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The land grab for farm data

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Re: The land grab for farm data

#41

Post by costcopizza »

weberc2 wrote: post #40
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read that. I read that no money was changing hands; just agreements. And of course the farmers benefit greatly; that's the whole point of it all, to make better yields.

Why do you think increasing yields greatly benefits farmers? If the pencil industry doubles its output, do you imagine their profits will increase twofold?

Note he said better rather than increase.

Better could mean anything from maintaining current output with less costs to increasing the quality of your crop.

Re: The land grab for farm data

#42

Post by Analemma_ »

cjf4 wrote: post #2

>Farm data is expected to be a $20–$25 billion revenue opportunity, but we haven’t yet determined how the data can be collected, structured, stored and shared, let alone monetized. For crying out loud...

Once again, Silicon Valley the real place is better satire than Silicon Valley the TV show.

Re: The land grab for farm data

#43

Post by weberc2 »

costcopizza wrote: post #41
weberc2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think increasing yields greatly benefits farmers? If the pencil industry doubles its output, do you imagine their profits will increase twofold?

Note he said better rather than increase. Better could mean anything from maintaining current output with less costs to increasing the quality of your crop.

The phrase "better yields" is exactly synonymous with "increased yields". A crop's yield is its volume, measured in bushels. There is literally no other way to interpret this.

Citation: I grew up on a farm, and my family has farmed for at least 200 years.

EDIT: This is a particularly weird reason to downvote me...

Re: The land grab for farm data

#44

Post by bman90 »

Kluny wrote: post #8

I could see myself dedicating my life to making software to help farmers organize their farm data and sell it. Anyone know of companies that do this? edit: I'm a full-stack application developer with a lot of experience working with non-techy business owners and proven success as a problem-solver. I'm interested in getting into this industry as a technical project manager. Email me if you're looking for such a person…

Check out Agrible. agrible.com and morning farm report which is our flagship delivery platform. Instead of focusing on data collection/organization (a digital farm notebook) we are focused on predictive analytics which is essentially decision support for the grower. We combine high res weather / soil / field info and have a built a model that literally is growing virtual crops and we are using our model to predict yields at the end of the growing season!

Re: The land grab for farm data

#45

Post by ben_jones »

jomamaxx wrote: post #29
rayuela wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was really funny to read. "We have no idea how money will be made off this data, but it's going to be around $20-25 billion/year" rofl

Silicon Valley = Pied Piper :)

To be fair the potential for reduced bandwidth usage by Pied Piper users could add up to billions of dollars alone.

Re: The land grab for farm data

#46

Post by JoeAltmaier »

weberc2 wrote: post #43
costcopizza wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note he said better rather than increase. Better could mean anything from maintaining current output with less costs to increasing the quality of your crop.

The phrase "better yields" is exactly synonymous with "increased yields". A crop's yield is its volume, measured in bushels. There is literally no other way to interpret this. Citation: I grew up on a farm, and my family has farmed for at least 200 years. EDIT: This is a particularly weird reason to downvote me...

And that'd be pedantic. Better can be more cost-effective, cheaper in time or money or equipment or quality of land required. I grew up on a farm, live on one now, my family has farmed for 300 years, so I guess I win?

Re: The land grab for farm data

#47

Post by fanquake »

What I think is going to be most interesting is companies/banks/insurances agencies being able to gleam information without going through the farmers at all. Not by subverting them and going to the machinery manufacturers, which is already happening, but just by using other sources of information, such as satellite imagery.

It's already possible to predict yield potential through biomass/NDVI monitoring via satellite, and given that imagery from a source such as LandSat is freely available, or something like Planet isn't that expensive once your a bank/insurance agency I'm certain they must already be using.

Once you can predict yields reliably via satellite, you can start to predict supply for certain types of grain in different regions, or to a lesser extent, countries as a whole. This data is useful to investment banks and insurers, as well as organisations such as CBH[1], that handle the entirety of Western Australia's grain export. They currently determine potential yield by sending out a grower survey, and asking the farmers to predict yields themselves.

I think the idea of anyone "stealing" our data is overrated. The data from our farm[2] is specific to our farm, and as long as where not farming in such a way that is detrimental to our partners (such as banks/suppliers), such that we were trying to lie about yield potential, or resource usage, I'm not sure what value could be stolen by anyone with our info. In fact we openly share all the trial work we do, so that everyone in the community can learn and benefit.

[1] https://www.cbh.com.au/ [2] https://hectare.ag/nook

Re: The land grab for farm data

#48

Post by fanquake »

microDude wrote: post #31

Idea: Co-Op program Farmers join a local Co-Op, say "Iowa's Data Co-Op". The Data Co-Op then sells to the highest bidder, then after a small management fee returns dividends to the participating farmers. The Data Co-Op partners with equipment integrators to build data collection devices and data transformations.

Local farmer groups are already a thing, where farmers get together to share research, look at properties with trials running on them etc. [1]

The question your have to answer before trying to sell any of this "info", is who, other than the farmers themselves is going to find it valuable enough to buy?

[1] http://gga.org.au/group/northern-agri-group/

Re: The land grab for farm data

#49

Post by [deleted] »

cjf4 wrote: post #2

>Farm data is expected to be a $20–$25 billion revenue opportunity, but we haven’t yet determined how the data can be collected, structured, stored and shared, let alone monetized. For crying out loud...

[deleted]

Re: The land grab for farm data

#50

Post by weberc2 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #46
weberc2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrase "better yields" is exactly synonymous with "increased yields". A crop's yield is its volume, measured in bushels. There is literally no other way to interpret this. Citation: I grew up on a farm, and my family has farmed for at least 200 years. EDIT: This is a particularly weird reason to downvote me...

And that'd be pedantic. Better can be more cost-effective, cheaper in time or money or equipment or quality of land required. I grew up on a farm, live on one now, my family has farmed for 300 years, so I guess I win?

You seem to think you're disagreeing with me, but everything you said is consistent with my description.
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