Posted February 4, 2014
Monsanto Co. recently stated its support for
industry-wide standards for managing farm data, according to an article by the
Wall Street Journal available here.
Monsanto
acquired Climate Corp., a data analytics company, in October for nearly $1 billion. Seed and chemical companies like Monsanto,
DuPont Co. and Dow Chemical Co. are developing data-mining services that
“analyze information collected by farmers and their machinery and provide
recommendations around seeding fields and spraying chemicals.”
Farmers have raised concerns about the prospect of
“sharing intimate details of their operations with the companies.” Monsanto, however, wants to assure farmers
that they will be protected, according to an AgProfessional article available here.
Climate Corp. CEO, David Friedberg, said, “We want to
immediately and transparently address some farmers’ concerns about data use and
privacy, while advancing the conversation about industry standards that support
farmers’ needs.”
The company states that it is committed to several
guiding principles available here,
including: farmers own the data they create, the company will provide basic data
service free of charge, and the company will enable farms to share their data
across other platforms at no cost.
The Climate Corp. is also forming an Open Agriculture
Data Alliance (OADA) of providers and farmers “to act as an independent body
that will ensure that different platforms share common interoperability, common
data formats, and security and privacy standards.”
“As data science is applied to agriculture, The Climate
Corporation understands and respects our need to earn the trust of our farmer
customers,” said Monsanto President and Chief Operating Officer Brett Begemann.
For more information on biotechnology, please visit the
National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
