How can Big Data, the Internet of Things and sensors support agricultural innovation? How open data and hackathons are helping to fulfill the potential of data and technology for food and agriculture, building new business models and revenue streams..
Topic Panel:
The collaborative spirit of the Internet is reviving farmland to rebuild the small agricultural economy. In this context the “democratisation” of technology creates spaces for the emergence of renewed production systems and infrastructure for distribution. How can Big Data, the Internet of Things and sensors support agricultural production in the diversity of global farming?
Portfolio Anne Bruinsma, Hackwerk Advies
“IoT, Big Data, cloud, and consumer based technologies are changing how companies drive more value and new revenue opportunities. No industry, segment, or market is immune” (Forbes)
The million dollar question is where digital technologies can best be used in food and agriculture for create new ways of generating value.
Investment in 2014 in agtech is estimated to have been $2.36 billion
The world of food is ready for disruption
An ancient model that – till now - has changed very little over the years
The food industry itself is going nowhere…
Change is coming from outside, setting out agriculture on a path toward greater efficiency and sustainability
Good Eggs: a food aggregator, linking farmers to consumers
Hampton Creek: using biotechnology and Big Data analysis to create plant based protein
Agricultural technology is a new emerging economic sector, which is evolving around data, digital technologies and the practices that can be built with them.
It has huge impact from farm to fork - including supply, processing, manufacturing and distribution.
AgTech is about smart sensors and drones, apps for variable rate fertility practices and yield monitors.
It’s about integrated management, decision support technology, robotics.
It’s about data generating devices, the internet of things and the necessary capacity to process and analyse the associated explosion of data.
During the production process a lot of data is being produced, followed by data processing, the analysis of data followed by prescriptions (through applications and visualisations)
AgTech as such is paving the way for giant leaps in precision agriculture by doing more with less.
The farmer is not only harvesting crops, but he’s also harvesting data
The better the quality of the data that is being produced, the more value it contains
Ag companies are helping translate farm data into actionable insights
Climate Corporation: Saving crops and cash with weather simulation and smart insurance
Farmeron: Managing your farm just got a whole lot easier
eBee Agriculture: more efficient use of resources through drone analysis..
So, how about the farmers?
Are they running data-driven companies?
(a data driven company acquires, processes, and leverages data in a timely fashion to create efficiencies, iterate on and develop new products, and navigate the competitive landscape)
The majority is lagging behind..
“Collection is manual, insecure, prone to error, and data is often locked in closed systems” (Farmobile)
Even though farmers know that that products and services are being improved using data
They fear that giving access to their data:
- Consolidation in agribusiness;
- More regulation by government;
- More price control;
- Violation of privacy…
>> Farmers know they pay for everything and produce the data driving the results of these agribusinesses
So while the minority of farmers is doing this…
The majority feels more safe doing this..
In general: we have yet to see the full impact of today’s technologies on agriculture. For the industry it is difficult to get farmers on board.
One interesting start up that is doing it right, is redesigning the entire approach
Farmobile believes that for farmers to be motivated to share their data, their data must be treated with greater value
(“Farmers are crop-story authors. So, grant them authorship rights”)
Data anyone can access, use and share. It must:
- be accessible, which usually means published on the web
- be available in a machine-readable format
- have a licence that permits anyone to access, use and share it
>> “the idea of open data is that more value is unlocked when data is shared, contributed to a commons (ref: Godan).
Open Data is driving the digital economy:
At least 84% of Americans with a smartphone use a service powered by open data every day (source: Pew Research, 2014)
In the UK 270 companies use, produce or invest in open data, with an annual turnover of over £92bn and over 500k employees between them (source: ODI research, 2015)
From managing scarce water resources during the California drought or helping farmers in Africa estimate the outbreak of animal diseases, to helping consumers avoid harmful allergens in their food – open data is becoming a valuable tool for policy-makers, industry, small-scale farmers and consumers alike.
The GODAN initiative seeks to identify and evaluate strategies to make the most of open data in delivering change
There are working on challenges related to data management, licensing, interoperability and exploitation.
An example of a not-for-profit application using open data in the Netherlands: Boer&Bunder
5 different data sets are made easily accessible for every plot in the Netherlands
Farmers can check their own plot, and those of his neighbor
The data is visualised, all the results can easily be shared via social media
Giving data back into the hands of the farmers, not so much for precision agriculture, but as a communication tool..
> In order to truly move the needle in agtech, we need a shift from an isolated, siloed view to a more inclusive, collaborative view (ref: Tech Crunch)
Because…the Community is the Capacity..
We need to introduce farmers to hackers and coders..
And to creatives and data crunchers..
To help farmers explore opportunities and articulate demand!
We need domain experts to introduce these hackers, coders and designers into the ins&outs of food production..
Only then will we see the full potential of data and technology for reviving food and agriculture, building new business models and revenue streams..