Speaker
I'm going to give you five tools that I use over the course of two hours. This is going to be an interactive workshop. We're going to do live demos using a real flower farming business.
00:49:41
Speaker
I'm not going to talk the AI tech jargon. I'm not going to help you build a rocket ship. I'm going to be a farmer who is showing other farmers how to get your time back in the dirt and using less administrative time.
00:49:55
Speaker
So if you're brand new to AI or maybe you're already using AI every day, this workshop that I'm hosting is going to show you what I've specifically chosen to use for my business and why. You're going to leave with the pieces that I've tested on my farm that have been filtered out from a year of going through and sorting through the noise.
Fostering Community and Feedback
00:50:16
Speaker
This workshop is two hours. It's $47 to attend live. You get a quick start guide that will get you set up with ai or I have a VIP option for $97 that will give you lifetime replay.
00:50:29
Speaker
And you will also get a Flower Farmers AI prompt vault that will give you 50 prompts that are written for Flower Farmers. And I will also give you my voice profile builder so you can teach your AI to sound like you and not everyone else on the internet.
00:50:46
Speaker
If you're a Dahlia Growers Collective member, you are already in. This is part of the collective, a training that I'm teaching that I'm choosing to open up to all flower farmers, all gardeners, because I think this is so important. And I think that our industry needs to be a part of this conversation and we need to understand what's happening.
00:51:07
Speaker
So whether you decide to use AI or not, please know I'm not trying to sway you one way or the other. Using it is a decision that you alone have to make. And I respect whatever option you choose.
00:51:20
Speaker
What I do believe very strongly is that this is a conversation our industry needs to have. We need to have a voice at the table so that we can be part of it.
00:51:30
Speaker
And if you want to have a voice regarding technology, how AI is changing, then you have to understand what we're talking about. And that's what I want for you today. For everyone listening, if you're still here, thank you for being on here and for taking the time to think about this.
00:51:48
Speaker
to really ponder where can AI help you in your business? Is this something that you want to use? Does it make sense in your business? And if you're going to use it, what are the parameters?
00:52:01
Speaker
what is What is a hard yes? What is a hard no for you? and if you decide that you want to learn more about AI, if this has opened a door and you're curious, I would love for you to join me on May 2nd. I'll leave a link in the show notes so you can register.
00:52:18
Speaker
I appreciate you. Thank you all for sitting through listening to me talk for almost an hour here. This was something that I've been wanting to share for quite a while now.
00:52:29
Speaker
And I've honestly just been nervous to share it because this conversation isn't happening in our industry yet. So if you have any thoughts about this episode, please be kind. This is a human that is recording this episode. I'm not AI. um So I have real human feelings, but I would love to know your thoughts on this issue and this thing that is changing our global world so quickly. So if you want to send me an email, reach out on social media, i would love to have you be a part of this conversation.
00:53:01
Speaker
And just remember that if you want to be part of it, if you want to understand it, if you want to have a say in shaping the future, you need to understand how it works. So i am so grateful for each of you.
00:53:15
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode. And I look forward to continuing this conversation with those of you who are curious. So I hope you stay curious and And I hope you find time to get your hands back in the dirt and spend less time with the administrative work.
00:53:32
Speaker
All right. Thanks, flower friends. I'll see you next time.
00:53:37
Speaker
Thank you, flower friends, for joining us on another episode of the Backyard Bouquet. i hope you've enjoyed the inspiring stories and valuable gardening insights we've shared today. Whether you're cultivating your own backyard blooms or supporting your local flower farmer, you're contributing to the local flower movement.
00:53:56
Speaker
And we're so happy to have you growing with us. If you'd like to stay connected and continue this blossoming journey with local flowers, don't forget to subscribe to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. I'd be so grateful if you would take a moment to leave us a review of this episode.
00:54:12
Speaker
And finally, please share this episode with your garden friends. Until next time, keep growing, keep blooming, and remember that every bouquet starts right here in the backyard.