What industry would not want to boost production value by up to 25 per cent?
Key points:
- Some farmers worry their personal and commercial data is being collected and exploited
- Experts say it is not clear if ag giants, like John Deere, are sharing data with affiliates
- It comes amid the launch of ag “data highway”, the Australian Agrifood Data Exchange
That is the future promised by big “tech ag” — one where extensive data is gathered on every aspect of the supply chain — from paddock to plate.
But some farmers already have reservations about who has their personal and commercial information and who is profiting from it.
West Australian grain grower and agronomist Doug Smith described it as farming the farmer.
Regulating agriculture data
Governments have threatened to regulate social media and Doug Smith — who is also the chairman of commodity trading company WA Grains — said they should do the same with digital technology in agriculture.
Harvesters, drones, sensors and automated livestock systems collect vast farm data, from production to location.
Mr Smith is worried the information is shared with companies involved in anything from finance to fertiliser.
“You know it’s tremendously valuable, and they’re exceptionally good at extracting maximum value out of everything they do,” he said.
He singled out the mega manufacturer, John Deere, pointing to its policy stating it may share data with affiliates.
John Deere declined an interview but has denied monetising customer data.
Privacy laws
Agricultural intellectual property expert Leanne Wiseman said it was not clear.
The Griffith University professor said privacy laws only protect farmers’ personal details, not their farm data.
“When we are thinking about agronomic or productivity data, that’s not protected by privacy law,” said Professor Wiseman.
Last year cyber hackers claimed machinery giant John Deere’s database had details on equipment owners worldwide.
John Deere has since announced a partnership with ethical hackers.
The burgeoning Australian Agritech Association told the ABC it did not condone data harvesting without farmers’ permission.
Data harvesting
One business acknowledging it sells farm information to insurers and banks is the CSIRO’s private partner, Digital Agriculture Services.
But a spokesperson told the ABC its farm productivity forecasts were based on publicly available data.
It comes as a new era in agricultural data-sharing quietly gets underway, with the Australian Agrifood Data Exchange.
“To me, it’s a nation-building project,” former federal minister for trade and investment Andrew Robb said.
He likened the exchange to a data highway for agriculture.
The exchange is an initiative of KPMG and Integrity Systems, the livestock identification company owned by Meat and Livestock Australia.
It is designed to improve information sharing.
“For example, the European community is looking to put a tariff on emissions of products,” Mr Robb said.
Mr Robb said companies involved with the data exchange must comply with a code of conduct developed in conjunction with the National Farmers’ Federation.
Farmer Doug Smith at Pingrup was sceptical.
“I’ve got a bit of a love-hate relationship with codes of conduct. They’re sometimes not worth the paper they’re written on,” he said.
The federal government has not yet committed to expanding consumer data laws into agriculture.
Regardless, Victorian sheep farmer and open data advocate Tim Leeming welcomed the Australian Agrifood Data Exchange.
Watch this story on ABC TV’s Landline at 12:30pm on Sunday, or on iview.
