Hey that’s my data, say farmers
Companies coming under fire for ‘‘circling the wagon’’ and taking ownership of farm data are being told to back off by farmers.
Farmers are letting companies know that they own and control data which is expected to become more valuable as more sensors go into farms.
The ring-fencing of farming data is among challenges farmers are facing as they realise they need to make better use of agritechnology to grow more profitable farms.
In the United States major agricompanies have been pulled up for gathering data and selling services without compensation and the first farmers are now being paid for their agri-data.
Farming data ownership was raised at a smart farm and innovation seminar at the ASB Innovation Zone during the Central District Field Days at Feilding.
The panel led by ASB agricapital head Kevin Cooney included Massey University Professor Ian Yule, Manawaturangitikei Federated Farmers president James Stewart, My Farm Investments’ Andrew Watters, Abacus Bio’s Jude Sise and Spark Ventures’ Patrick Verryt.
Cooney said farming innovation was more than synthetic meat or vertical farming and was an extension of well established ‘‘whiz-bang’’ technology and cloud based tools, albeit fragmented across the country.
He asked the speakers who should have ownership of farm data and if this created problems bundling it to make better systems for farmers.
Verryt said data ownership was one of the biggest challenges and the golden rule was that data must remain with farmers.
‘‘Sovereignty is with the farmer and he who places the sensor owns the data.
‘‘Sovereignty for data is critical.’’
Yule said companies had wanted to ‘‘circle the wagons’’ to control data.
His feeling was that these days were gone as farmers wanted to own the data, but some companies would struggle with that concept and universities were at times struggling to access data to do research.
Stewart said a new generation of farmers was coming on farms and willing to work with data.
Farmers would need technology to attract and retain them.
They did not want data overload, but some apps such as the Fonterra app and his bank app were extremely useful, he said.
Farmers were also wary of technology becoming a regulatory tool after Overseer had been used for estimating nutrient losses.
Yule said farmers needed to ‘‘graze’’ the internet themselves to choose the right app or technical direction for their own farm as science was changing rapidly and properties and their farming systems often varied widely.