Research shows barriers to sharing on-farm sustainability data

Farm Journal has released a unique report exploring the complex relationship among farmers, their production data and conservation.

Challenges prevent farmers from collecting and sharing data on production practices with downstream supply chain organizations, according to a news release. Those organizations include food companies and retailers.

The research is from Farm Journal’s Trust in Food initiative and The Sustainability Coalition.

“This research provides the entire ag value chain with direct farmer feedback on the realities of farm-level data collection and sharing,” Mitch Rouda, president of Trust In Food, said in the release. “These insights will enable organizations to more effectively engage with farmers in the scaling of conservation practices and production practice transparency.”

Although production data play a critical role in conservation and sustainability efforts, nearly half of food and beverage companies report having no visibility into the on-farm practices that produce the inputs they use, according to the release. 

Trust in Food and The Sustainability Consortium surveyed farmers on their perceptions of data collection and sharing, to help close the gap between in-field practices and supply chain needs.

The report, “Farmer Perspectives on Data,” highlights insights from almost 400 farmers across the country.

Findings include:

• 49% of farmers don’t believe customers have a right to know about their farm management;
• 62% reported not using data collection/sharing software in the 2019 season; of those who did, only about 30% said the software meets all of their needs;
• Lack of access to capital, equipment, training and reliable data networks are barriers to scaling up on-farm data efforts; and
• Downstream organizations see greater financial benefits from data than the farmers who provide the data.

“The results of this report show growers value data collection and the environment and they implement conservation agriculture practices on their farms, but there are several surprising barriers to sharing farm data,” Christy Slay, director of technical alignment for The Sustainability Consortium.

The coalition is committed to working with partners to ensure farmers receive the value they deserve for protecting natural resources, Slay said, and that farm data enables a farm’s sustainability story to be communicated to retailers and consumers.

The report can be viewed at https://bit.ly/Farm-Data-TIF.