Improving Farm Bank Resilience via AI-based Livestock Risk Monitoring Tools

Agricultural lending is the backbone of rural economies, yet today's methods for verifying cattle herds (the collateral behind billions of dollars in loans) are outdated, costly, and prone to error or fraud. Lenders often rely on in-person inspections, which require long-distance travel, 'eyeballing' headcounts, and come with biosecurity risks from visiting multiple ranches. This creates high costs for banks and producers alike, while leaving financial institutions vulnerable to fraud estimated in the billions annually. The consequences extend beyond lenders and producers: weakened rural banks affect community stability, limit access to affordable credit, and reduce the resilience of America's food and agricultural systems. Finding a more reliable, scalable, and cost-effective way to verify cattle inventories is therefore both an economic and community imperative.This project will explore how high-resolution satellite imagery, combined with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models, can be used to remotely identify cattle on pastures and feedyards while also measuring pasture health - providing a dual-use benefit from a single image. By combining cattle counts with pasture condition indicators, the project will generate digital reports that are georeferenced, time-stamped, and tamper-proof, designed to meet the strict requirements of regulators and lenders. These methods replace costly on-the-ground inspections with a tool that can be scaled to thousands of operations in a way that is safer, faster, and more affordable.If successful, this research will deliver significant benefits not only to agricultural lenders and producers, but also to rural communities and the broader public. Banks will reduce losses and compliance costs, allowing them to extend more credit at lower risk. Producers will gain access to more affordable financing, particularly small and beginning ranchers who are most affected by high inspection costs. Regulators will have stronger safeguards against fraud, improving the stability of agricultural finance.In short, this project combines cutting-edge technology with a practical financial application that strengthens rural economies, protects taxpayers, and supports the long-term health of America's food system.