FoxNewsAmerican farmers confront 'big data' revolutionPublished March 29, 2014
Associated Press
WICHITA, Kan. – Farmers from across the nation gathered in Washington this month for what has become an annual trek to seek action on the most important matters in American agriculture, such as immigration reform and water regulations.
But this time, a new, more shadowy issue also emerged: growing unease about how the largest seed companies are gathering vast amount of data from sensors on tractors, combines and other farm equipment.
The increasingly common sensors measure soil conditions, seeding rates, crop yields and many other variables, allowing companies to provide farmers with customized guidance on how to get the most out of their fields.
The involvement of the American Farm Bureau, the nation's largest and most prominent farming organization, illustrates how agriculture is cautiously entering a new era in which raw planting data holds both the promise of higher yields and the peril that the information could be hacked or exploited by corporations or government agencies.
Seed companies want to harness the data to help farmers grow more food with the same amount of land, and the industry's biggest brands have offered assurances that all information will be closely guarded.
But farmers are serving notice in Washington that the federal government might need to become involved in yet another debate over electronic security and privacy. Some members of Congress from rural states such as Kansas were already aware of the concerns, although the issue is new to many urban lawmakers.
Rep. Lynn Jenkins, a Kansas Republican who grew up on a dairy farm, said agriculture must achieve technological advances to keep up with population growth, which is expected to require 60 percent more food by 2050. But she has heard farmers' concerns about data collection.
"Information and data utilization is the way of the future," Jenkins said in an emailed statement. "And just as our federal government struggles with privacy concerns through records at the NSA and various health records, so too must we maintain appropriate privacy protection of individuals from corporate entitles."
The Farm Bureau isn't sure what it needs from Washington, or whether action is even warranted yet. But farmers want their elected officials to be aware of how the industry is changing.
This year's trip to Washington was primarily "an educational effort" to make sure members of Congress know about the data collecting and understand "the implications of the issue for our farmers and ranchers," Steve Baccus, an Ottawa County farmer and president of the Kansas Farm Bureau. "We may need to come back at some time in the future and talk to them about legislation."
Farmers worry that a hedge fund or large company with access to "real-time" yield data from hundreds of combines at harvest time might be able to use that information to speculate in commodities markets long before the government issues crop-production estimates.
Others are concerned that GPS-linked farm data could be obtained by the Environmental Protection Agency, antagonistic environmental groups or, in the Farm Bureau's words, "an overall-clad Edward Snowden," a reference to the former National Security Agency analyst who disclosed intelligence-gathering operations.
"It is not like we don't all trust them," Mark Nelson, director of commodities for the Kansas Farm Bureau, said of agribusiness companies. The new data-collection systems deliver "a lot of good things" to producers. "But as an organization we are looking at, `What is the big picture?"'
* * *
Read more ...
