VICTORIAN-based farmer research organisation Birchip Cropping Group (BCG) is a step closer to creating what is believed to be Australia’s first agricultural data sharing co-operative.
After the completion of the traceability and data cooperative feasibility study in May this year, as part of a Federal Government funded project, BCG is now moving to the next phase with a workshop being held among interested growers on how a data co-op could be structured.
Data sharing arrangements among the grain production sector have already taken off internationally, with systems such as the US-based Farmers Business Network (FBN) becoming increasingly popular.
BCG chief executive Chris Sounness said initial meetings had identified that growers wanted any possible project operated as a co-operative and that their major focus would be improving farm profitability.
“It is very clear farmers want to get direct value in terms of either lowering cost of production or becoming more profitable,” Mr Sounness said.
The idea behind data sharing arrangements is that farmers get access to a wider set of data to help with management decisions.
The successful FBN model works on a put-in, take-out system, for instance if you contribute data on rainfall you can access the meteorological data or if you put in yield data by variety you can look up the variety results.
Mr Sounness said he expected a major focus of the workshop, to be held in Birchip on October 18, would be exploring the specifics on how growers can extract more value from their aggregated data through the establishment of a data co-operative.
“We’ve seen that people are interested in the concept, the next phase is now addressing issues such as the complexity of the data and how it is made more accessible.
“These are things we will have to tackle before we can get this project up and running.”
He also felt farmers would have concerns about the investment cost and how long it would be before they saw a return on that investment.
Mr Sounness said outside expertise was being sourced to help with knowledge gaps.
“This isn’t something that has been attempted in this area before so we will work with people that have vast expertise in the area, such as representatives from the Business of Co-operatives and Mutuals, to speak on the specifics of setting up a co-op, and Ag Data legal specialist, Leanne Wiseman from Griffith University.”
He said an experienced team would be required to make the co-op a success.
“The data has to be interpreted correctly and that will require a strong analytics team,” he said.
Interest is growing in the concept of data co-operatives as farmers look to the value of cumulative data rather than just their own records to assist them with their decision making.
Mr Sounness said the workshop would allow people interested in joining to form the terms of reference of any new organisation.
“As with any new co-op, indeed every new business, its important the rules of engagement are clearly defined so people know what they are trying to achieve.”
“We want to make clear what is going to happen and what the members’ obligations will be.”