Day 1: Major challenges from a policy legal and ethical perspective, preventing smallholder farmers benefiting from data sharing
Which major gaps and challenges would you identify in the current scenario from a policy, legal and ethical perspective, which prevent smallholder farmers and communities from benefiting from data-driven agriculture?
1a: Challenges related to accessing data
1b: Challenges related to sharing data
Please focus on the policy, legal and ethical challenges. State the major challenges in a concise and general way, but if possible provide specific examples and say which actors are involved (who benefits, who doesn’t, which actors are perceived as not fulfilling their role).
Focus on the challenges at this stage, not the possible solutions.
Quelles sont les principales lacunes et difficultés identifiées dans le scénario actuel d'un point de vue politique, juridique et éthique, qui empêchent les petits agriculteurs et les communautés de tirer parti de l'agriculture axée sur les données?
1a: Défis liés à l'accès aux données
1b: Défis liés au partage de données
Veuillez-vous concentrer sur les défis politiques, juridiques et éthiques. Énoncez les principaux défis de manière concise et générale, mais si possible, donnez des exemples précis et indiquez quels acteurs sont impliqués (qui en bénéficie, qui ne le fait pas, quels acteurs sont perçus comme ne remplissant pas leur rôle).
Focus sur les défis à ce stade, pas les solutions possibles.
Cuáles son los mayores vacíos y retos que Usted identifica en el escenario actual desde una perspectiva política, legal y ética, que impiden a pequeños agricultores y comunidades beneficiarse de la agricultura basada en datos?
1a: Retos relacionados con el acceso a los datos
1b: Retos relacionados con compartir los datos
Por favor enfóquese en los retos políticos, legales y éticos. Mencione los mayores retos de manera concisa, y de ser posible, de ejemplos específicos y mencione qué actores están involucrados (quiénes se benefician, quiénes no y qué actores se consideran que no cumplen del todo con su rol)Concéntrese en los retos y no en dar posibles soluciones.
I know of a policy/ethical issue that prevents farmers from accessing what they need to know to grow and protect their crops sustainably. Context: Ressources to produce quality databases is limited. What we must avoid by all means is redundancy. I would humbly argue that when an instiution like the FAO decides to develop say a database of all plant health products (&use direction) available by crop/pest/country, such a database should not exist already. If it already exists, one should find a cooperative solution instead of a competitive one. If after working on such a database for 10 years, one reaches about 30% of the needed information and can not update it, it is a sign that a cooperation path should be taken. If nevertheless, one pursue the duplication, I would argue that it is the open data concept as whole that suffers and consequently, the growers, the food chain, and each and everyone of us.
So my main message is that open data, whatever it is, will not deliver if we stay in the competitive mode and avoid the cooperative mode. There are enough agricultural themes for all the existing agricultural institutions but the attibution should be by merit, globally fair and avoid competitive duplication. Kind regards to all.
I agree that we need to move to a cooperative mode. Competition keeps smallholder farmer isolated, not sharing their data, and as such gives power to big agricultural firms who do have greater amounts of data available to them. With big agricultural firms I am thinking particularly of prices for which they sell seeds and supplies and prices for which they buy from farmers, which if more transparent could allow farmers to be on equal footing with big firms. As we shift into solutions on the other days of this week I will seek to outline how blockchain-based tools could be used to even the playing field, even among those farmers who have only access to very low level tech solutions.
Welcome to this E-consultation on "Ethical, legal and policy aspects of open data affecting farmers".
The issues around Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data in the US Election, the US Congress hearings and the EU law makers discussions with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, around data and its privacy make one crucial revelation; that policy and law makers even in the most developed countries have not yet caught up to the use of data and information in today’s world of ubiquitous information and communications technologies (ICTs) use. The concerns expressed in these events were largely around transgressed ethics and not law of the land. Collecting, collating, sharing and using data and information collected through social media as done by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica did not break any laws simply because the rules did not exist at that time.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) now directly in force since May 25, 2018 in Europe and indirectly across the world, since flow of data knows no boundaries, deals by design only with three primary areas: personal data, consent for its use, and privacy. In my own country, the Supreme Court of India is hearing on Aadhar, the Unique Identification Number for all resident Indians and the larger issue of privacy and possible misuse of personal data. Here also the triggers for enacting the GDPR and the Court hearings have been ethics and not breaking of the existing laws. In fact, in India, the law either does not exist or is very weak around these issues.
To the best of my knowledge, when it comes to farming and agriculture, there are yet no examples of specific national policies or laws that concern with generation, flow, sharing and use of data. There are initiatives to use ICTs for agricultural development and enabling farmers through information. There are non-binding charters and instruments such as through financial support to share data of and with farmers. We can use this E-consultation to generate an inventory of national policies, rules and regulations around or impinge upon the generation, flow, sharing and exchange of agricultural data and information.
