Data-sharing anxiety leads to missed opportunities for agri-food businesses

05 Aug 2020 --- Farmers are set to receive a growing number of requests to share data from governments and companies who are increasingly relying on data analysis for policymaking and strategy. This is underscored by RaboResearch, the market analysis arm of Rabobank, in a recent report highlighting how uncertainties among farmers and companies about data privacy may lead to opportunity costs in ambitions to scale up agri-food business efficiencies. Speaking to FoodIngredientsFirst, analyst Wesley Lefroy says that COVID-19 has provided a “robust use case” to demonstrate the potential of new value propositions from data sharing.

Advancements in data collection and analytics have delivered insights to governments and agri-food businesses that were “previously unachievable,” Lefroy outlines.

This type of analytics holds significant potential on the farm. “Companies can support the farmer’s decision-making process by analyzing data from clients across a wide range of geographies rather than farmers making decisions based on their own set of experiences,” explains Lefroy.

“For example, if a farmer has a pest invasion that they have not personally encountered before, companies can make recommendations based on data from a wide array of farmers who have successfully combated the same pest invasion. Platforms may also be able to warn nearby farmers of that invasion.”

Lefroy flags an overlying “strong aversion” to sharing personal data among people in general, which may extend to farmers new to this space.But Lefroy flags an overlying “strong aversion” to sharing personal data among people in general, which may extend to farmers new to this space. He cites the example of downloading Australia’s contact tracing app, COVIDSafe: “In doing-so, I handed the Australian government access to the details of my in-person interactions for the purpose of contact tracing. Pressing ‘let COVIDSafe access bluetooth’ and ‘let COVIDSafe access my location’ felt uneasy to say the least.”

Privacy is, and should remain, the leading concern of farmers. “Companies should approach any proposition accordingly. There should not be any ambiguity about how the data is being used and how it is being stored. Companies who have an existing strong relationship with clients are best positioned,” stresses Lefroy.

In an agri-food context, Lefroy says these lessons present challenges for both companies and farmers. “In our recent paper, the Digital Pathway to Power, we outlined our expectation that the future will see existing companies transition to a business model reliant upon absorbing and analyzing high volumes of farmers’ data. Companies are likely to present a weaker value proposition than the example above (i.e. not life and death) with the aim of achieving an uptake much greater than 40 percent.”

He further asserts that for farmers, the opportunity costs of not engaging in new technologies are rising. “In some cases, the value now outweighs the risk. Farmers must assess every opportunity on its merit. This includes value (this will change per farm) and clear assessment of risk.”

“In the next ten years, we are likely to see some significant changes to the relationship between farmers and farm input companies. This will hold great opportunities for farmers and companies to generate mutual upside. With that in mind, our approach must adjust to ensure we are positioned to extract this value,” he concludes.

Data solutions advance
Data-driven technology has also helped manufacturing stakeholders streamline their efficiencies. At the recently cultivated SHIFT20 virtual tradeshow, software company Infor worked with supplier Flint Hills to help consolidate its data processes and achieve significant savings of inventory reduction. The US-based biofuels and ingredients company required a better understanding of asset maintenance patterns and unifying siloed machine learning projects. In addition, the company flagged inconsistent data across site-centric databases and “no means of harmonizing that data.”

In traceability endeavors, data is aiding companies to gain a comprehensive oversight of the entire scope of their supply chain. Last month, Asia’s largest sugar producer, Mitr Phol, selected Eka Software Solutions’ cloud-native platform to manage risk across its global hedging and pricing portfolios.

Active in this space, Australian-developed technology suite called eBottli recently launched with the potential to protect the wine export industry against the booming global trade in counterfeit wines. eBottli delivers a suite of new tracking and blockchain data technologies, geolocating services for bottles or containers and unique identifier labels for winemakers. 

In May, Dutch NGO Fairfood launched a blockchain-enabled transparency and traceability platform, Trace, to track food back to its origin and share product stories, tapping into the storytelling trend. Under a banner of “radical transparency,” the organization aims to empower farmers with its user-friendly platform.

By Benjamin Ferrer