U.S. farmers say Big Data allows them to reduce costs and boost yields but they also worry the information could wind up in the hands of regulators or could be used by someone else to speculate in the commodity market, says the largest U.S. farm group. The American Farm Bureau Federation ran a straw poll on the Internet from late July to early September and received 3,380 responses, with 2,654 saying they are actively engaged in farming. Of those, 39 percent said they currently use so-called precision agriculture technology on their farm or provide farm data to an off-farm data system.
Most of the farmers said they believe they control the data from their farm but only a fraction know if their data is kept anonymous or if it is used by the company that collects and analyzes the material. Farmers said precision technology reduced input costs by an average of 15 percent and increased yields by 13 percent, on average. Three-quarters said they were concerned if their farm data could be used for regulatory purposes or used for “market-sensitive commercial activities,” said AFBF.
“Farmers should know who owns their data and how they plan to use it. It’s up to companies that collect the data to make all that clear,” said AFBF president Bob Stallman.
A two-page summary of the questions and answers to the survey is available here.