Day 2: Desired scenarios for a future where data-driven agriculture is successfully adopted by smallholder farmers
Data-driven agriculture is expected to increase agricultural production and productivity, help them adapt to/ or mitigate the effects of climate change, bring about more economic and efficient use of natural resources, reduce risk and improve resilience in farming, and make agri-food market chains much more efficient. This is in general the positive scenario envisioned for data-driven agriculture.
More precisely, could you describe specific desired scenarios for a future where data-driven agriculture is adopted by smallholder farmers? What would success look like in practical terms?
Scénarios souhaités pour un avenir où l'agriculture axée sur les données est adoptée avec succès par les petits agriculteurs.
L'agriculture axée sur les données devrait augmenter la production et la productivité agricoles, les aider à s'adapter aux effets du changement climatique ou à atténuer leurs contributions aux effets du changement climatique, favoriser une utilisation plus efficace et économique des ressources naturelles, réduire les risques et améliorer la résilience de l’agriculture et rendre plus efficace les chaînes de valeur agroalimentaire beaucoup. C'est en général le scénario positif envisagé pour l'agriculture axée sur les données.
De façon très précise, pourriez-vous décrire des scénarios spécifiques envisagés pour un avenir où l'agriculture axée sur les données est adoptée par les petits agriculteurs? À quoi ressemblerait ce succès en termes pratiques?
Cuáles son los escenarios deseados en el futuro, donde la agricultura basada en los datos sea adoptada de manera exitosa por los pequeños agricultores?
La agricultura basada en datos se espera aumente la producción y productividad agrícolas, ayude a adaptarse y mitigar los efectos del cambio climático, resulte en un uso más eficiente y económico de los recursos naturales, reduzca el riesgo y mejore la resistencia de la agricultura, y genere cadenas agroalimentaria mucho más eficientes. Esto, en general, es el escenario deseado del futuro de la agricultura basada en los datos.
Podría Usted describir los futuros escenarios deseados donde la agricultural basada en los datos es adoptada por pequeños agricultores? Cómo sería un escenario exitoso en términos prácticos?
On equity, the blockchain-based solution could create fairness where farmers have an incentive to share tehir data. Farmers could be granted digital "tokens" when they submit data, and within this ecosystem they can spend those tokens to buy crop data from the organization(s) managing/collecting the data. In that way, there is an incentive structure by which smallholder farmers get a clear benefit of reporting their individual data by having access to the larger pool of data that has been collected.
From the farmer's perspective, this could be as simple as an App to download onto their phone, or if they don't have a smartphone themselves, onto that of someone in the community. The farmers themselves wouldn't need to understand anything about how blockchain works or what is happening in the background, just that they submit their own farm's data, and then are allowed access to view aggregate data of all other agricultural information that is relevant and collected by that data aggregator.
[Translation of Ahanda Sosthène Nicaise's post]
It seems to me that the circulation of data needed for the improvement of production and productivity should be centralized for better control of the quality of these data. A structure for research, treatment and circulation of data is necessary. This is valid for the flow of data towards the producers, their feedback data and other data produced by them that needs to be disseminated.
But this is not so easy to put in place and requires some good thinking because those who manage the data manage the power of building or destroying.
We have tried something like this with the market early warning and information system for farmers. This experiment still needs to be improved.
Thanks Ahanda. I agree to a great extent about centralising circulation of information especially for our developing countries. And this should be a key consideration as it is very evident that farmers are receiving all sorts of information from all sorts of sources on a daily basis. The result is chaos and here in Uganda this is a very big issue. The idea should not be to control or censure or limit the flow and access to information but to ensure that the information reaching the farmer is coherent with the national/regional/community agricultural development needs.
This again where blockchain is of use... with a public blockchain network, data is encrypted, but is not stored centrally, and no one organization controls the data. I'd be happy to have a more detailed conversation on how this can work on a technical level, but the core point is that blockchain decentralizes control of the data.
I would be glad to be part of that discussion. It sounds like a great innovation.
Let's have a discussion offline on this... my email address is [email protected].
Robert and Peter,
Its still early days but in keeping with the spirit and philosophy of the Satoshi whitepaper I would like to see farmers receive a private key for their know-your-customer (KYC) identity data that any financial institution will require to open an account. The private key on the blockchain is analogous to the private key you have for your safety deposit box at a bank. Central bank regulators globally require that financial institutions 'know' their customers. This highest level of farmer data (name, age, description, address, etc.) they should have exclusive ownership and control over so that they can monetize themselves.
From a farmer data perspective we should have guidance that directs any entity that collects KYC information on a farmer should provide the public service of placing that data on a blockchain and giving that farmer the private key.
Thereafter, the farmer can provide an opt-in to any entity that wants access to his/her identity and the data streams underneath. To provide the opt-in the farmer can require payment or not. A practical application of this is a bank that wants the KYC data and data stream underneath to evaluate for a loan. For this the farmer might provide an opt-in for free. Another application might be two competing input suppliers offering products to the farmer and the farmer offering his/her KYC customer data to the input supplier that pays the most for the farmer to opt-in. There is probably a better way to explain this but the point is......we need to figure out agriculture data guidelines that ensure the farmer will own, control and can monetize his/her KYC (and other?) data.
Is 'data driven agriculture' the same as 'precision agriculture'. The background paper smetimes seems to use the terms as interchangeable, but I am not sure if it is meant that way. Most of the references that Manuel included in his initial message (thanks) also refer to precision agriculture. It could make quite a difference, 'scenario-wise'. 'Precision agriculture' is often associated with a high level of technology employment, so it would make sense to fodus on early adopters. Data-drives agriculture could also refer to innovations that are within the reach of a larger number of smallholders (like access to credit, selection of the most appropriate ccultivars)As an aside, I think that agricultural innovation was data-driven, long before that data was digital. My father in law was involved in cultivar esting in the Netherlands , and would collect data on crop performance on paper from farmers, to be further processed by clerks in the office of the local branch of the cultivar testing service. The motorcycle was an innovation of that process.
Useful clarification.
Indeed the white paper uses the USDA definition of data-driven agriculture: "Data-driven agriculture is the thoughtful use of big data to supplement on-farm precision agriculture”. The paper also clarifies that precision agriculture is only a part of data-driven agriculture: "Precision agriculture is more specifically the use of data that has been generated on the farm. It is distinct from data on or from wider value chains that can be useful to a producer but is collected, compiled or distributed by others (market information for instance). This distinction between data generated on and off farms, by and for farmers, and ways the two forms of data are combined, is a key theme in this paper."
So yes, apologies if that was not clear, in this discussion we would like to discuss data-driven agriculture in all its aspects, not just precision agriculture. That includes as Hugo says access to credit, selection of the most appropriate cultivars etc.
At end last year I attended a US State Department day long event 'Blockchain in Diplomacy and Development'. One of my many takeaways was that there is a whole of goverment embrace of blockchain. As such, I surmise that the next time the USDA weighs in on the definition it will be something like: "Data-driven agriculture is the thoughtful use of big data - whether centralized or decentralized - to supplement on-farm precision agriculture".