Big Data Benefits & Issues for Agriculture slides as presented by Satya Narayan at the 2014 Silicon Valley AgTech Conference

1. Satya S. Narayan
SNarayan@rroyselaw.com
Phone: 650.521.5745
BIG DATA BENEFITS & ISSUES
FOR AGRICULTURE
Silicon Valley AgTech Conference
May 12, 2014

2. Volume
Massive quantities of data combined
and analyzed
Velocity
Real time delivery of information to
mobile devices and smart equipment
Variety
Data from weather reports, soil
conditions, GPS mapping, water
resources, fertilizer/ pesticide use, field
characteristics commodity market
conditions analyzed
Veracity
Connecting different data points to
facilitate decision making
BIG
DATA
“Big Data is a term that describes large volumes of high velocity, complex, and
variable data that requires advanced techniques and technologies to enable the
capture, storage, distribution, management, and analysis of the information.” -
TechAmerican Foundation.

3. BIG DATA PROCESS IN AGRICULTURE
Farm-level data and personal data
uploaded or collected from ground &
equipment sensors, robotic drones, etc.
Service provider aggregates farmers’ data, combines other
relevant data sets, and applies algorithms
Service provider provides farmer
customized solution

4. BIG DATA BENEFITS
Weather forecasters can
now predict a 3-in-10
chance of rain
Better yields from precise
instructions on planting depth,
density, and schedule; pinpointing
areas for soil amendments; precise
management of soil moisture and
composition
Herd health management by continuously
assessing the health of cattle and predict
the onset and spread of disease

5.  Who controls the data?
- Farmer/ Rancher owns the data but grants service provider
rights to use the data
o Use/ disclosure of data to provide/ improve the service
- Disclosure to service provider’s affiliates and local
representatives
o Disclosure to other third parties (e.g. seed providers)
o Use/ disclosure pursuant to court orders
- Farmer/ Rancher can stop data collection but data previously
submitted may not be erasable from the service provider’s
database
BIG DATA ISSUES – DATA CONTROL

6.  “Aggregated Data” may be freely used and disclosed by
the service provider
- “Aggregated Data” is data combined from two or more sources
- Typically stated to be “anonymized” but is it?
o Is all personal data (including GPS location information)
removed?
o Are there sufficiently numerous data sources?
o Can the Aggregated Data be reverse engineered?
BIG DATA ISSUES – AGGREGATED DATA

7.  EPA CAFO sensitive data incident
- Names, street addresses, latitude and longitude, and contact
information for 80,000 livestock facilities across 30 states
- Included personal data that was not publicly available which
was the only data that was later redacted
 Government regularly requests service providers for
user/ customer data
- More than 10,000 requests for user data by US Government in
the last 6 months of 2013 (Google Transparency Report)
BIG DATA ISSUES: GOVERNMENT REQUESTS

8.  Big data benefits to farmers and ranchers is real
 Use of smart technology and big data analytics is here to
stay
 Ask big data service providers questions
 What data is being collected?
 How will the data be used?
 To whom will the data be disclosed? Particularly, what
third parties will have access to your data?
 What are the service provider’s practices regarding:
 data return/ destruction?
 government requests? (Ask for transparency reports.)
 American Farm Bureau Federation’s “Data Privacy
Expectation Guide”
Conclusion

9. PALO ALTO
1717 Embarcadero Road
Palo Alto, CA 94303
LOS ANGELES
11150 Santa Monica Blvd.,
Suite 1200
Los Angeles, CA 90025
SAN FRANCISCO
135 Main Street,
12th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
Satya S. Narayan
SNarayan@rroyselaw.com
Phone: 650.521.5745
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