Farm data has become a commodity, it has value. In one aspect, data is much like most things farmers produce: once it leaves the farm, it's rare for a farmer to control how it is processed and ultimately what's served up to the consumer.
Most data is created through software programs that are purchased or come with products, and can include production, sensor, soil, climate, environment and data from monitors, machinery, and other tools.
Data holds value for many entities other than the farmers themselves. One farmer's data on its own holds little value for anyone else, however aggregating many farmers' data can create significant value through providing a full picture of an industry or being used to train algorithms.
Farmers see the benefits of their data being aggregated and used in ways such as forming a better understanding of the impact of their farming practices, offering solutions or 'prescriptions', helping build smarter machinery more suitable for their needs, and guiding artificial intelligence and autonomy. When data is shared with service providers, it can inform improvements to systems, resulting in better outcomes for farmers.
At the same time, terms and conditions re data sharing can be long, complex and difficult to read and farmers may not be fully aware of how and for what purpose their data is being used.
Data protection
In 2017, the CRDC-led Accelerating Precision to Decision Agriculture (P2D) project identified that trust in sharing data was a barrier to the uptake of digital technology. Just over half of farmers were found to have no trust or little trust in service/technology providers maintaining their data privacy.
As a result, the National Farmers' Federation (NFF) Farm Data Code was created. The Code aims to promote adoption of digital technology by ensuring that farmers have comfort in how their data is used, managed, and shared. It was developed by the NFF Farm Data Working Group which brought together farmers, researchers, industry experts and technology providers, and included CRDC General Manager of Innovation, Dr Meredith Conaty.
"The Farm Data Code emerged from the CRDC-led P2D program and aims to inform the data management policies of product and service providers who manage data on behalf of farmers - and provide a yardstick by which farmers can evaluate the terms and policies they encounter when it comes to data sharing," Merry said.
"Accreditation under the Code shows that they've taken the concerns of farmers seriously which creates unity in the industry."
The principles of the Code are transparency, fairness, control, portability, security and compliance. The major benefits to farmers are:
increased awareness and understanding of the ways in which providers are collecting, using, and sharing their farm data;
a framework to compare providers and inform negotiations about data terms and policies; and
improvements to industry-wide data practices over time.
Code creates security
NFF Data Policy Manager Gabi Ceregra says that data should be shared for the betterment of agriculture. It helps farmers make better decisions, and in the artificial intelligence (AI) world, make decisions for them. The issue she says, is how can farmers' data be shared securely and safely so they and the broader industry can benefit from it?
"The NFF Farm Data Code is a code of conduct on how farm data should be managed to protect farmers and stay in control of it," Gabi said.
"Farmers can be sure certified providers comply with the Code, and it simplifies terms and conditions, which can be complicated and written in legalese.
"The ACCC says it would take the average user nearly 46 hours a month to read every privacy policy they encountered in full."
The Code is a voluntary code of conduct, and all product and service providers who manage farm data on behalf of farmers, either directly or further down the supply chain, are encouraged to comply with the Code's principles.
"Farm data is very valuable and it should be shared for the benefit of farmers and the industry," she says.
"The technology you have available in the cotton industry is immense and sophisticated: predicting yield, when to irrigate using sensors and phones and so on. The data growers produce is already being collected and used.
"Agricultural industries should be sharing because you need to import data in to get useful information but it also creates aggregate data sets where other farmers can get benefit.
"In terms of AI - if you're not contributing to AI systems, you are not being represented which is not ideal for agriculture."
Accelerating a digital future
In 2016, CRDC led the Accelerating Precision to Decision Agriculture project (P2D). P2D brought together all 15 Research and Development Corporations (RDCs) through the Rural R&D for Profit program to evaluate the current and desired state of digital agriculture in Australia. CRDC is now implementing recommendations from P2D and the subsequent Growing a Digital Future project reports which provide a comprehensive and coherent framework for the digital innovation of Australian agriculture.
A key finding of P2D was that the full implementation of digital agriculture in Australia would boost the gross value of agricultural production (GVP), including forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, by 25 per cent, or $20.3 billion compared to 2014-15. The overall potential increase in national gross domestic product (GDP), including the flow-on effect to other parts of the Australian economy, was estimated to be $24.6 billion. For the cotton industry that translated to an estimated GVP increase of $394 million, and a $692 million benefit to the wider economy.
Recommendations from P2D focused on ensuring Australian primary producers are able to overcome the challenges limiting digital agriculture and profit from their data, and the need to facilitate the development of digital technology.
Other key recommendations were fostering the establishment of appropriate legal frameworks, data systems and access to critical datasets; and identifying the data communications systems required to deliver the benefits of digital agriculture to the Australia farm and agribusiness sectors.
Trust and legal barriers
P2D found that legal and regulatory frameworks around agriculture data were piecemeal and ad hoc. Fifty-six per cent of producers surveyed as part of the project had no trust or little trust in service/technology providers maintaining their data privacy. It recommended a voluntary data management code of practice and a data management certification or accreditation scheme be developed to provide quality assurance of Australian agricultural data. This has been realised through the NFF Farm Data Code and Accreditation system.
The report also recommended that each RDC develop a digital agriculture strategy, which the cotton industry has acted on. Over the past four years, a cross-sectoral group of cotton industry bodies, growers, gins, merchants, classers and researchers have been meeting to develop cotton's digital strategy. Its purpose is to prepare Australian cotton for a digital future and enable the industry to share, coordinate and use the mountains of data it creates in more meaningful ways (read the full story in Spotlight Spring 2024).
Data analysis and decision support
CRDC is also working on the development of an industry data platform on the back of the recommendations, which found there is a need for a platform for owners and users of agricultural data to exchange, market and value add data for a variety of end purposes. That's because fully-enabled decision agriculture require models and analytics with the ability to transform data into insights applicable to decision-making.
This includes availability of appropriate data. The P2D report says the whole agriculture value chain - irrespective of industry sector - could gain from improved access and interoperability of stored data through the sharing of datasets that are valuable across the rural sector.
The cotton industry data platform will aggregate, store, analyse and communicate data back to the industry and beyond. The development of this data platform is a key element of CRDC's Strategic RD&E Plan, Clever Cotton, and its data-driven decisions theme.
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2024-25 edition of CRDC's Spotlight magazine. You can read this edition online here, and subscribe for future editions here.
