OECD Data Governance paper

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Relevant excerpts

(p16) For farmers, participating in a data co-operative offers several advantages. First, agricultural data co- operatives are seen to address some of the concerns about value sharing in the digital transformation of the sector, ensuring more control for farmers over their farm data. For example, it is argued that the data co-operative model allows farmers to use their data for advice from experts of their choice, and not necessarily from those who provided the machinery for collecting the data. In addition, data co-operatives are argued to address power imbalances that may be present in contractual relationships governing farm data. Since data is an asset of value for other agriculture stakeholders along the value chain, pooling farm data at the co-operative level can create more leverage to negotiate contracts and data sharing arrangements between producers and digital agriculture service providers.

Beyond their role as an intermediary with third party service providers, agricultural data co-operatives can also directly serve as platforms to provide services to farmers, from which members can benefit in many ways. Platforms can be used, for example, to provide operational benchmarks and insights, advanced data analytics, curated software capabilities, or to allow members to compare data (including anonymously) and share knowledge and develop collaborations between themselves.

Data co-operatives can also address the issue of value distribution associated with the use of data, by ensuring a return to farmer members that support the development and provision of services by including their data in the co-operative digital platform. Moreover, because they are member-driven, data co- operatives can also facilitate the development of products and services that are grower-centric in their design and value creation.

(p17) The United States has embraced open data platforms, allowing farmers to transfer data between systems with very little loss of functionality. Three US organisations have emerged with digital platforms that claim to operate as data co-operatives: Ag Data Coalition, Grower Information Services Cooperative, and the Farmers Business Network.

The Ag Data Coalition (ADC) is a partnership between a number of US universities, machinery companies and the American Farm Bureau. Its mission is focused on designing, creating and managing a central data repository where farmers can store their information and control how it can be accessed. The ADC does not provide an analytics platform, but instead a repository where farmers can store all their data and then decide with which platforms researchers or agencies they would like to share those data.

The Grower Information Services Cooperative (GISC) also provides a central repository for farm data, with the primary purpose of negotiating with customers, vendors and government agencies on behalf of the data originators for the control and use of the data. The GiSC also performs data analytics to provide data originators with management insights and negotiates opportunities to monetise the data on their behalf.

The Farmers Business Network (FBN) is a cooperative-like structure where members pay a subscription to be able to place their data on the FBN platform. In return for their participation, farmers get benchmarking of the accumulated data for management insights and analytics on matters such as price comparisons on agricultural inputs, hybrid performance, yield by soil type, and yield by fertiliser regime. FBN is similar to some commercial platforms such as Climate Fieldview. However, as with the ADC and GiSC, FBN’s major selling point is that they are independent ‘Farmer First’ organisations not connected to any machinery, seed or fertiliser company.

There are many other organisations considering the development of open agricultural data exchange platforms that will, in effect, serve as data co-operatives. For example, JoinData is a Dutch data co- operative that started in the dairy and financial sectors in the Netherlands, and expanded its business to arable farming; Agrirouter is a primary data exchange platform for farmers and agricultural contractors with a focus on arable farming. The two joined forces in late 2019 to ‘to stimulate the development of an international data exchange ecosystem with the farmer at heart.’

For farmers, key issues include who controls access to, and sharing of, data that are generated on and about farms, and how the value that is created from that data is re-distributed. An often-expressed view is that such concerns would be addressed if farmers ‘owned their data’. However, this is a complex topic at the intersection of different regulatory frameworks, including: contract and competition law, intellectual property rights, personal data protection and privacy, which could all provide a way of ensuring that aspects of farmers’ concerns are considered. Nevertheless, none of these instruments provides a satisfactory solution as yet, and many aspects of their application would, at a minimum, need to be clarified. In this context, emerging voluntary sectoral initiatives, such as codes of conduct and farmer data co-operatives, could help to increase awareness among competent authorities of the needs and priorities of farmers.

(p30)

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(p15) The Ag-Data Transparency Evaluator was launched in 2016 to certify those agricultural technology providers (ATPs) whose contracts complied with the 13 Principles for Farm Data contained in the US Privacy and Security Principles for Farm Data. This tool, in which ATPs voluntarily submit their data contracts to a ten-question evaluation, was created by the American Farm Bureau Federation and is backed by a consortium of farm industry groups, commodity organisations and ATPs.

The Evaluator allows ATPs to assess themselves against the Principles for Farm Data as to whether or not they comply with the Privacy and Security Principles. The ten questions cover a range of agricultural data practices and include what categories of data are collected, whether consent is sought before data is shared with third parties, and how long data is retained. Answers to these questions, plus the ATP’s contracts and policies, are submitted to, and reviewed by, an independent third-party administrator (the law firm of Janzen Agricultural).

Once reviewed, the results are posted on a website for farmers and other agricultural stakeholders to consult and review. If ATPs receive approval, they can use the “Ag-Data Transparent” seal. The use of the seal communicates to farmers that the ATP’s approach to data management is in line with the Principles for Farm Data. That said, there is no mechanism to monitor and ensure compliance with the Principles.

The Ag Data Transparency Evaluator is provided free of charge to farmers to view so that they can make an informed decision about the data approaches taken by the businesses with which they choose to deal. The cost of the Ag Data Transparency Evaluator is borne by the ATPs who want to use the Ag Data Transparent Seal. The cost is based, first, on the age of the company, and then on its size and profits.

Currently, the approved companies are filtered by the type of data they collect: agronomic, land, farm management, machine and weather data. From January 2020, the scope of Ag Data Transparent was expanded to include the farm financial sector. As agricultural lenders are increasingly collecting agricultural data, it was decided that extending the Seal to the farm financial sector provided some additional protection of farmers’ privacy. Companies wishing to certify as “Ag Data Transparent” will have the option of identifying “farm financial and management data” as the category of information they are collecting.

As of January 2020, 23 companies and their products have been evaluated and granted approval to use the Ag Data Transparent Seal.”