Certified seed producers are using AI to reduce paperwork, enhance decision-making, and make better use of their time.
When most people in the seed industry think of artificial intelligence, they think of breeding pipelines, genomic selection, or trait discovery.
Rachel Sharp uses AI in her certified seed operations to decide where to send her soybeans.
At her family’s multigenerational farm in Allendale, South Carolina, Sharp uses AI to make real-time decisions about logistics, record-keeping, and certified seed management. These business areas are rarely featured in broader AI conversations.
“You don’t have to guess whether it’s more profitable for you to go to the port of Newberry, Monetta or Charleston,” Sharp said. “It will tell you the best option based on price.”
The shift from intuition to instant analysis is going from interesting to essential in her business operations.
Mr. Sharp came from a farming background and did not return to the farm. After studying English with an emphasis on Shakespeare and earning a law degree at the University of Georgia, she decided that wasn’t how she wanted to spend her days. What started as a bookkeeping help quickly turned into ordering parts, managing input, and eventually becoming a partner with his father at Sharp & Sharp Certified Seed.
Now, she is also leading one of the unexpected transformations on the farm: integrating AI into nearly every layer of operations.
From clipboard to real-time recording
The production of certified seeds is data-driven. Germination rates, lot numbers, field history, compliance documentation, etc. all need to be tracked, verified, and ready for production.
Sharp previously managed much of this through spreadsheets and paperwork. Now, she is speaking these words into her cell phone while standing at the scene.
“I say, ‘Please record that on May 11, 2026, I am planting peanuts in the field behind my house,'” she explains. “And when it comes time to submit my 578 to FSA…it shows the farm number, truck number, field number, and when it was planted. What used to take hours…is already done.”
This change is not just about convenience. It’s about eliminating friction in systems that require precision.
“Everything I used to record on paper or in Excel documents, I now have a record of,” she says.
This includes tracking certified seed lots, monitoring germination results, and even organizing on-site storage.
“Since this is the germ, it will tell you that this is the lot number that you need to plant, or it will remind you to take another sample to the seed lab,” Sharp says.
In businesses where traceability is non-negotiable, AI is becoming the backbone of operations.
Sharper decision making
Beyond record-keeping, Sharp is leveraging AI to guide decisions that directly impact profitability.
Take the guesswork out of where to move your grain by entering transportation costs, elevator prices, and shipping options.
“I’m not sitting there asking where to take me,” she says. “It tells us where we need to go.”
She also bases her crop rotation plans on historical farm data, with records dating back nearly 10 years.
“Once you enter all your data from 2015, you get a list that explains where the data needs to go and why,” she says. “We don’t always follow this method, but it’s true 95 to 96 percent of the time.”
Technology doesn’t replace her judgment, but it fine-tunes it.
go back to what’s important
For Sharp, the most meaningful impact of AI isn’t just about increasing revenue or reducing costs. It’s time.
“It frees up my time, so at the end of the day I don’t have to sit in an office and go out and do dirty paperwork,” she says. “It frees up time to be human.”
That’s even more important now that her first child is due later this year.
On the farm, the benefits are small but visible. If your equipment needs repair, you can upload your manual and get an immediate answer.
“That computer can’t turn a wrench,” she says. “But you know which one to use.”
When OpenAI calls
Although Sharp’s use of AI was for personal business, she wanted to pass on that knowledge, but she didn’t expect the leadership of OpenAI ChatGPT to recognize it.
After briefly mentioning her approach on Clemson’s AgTech forum, she got an unexpected phone call a few months later. At first I ignored it as spam.
“Six months went by and I got a call…and they said OpenAI, there was a risk of spam,” she recalls.
She declined the call, but then realized it was real.
Within a week, a film crew arrived at her farm. They spent days documenting how she uses AI in her certified seed operations. The resulting video was played during major broadcasts, including the Super Bowl, and highlighted her farm as part of a broader effort to showcase how small businesses are leveraging AI.
This exposure led to more opportunities, including speaking engagements and a trip to New York where he met Oprah Winfrey at an event focused on AI and small business.
what happens next
Sharp isn’t done experimenting.
She is exploring ways to connect AI to irrigation systems to improve water use efficiency and is leveraging AI to help plan infrastructure upgrades across the farm.
“I use it as a kind of architectural friend,” she says. “(I ask) is it better to go this way or that way? And it will tell you why.”
There are still limits. Integrating data from equipment platforms remains a challenge, and she believes there is room for improvement in mapping and system compatibility.
Still, she says AI is more than just a tool for labs and breeding programs. On farms like hers, that’s what drives day-to-day decisions.
And with certified seeds where accuracy, documentation, and timing are critical, that migration could be one of the most practical applications ever.
