It’s your data – claim it now, farmers are told
If the farming industry is to capitalise on the true value of the huge amounts of data which can be captured by modern technologies it has to avoid signing away ownership of such information – or hiding it under a bushel.
And with the industry wakening up to to the fact that much of this asset is being harvested by large corporations rather than adding value to the industry, finding a means of retaining both the benefits and value was the topic at a major conference organised by at the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS) yesterday.
Texan cotton famer and tech business entrepreneur Billy Tiller, who founded a data co-operative in the States, set the scene by stating that farmers could remain a pawn in someone else’s chess game – or “gain the keys to the castle” by adopting a collaborative approach.
SAOS project manager George Noble explained that while the data from one farm or business could be immensely useful in addressing particular issues, to harness the full power, a collaborative approach which amassed data from a large number of sources was required: “Adopting a cooperative approach to collecting such data will allow advanced analytics to be applied to that data and provide actionable insights which will help improve decision-making – and in turn profitability.”
He said that an example would be the ability of an arable focused data co-op to offer aggregated information on efficiency and yields of different seeds, fertilisers and pesticides in different soil types and geographies which would help farmers make the right planting and buying decision.
And he added that while such a data co-op would benefit farmers directly, it would also have the potential to improve entire supply chains – and, crucially, increase the influence and value of primary producers in these chains.
The organisation’s chief executive Tim Bailey said that SAOS was ideally placed as the “trusted partner” to make the power of big data work for the industry. The society had already set up a number of data-led projects for the industry – including SCOTEID, the livestock database which had delivered sheep traceability and provided the data for the BVD eradication policy and the beef efficiency scheme.
And, unlike many commercial and government organisations, ownership of all the data remained with the industry – and could be utilised to the benefits of farming. “At a time of such change, the ability to collect and analyse such data could be taken to both government and the public to offer meaningful solutions to what might seem to be intractable problems.”