The land grab for farm data
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
I'm not aware of any efforts to make collected data available but what I can say about the company I work for is that we largely view the data the farmer or operator's personal property. We don't transmit it back to any data center presently but we do have ways to copy the captured data off to a USB stick for post processing which a number of 3rd party precision farming applications are on the market to read it.
What I can say about the data is that it's voluminous. Our software collect all kinds of data besides just precision farming data. For example, CAN bus faults, GPS history (vehicle guidance), weather conditions (temperature, humidity), etc... And the way the data is collected follows no industry set standard - it's pretty much proprietary formats.
Also, much of our data collection is stored locally in a binary format to save space and improve performance. We have tools that move the data back to a flat file/text format for post processing.
I'm not involved with the 3rd parties that use the data but my guess is that someone has shared with them the formats and such.
For crying out loud...
Sounds like a good description of what's been going on across the economy for 20 years. Farmers are asking the same question many others are asking: how can I keep more of my own data's value for myself?
1. This is tough, because the value of a single data point ("my data") is pretty much zero. The value is in the aggregate. Of course, without any data points, the value of the data is then zero. So the sum of the value of the individual data points does not equal the value of the data as a whole.
2. There's value to you in my ability to sell you more things. Which sounds nonsensical, but hear me out. If I'm able to sell you, it means you see value in that product or service greater than its cost. I would not be able to create that value for you without your data. So it's a help-me-help-you situation.
#2 would be fulfilled more easily by the association provided there was enough true representation of member interests and concerns.
#2 - I don't know if there's a distinction there. Either the value is lower (because the data doesn't include anyone outside the association) or dollars just flow in a different way (e.g., increased association dues for increased "free" services vs. fee-for-service).
Aggregation and cleaning up of all that heterogenous data would be even harder, and that is definitely not the task for anyone who doesn't make their core business (I mean, none of the involved big companies is able to do that yet) creating and maintaining that capability can be practically done by a couple competitors worldwide, but not by every regional association duplicating the effort.
Farmers join a local Co-Op, say "Iowa's Data Co-Op". The Data Co-Op then sells to the highest bidder, then after a small management fee returns dividends to the participating farmers.
The Data Co-Op partners with equipment integrators to build data collection devices and data transformations.
The question your have to answer before trying to sell any of this "info", is who, other than the farmers themselves is going to find it valuable enough to buy?
The parent article totally ignores the major farming organizations.
[1] http://www.fb.org/issues/bigdata/ [2] http://www.fb.org/agdatatransparent/
edit: I'm a full-stack application developer with a lot of experience working with non-techy business owners and proven success as a problem-solver. I'm interested in getting into this industry as a technical project manager. Email me if you're looking for such a person (it's in my profile). I'll be in contact with the companies in the comments below, too. Thanks!
I think ag is an underrated software industry. It's ripe for disruption, but you need to do it in a way that makes sense to farmers, which can be tricky for at least a couple of reasons!
Professional farm management companies might be a good place to start, because they have business analysts that have the time to understand your product and can deploy at scale across multiple clients.
Hertz farm management (Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska) is one example. Typical client is the children that inherited dad's farm but don't have the time and expertise to manage the land, which is typically leased to farmer-operators.
Really interesting work, and in a domain that is just opening up to the idea of using data. They're definitely recruiting and open to remote work if you're serious. I used to work for a startup they acquired.
Disclosure: was/am the lead designer on both (leaving to do the #vanlife thing).
I am not selling the data, the app is used for storing their data and generating the reports for various govt agencies.
Selling to farmers is not easy, they don't have much time for administrative tasks, they are usually older and not really into new stuff anymore. Most of the software on market was created in 90s and there was quite a lot of acquisitions lately (mostly to wipe the market).
I can't wait to see new crop of tools entering the market, but mixing correct set of features will be hard.
Look at Quantified Ag, making fit bits for cows. http://quantifiedag.com/ Groundbreaking stuff, which came about from a simple discussion. It seems boring on the surface, but there's some cool stuff going on in the sector.
It's already possible to predict yield potential through biomass/NDVI monitoring via satellite, and given that imagery from a source such as LandSat is freely available, or something like Planet isn't that expensive once your a bank/insurance agency I'm certain they must already be using.
Once you can predict yields reliably via satellite, you can start to predict supply for certain types of grain in different regions, or to a lesser extent, countries as a whole. This data is useful to investment banks and insurers, as well as organisations such as CBH[1], that handle the entirety of Western Australia's grain export. They currently determine potential yield by sending out a grower survey, and asking the farmers to predict yields themselves.
I think the idea of anyone "stealing" our data is overrated. The data from our farm[2] is specific to our farm, and as long as where not farming in such a way that is detrimental to our partners (such as banks/suppliers), such that we were trying to lie about yield potential, or resource usage, I'm not sure what value could be stolen by anyone with our info. In fact we openly share all the trial work we do, so that everyone in the community can learn and benefit.
Also raises the question of whether its possible to bootstrap a data science, ML, or AI startup, given the high expense of purchasing that data.
The other group are information brokers, like those behind credit check firms who again mainly exist to collect and sell data.
I know; there's a sense of ownership. But farmers are just one participant in the chain of data management. They just happen to be the one person residing physically over the land. So they could charge rent on data. But should they?
Better could mean anything from maintaining current output with less costs to increasing the quality of your crop.
Citation: I grew up on a farm, and my family has farmed for at least 200 years.
EDIT: This is a particularly weird reason to downvote me...