Farmers asked to help shape industry's role in data sharing

The use of data is transforming every industry, including agriculture
The use of data is transforming every industry, including agriculture

Farmers are being asked to help shape an industry code of practice which will promote the safe sharing of data.

The code will provide a framework of trust and transparency for farmers, which in turn will instil confidence when data sharing in the agri-food sector.

There is currently a lack of principles that the agri-food sector can sign up to, and there are potentially huge productivity gains to be made from better data sharing throughout the supply chain.

Levy board AHDB, which has created a survey looking into the issue, believes there is a "significant gap" which means data is not being shared in the correct volumes.

And there are potentially huge productivity gains to be made from better data sharing throughout the supply chain.

However, Tom Hind, AHDB Chief Strategy Officer said these will not be realised unless farmers are confident that their data will be used responsibly and its use supports their business.

Data sharing codes in agriculture have started to emerge in the past few years in New Zealand, the US and Europe.

The main driver for these has been to protect farmers' rights in relation to data that's come from their farming operations.

Rezare Systems UK's managing director Julian Gairdner, who is leading the project for AHDB, said: "It is crucial farmers have confidence that they control their data and where they release or share that control it's clear under what terms and conditions this is done."

"The code we developed in New Zealand was strongly focused on this and has subsequently lead to other initiatives to standardise data and provide flexible technologies to transmit and share it," he said.

Over the summer, Rezare conducted a series of industry stakeholder workshops to understand the key issues around data sharing and to help develop a draft code of practice.

"Over 60 organisations and farmers took part," Mr Gairdner confirmed. "But now we need more farmers to have their say through the online survey.

"It's a relatively short questionnaire that should take around five minutes. It will allow us to gauge farmer views on the importance of sharing data, the relevance of a code, and how it should operate and be governed."

The survey will run until Friday 30 November. The aim is to share the code of practice and recommendations for roll out in the new year.