Policy making for farmers and the agricultural sector is fraught with political and social dangers and thus most political systems desist from it. Policy making can only happen when there is adequate awareness around the implications of acting or not acting on an issue. While many of us who work in applying ICT to farming, agriculture and its development and in bringing efficiency and greater economy in Agri-food systems can demonstrate use and beneficial applications and concepts and there is acceptance by national leaders on the benefits of using ICTs in farming and agriculture, the issues have not reached the mainstream public whose support is essential for formulating these policies. There are thus two issues, the first of awareness and the second of maturity of the issues before policies emerge. In case of data from social media, it appears that the Cambridge Analytica episode created mass awareness and GDPR demonstrated the evolving maturity of the European nations to the issue of data privacy.
Policy making requires awareness, inclusion and implementation. My own experience in this area, largely in developing countries, has been that we, who expound the use of data, information and ICTs, have yet to reach adequately the policy and law makers or even farmers to create the awareness needed around data and information use by farmers and in agriculture and Agri-food systems. If the modern world now stresses inclusiveness, we have yet to suggest who should be included in policy making in this area. We, with our considerable expertise have also to inform that the implementation of policies will require Institutions, structures and capacities and suggest what they will be?
When Policy makers discuss matters related to applications and use of ICTs, data and information in agriculture and farming, they demand clarity of the economic and social impact of what we, as the experts, are advocating. We, most of the times, fail to provide this information in a tangible, useful and understandable form.
Coming to smallholder farmers in developing countries there is considerable anecdotal information now that a more knowledge intensive farming and agriculture will be as beneficial through productivity gains and market participation if not more than of farmers in developed countries. In the context of this E-consultation, policies for these smallholder farmers will need to cover how they will be able to bear the costs, access the technologies for generation, management, sharing and exchange and use of data as also the benefits that accrue from their efforts? Embedded in these policies will be the directions for rules, regulations, regulatory mechanisms, the building of the support structures, infrastructure and capacities. In this E-consultation, we need to discuss these elements in the context of policy making and its implementation also.
Dear Participants
Thank you Ajit for opening this E-Consultation, on ethical, legal and policy aspects of open data affecting farmers to our participants. In the next 5 days we are looking forward to fruitful discussions and your posts in answering the topic of each day.
Kindly keep your comments brief and to the point and where possible provide links to referred resources.
On behalf of the moderators we wish you a fruitful discussion, if you have any questions let us know at [email protected]
e-Consultation Moderators
What challenges are related to accessing data and sharing data? In his opening to this e-consultation, Ajit Maru brought forwards important challenges that are often mentioned in connection to data access/sharing: that is, lacking laws and policies regarding how we need to deal with farm data. The issue of 'privacy' often comes up in relation to data, and Maru brings it forwards too, in relation to the recent discussion about Facebook-data.
As my expertise lies in ethics, I would like to elaborate on this a little further. It seems to me that we should not set the laws too soon, but first leave some time for small-scale experimentation. If we formulate laws that protect the privacy of, for example, farmers, then a lot of the possibilities that ICT offers to shape new collaborations between stakeholders in a smart farming network will no longer be possible.
In the literature on ethics of smart farming -which is at present still limited- privacy issues are often brought forwards by authors who talk about data in terms of 'ownership'. Who owns the data? That is the main question that they ask about data. Ownership can be looked at in different ways. Farmers frequently think that they own the data, as they collect them at their farms. Let's call these data the 'primary data'. Yet, the data are not worth much if they are not interpreted by ICT specialists who develop the algorithms that establish menaingful connections between large amounts of data collected at different farms. The interpreters of the data often consider themselves the owners of the 'computed data'. Ownership comes with rights: the owners of something can use it for their own benefit. Related to ownership questions is therefore the question who can use data for what purposes? Can ICT specialists use the computed data to inform their decisions on the stock market, for example? And how can farmers be ensured that their data won't be shared with their competitors?
Understanding the challenges in terms of 'ownership' issues, calls for protective measures. Privacy-laws protect the rights of the owners. Privacy issues come up here as property is often considered private and owners can decide about their property as they see fit.
But talking about data in terms of 'ownership' also limits the possible ways in which parters in a network can fruitfully cooperate. It is also possible to approach farms as actors that have a role in realizeing societal goals. This would lead to a different way to look at issues related to data access and sharing, such as for example: who should have access to data if we want to realize the societal goals of smart farming? In a European context that I know best, these public goals can be -for example- to check whether farms diminish their impact on the environment, to enhance public acceptance of production processes, or to to foster food safety. Considering these issues it may be worthwhile to give governmental organizations access to data, or consumers, for ICT could foster new -less labor intensive- ways to monitor the environmental friendliness of farms or to establish fruitful exchanges between producers and consumers about -for example- animal welfare.
It is important to set laws, such as Maru proposes. But in my view we should not do it too soon, as this risks to close off possibilities that smart farming offers. The 'smartening' of farms also opens up a possibility to reconsider the components of the social networks around farms, and the types of relationships between them that we want to foster. It would seem wise, therefore, to carefully consider the pro's and con's of different ways to shape these networks in varied contexts, before we create the laws. In this way laws are able to support the relationships that we want to bring about around smart farms, and they will not impose obstacles to them.
