1 a Challenges related to accessing data

Small farmers' data on their own production base (land data and production system) are captured by a number of organisations such as factories receiving their produce, insurance companies which charge premiums, research and other institutions who collect, process and store these information in their individual databases,. Some of these stakeholders may even exchange these data for given purposes. Farmers on the other hand have difficulty in acessing their own data from a centralised database which is inexistent for the time being. For e.g. if they need to benefit from certain government schemes, they must produce evidence from these same sources and it is a real hassle.

1 b Challenges relating to sharing data

Even if there is a general legal provision through the Data Protection Act (2017), small farmers hardly are aware of their rights. They are often rebuked by officials who invoke confidentiality clauses. Yet there exists lots of data lying in different databases which are not shared for e.g. there is no framework for sharing crop insurance data (detailed production and location of farmers land) with extension and research departments for the benefit of small lfarmers.