BIRCHIP Cropping Group is a step closer to creating what is believed to be Australia’s first agricultural data sharing co-operative.
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After the completion of a traceability and data co-operative feasibility study in May, as part of a federal government-funded project, BCG is moving to the next phase with a workshop to discuss 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 identified that growers wanted a possible project operated as a co-operative and their major focus was improving farm profitability.
The successful FBN model works on a put-in, take-out system. For instance, if you contribute data on rain 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 at Birchip on October 18 would be exploring the specifics on how growers could extract more value from their aggregated data through a co-operative.
“The next phase is now addressing issues such as the complexity of the data and how it is made more accessible,” he said.
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 would help.
“This isn’t something that has been attempted in this area before so we will work with people who 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.
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.