Issues relating to data access and data sharing would therefore have to focus first on the type of relationships we want to establish, and why. After that we can consider in a more informed way how we can prevent unwanted use (or misuse) of data and seek ways to prevent that, such as by means of laws.
Simone, you make some very good points in your contribution. I agree that speaking about 'data ownership' is rather unhelpful and discussions should really focus on the issues of who has control of farm data and who is sharing the farm data that is often being collected without prior informed consent. It is interesting to see the development of data co-operatives in agriculture where farmers are pooling together their agricultural and farm data so that they have some bargaining power with the agribusinesses who are currently collecting, aggregating and disseminating farm data without divulging any of the the terms of use of their 'smart farming' or precision agricultural technologies. Therefore I agree that the strong relationships that are built by farming communities are a vital first step in the discussion about who is getting the value from the farm data - certainly in many instances we are seeing that third parties are getting the value at the expence of the data contributors who are working on the land.
Privacy law in many countries is often thought to provide a potential remedy however the way in which Privacy laws operate in many countries is that is limited to personal data or personal/consumer information. As far as I am aware there is very little guidance given under privacy law regimes of whether agricultural data would be considered to be personal data. Much agronomic or agricultural data (including machinery data) collected from farms would not be considered to be personal data so would not be protected by privacy laws. While some information and data collected from farms potentially would fall within the notion of personal information/data.
Privacy laws do bring up an interesting point, especially in regards to the privacy of data from machines. IOTA is a blockchain technology that is especially useful at capturing machine data, and the Ixo Foundation is creating a protocol that is focused on the collection of data using an ethereum-based blockchain.
I would also posit that agricultural data collected and shared on an open blockchain network could be structured like a numbered account, where it could be difficult or even impossible (depending how structured) to trace data back to a particular farm. However, I'm getting ahead of myself, today is supposed to be about describing the problem, not prescribing solutions.
As I know this is not a blockchain-focused forum, I assume the majority of participants here do not know much about the blockchain, so if one of you has a question about what I suggest here, others are likely to have it too, and I am happy to respond in more detail (more detail than you want perhaps!) on how blockchain-based tools can address these issues.
I agree that there is a "proper" time to set laws for any issue. In the background note for this forum, a normative framework is introduced on the phase wise development of each, from policy to Institutions and capacities. Of couse, each phase is closely intertwined with overlap significantly with other phases but the sequence followed is somewhat sequential in real situations. An issue has to "mature" enough for each phase of development, from policy to ethics and law.
The background note also states "use will ultimately define the parameters for policies, laws and ethics that govern agricultural data and information. The instruments of law and ethics so developed will apply to generation, management, flow, sharing and exchange as also in use of data and information." The focus on ownership is misplaced. It is a legacy of a political and social structure that aimed to control and exploit tangible resources.
It is not that we, as a society, do not have experience of systems where there was joint or no ownership of resources. Pastoral societies such as of North America before the arrival of Europeans had no concept of land ownership. In fact a famous indigenous leader remarked, "how can you own land, can you own the wind that blows or the water that flows?" when land deeds were sought from the indigenous people.
Agri-food systems cannot be sustained without open sharing and exchange of data. The commodity and product chains are complex, with the number of nodes at which they are transformed and with the number of actors and stakeholders involved. Just as each node transforms the commodity or product, each node also transforms the accompanying data and information and in fact changes "ownership". The use of the data flowing in the system is more important than ownership for considering ethics and law.
I agree with Simon on the issue of data ownership. Speaking from the point of view of farmers giving 'their' data for interpretation, a lot need to be be done to sensitize(advocacy) the farmers to leave the data to be interpreted by ICT specialist in order to achieve the smart farming objectives (speaking from the African perspective).
The question mentions "open data". For the GODAN Action Online courses we have been using one of the definitions from the Open Data Handbook: "Open data is data that can be freely used, reused (modified) and redistributed (shared) by anyone." The recent note "Harnessing the Power of Data for Smallholders" (http://dx.doi.org/10.7490/f1000research.1115402.1) also discussed data for which it is not so obvious that it is open. One of the streams that are distinguished is exported data' , i.e. 'data generated and collated on the farm for use off the farm'. The note note states that " This is usually processed, aggregated or combined with other data and information generated elsewhere". I can see that in the aggregation process data could be anonymised as a pre-condition to open it up.
But I came upon a recent report about the potential role of farm management systems that can provide financial intitutions with credible and verifiable data on smallholders that could support agriculture lending decisions (Okech, K., Alex, K., Singora, B., Ndonga, S., Olong, P., & Kenyanito, L. (2017). Bridging the Gap : The role of data in deepening smallholder farmer financing. https://agra.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/20170509-Bridging-the-G... ) The report discusses if the necessary regulatory framework is in place in the Kenyan context. Such data exchanges can certainly not be 'open'.
So my question is: are such data part of this discussion?