Written
by M. Sean High – Staff Attorney
Though
agricultural Big Data offers the prospect of higher yields and greater
profitability, many farmers are fearful of the potential consequences that
could follow after their individual information has been submitted for
aggregation and analysis.
Concerns regarding data ownership
Contracts
between farmers and agricultural Big Data companies “are generally a license agreement whereby the farmer retains ownership of the information, [however,] most also give the companies free rein to conduct studies and use the data tocreate highly profitable products.” As a result, once a farmer’s individual agricultural
information is transmitted to the agricultural Big Data companies and
aggregated, the aggregated information is most likely owned by the agricultural
Big Data companies.
Today,
many large seed companies, “such as…Monsanto and DuPont are now as much data-technology companies as they are makers of…seeds.” As a result, farmers
have raised conflict of interest concerns due to the seed companies’ financial
incentive to encourage the planting of more their product. In response, many agricultural Big Data
companies have included farmer protections in their policy documents regarding
the ownership and privacy of agricultural information. These policy statements, however, are not
legally binding agreements and may be subject to future revision.
Concerns regarding Wall Street
Farmers
have also indicated concern that their agricultural data could fall into the
hands of Wall Street commodities traders who would then use the information to
make bets on futures contracts. The
concern is that the overall effect of these bets would lower futures-contract
prices early in the growing season; thereby deny farmers the opportunity to
make a profit through selling futures-contracts that lock-in higher crop
prices.
Concerns regarding other farmers
Finally,
farmers have expressed fear that their information could be used by other farmers competing to rent the same farmland.
The concern is that through the use of information relating to crop
yields, rival farmers will see untapped potential in rented farmland. Farmers fear that this knowledge will cause
competition for the rented farmland and ultimately result in higher land rents.
