FarmSmart is founded in an LSU classroom
A class project in LSU's first LLM course becomes FarmSmart: an AI agricultural consultant that answers with citations to the research.
FarmSmart began in the fall of 2023 as a class project in LSU's first course on building applications with large language models: HNRS 3035, Large Language Model Development and Deployment for Real-World Applications, taught by LSU Provost Roy Haggerty with James Ghawaly and Henry Hays.
Raby’s team (Cody Flurry, Jackson Joyce, Grant Muslow and Raby) took on herbicide management. The problem was hiding in plain sight: the LSU AgCenter updates a 500-plus-page manual of farming best practices every year, alongside thousands of research articles, and finding the right advice in it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. FarmSmart AI read all of it, so a farmer could ask about the weeds in a field and get a personalized plan back, with citations to the research.
The team introduced FarmSmart AI on Dec. 5, 2023, at LSU's first AI Showcase. "With all of the phenomenal research LSU does to produce quality information for those who grow our food," Raby wrote that week, the goal was "to turn agricultural information into accessible farming intelligence and ensure that everyone can FarmSmart."
The next spring, Raby, Muslow and Julius Pallotta took it to the J. Terrell Brown Venture Challenge and won. The company would later be renamed FarmSmarter, and then FarmMind.Same company, three names: FarmSmart, then FarmSmarter, and since late 2025, FarmMind.
