5 Questions to Ask Your Partners About Your Ag Data
We’ve seen tremendous innovation in agriculture in recent decades, and today, the greatest advances are coming from data insights. To make sure this progress continues, digital farming innovators need to focus equally on technology and trust.
Data is enabling new innovations and improved processes across the ag industry. Plant breeders use it to develop the newest, best-performing seed hybrids and varieties. Researchers use it to test the performance of potential new solutions. The supply chain is better-informed by data to help ensure the right products are produced and provided at the right time.
But it’s on the farm where some of the most important data-fueled advances are happening. The ability of digital platforms to easily and automatically collect information, provide analysis, and deliver insights is helping farmers to make more-informed decisions at every step of every season – and that can result in bigger harvests, increased efficiency and sustainability, and hopefully enhanced profitability.
The value of these advances throughout the industry is unquestionable, but they also raise some new questions for farmers. After all, it’s their aggregated business information from which these insights are built. There is tremendous value in this information and the resulting insights. Farmers have every right to ensure it is used appropriately, and only in ways they acknowledge and approve.
At The Climate Corporation, we’ve always taken this obligation to heart. Our policies are designed to lead the industry, clearly establishing that farmers own their information and are in full control over how it is used. But we also know this industry is relatively new and fast-moving, and that we and others in it must work every day to earn farmers’ trust and ensure our policies are clearly communicated.
Some technology provider policies are clearer and more farmer-friendly than others. When evaluating the data policies of existing or potential partners, we encourage farmers to ask questions in the following five areas:
- Value: What benefits do I receive from the data that is collected?
- Ownership: Who owns my data once it is compiled?
- Control: Can I control access to my data and how it is used? If so, how? (And if not, why not?)
- Third-Party Sharing: Is my data shared with or sold to third parties? If so, where and why?
- Stewardship: Who has access to my data? How is it being protected from inappropriate use?
The Climate Corporation’s privacy policy and terms of service address these themes and we try hard to clearly answer these questions. In short, our policy comes down to this: Farmers are in the driver’s seat with their data. They own it and can direct who to share it with.
The truth of the matter is, today you will get a variety of different responses to these questions as you look around the industry. Farmers must evaluate this balance of value and trust as they consider their partners. And technology providers need to make sure their policies are clear and beneficial to farmers. The value of digital farming is tremendous and growing by the day, but the industry will realize its full potential only if innovators ensure they’re earning farmer trust at every step along the way.
Subscribe Today For
