Who Gets The Data And How Could It Be Used

In a lengthy article, Roll Call reports that growers are becoming increasingly on edge regarding the precise data that can now be collected about every aspect of how they farm. That includes what types of seeds they plant and where; how much and what kinds of chemicals they’re applying to their crops and where; and the exact crop yields at any single point in their fields.

What if a company could make a killing on the commodity markets because it had access to the real-time data on the quantity and quality of the corn that farmers were combining on a fall day in the Midwest? “That data has real value to it,” said Brian Marshall, a Missouri farmer. Last year, farmers harvested more than $60 billion in corn, so even tiny swings in markets can add up.

What if an environmental group could use a lawsuit to find out exactly how much of a pesticide farmers had applied to their fields?

“Precision farming technology is really exciting and presents a lot of opportunities for agriculture… but data and privacy issues are very important,” said Scott VanderWal, a grower who is president of the South Dakota Farm Bureau.

Until now, the information has been safely stored in the farmers’ computerized tractors and combines or their home computers. But the biggest names in agribusiness, including DuPont Co., Dow Chemical Co. and Deere & Co., as well as Monsanto Co., are taking the technology to a new level of sophistication and usefulness by collecting and analyzing it for farmers online and via the cloud.

There are also concerns as to what the government might do with the data. Last year farm groups were outraged when they learned that the EPA had turned over to some environmental groups information about livestock farms, including the numbers of animals in production and farmers’ phone numbers. The EPA said the information was publicly available but later asked for the data back.

Leading the way in raising questions about data privacy is the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation’s largest farm organization. The group organized meetings last fall with a series of companies, including Monsanto, Deere, Dow and DuPont, to discuss the privacy issues. And this month, delegates to the organization’s annual meeting approved a 13-point policy laying out how farmers’ data should be handled and protected.

Among other things, the policy states that any data collected from farmers should remain their property and that companies should return data to farmers who request it. The policy says no data should be deposited with a government agency, where it could be subject to public release under the Freedom of Information Act. S