The land grab for farm data
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The land grab for farm data
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Re: The land grab for farm data
#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...
Re: The land grab for farm data
#3This seems to confirm just how important the price of data is for ML & AI based startups. Methinks there is a market alone for data companies, not even those that are necessarily doing anything productive with said data, just collecting it.
Also raises the question of whether its possible to bootstrap a data science, ML, or AI startup, given the high expense of purchasing that data.
Re: The land grab for farm data
#4This seems to confirm just how important the price of data is for ML & AI based startups. Methinks there is a market alone for data companies, not even those that are necessarily doing anything productive with said data, just collecting it. Also raises the question of whether its possible to bootstrap a data science, ML, or AI startup, given the high expense of purchasing that data.
There is actually a thriving industry in data collection and these range from companies that provide tools for you to do your own data collection and those who will collect the data for you (or provide pre-made datasets). Full disclosure, I work for one such: Scrapinghub where we provide tools, platform, and data services.
Re: The land grab for farm data
#5This seems to confirm just how important the price of data is for ML & AI based startups. Methinks there is a market alone for data companies, not even those that are necessarily doing anything productive with said data, just collecting it. Also raises the question of whether its possible to bootstrap a data science, ML, or AI startup, given the high expense of purchasing that data.
But surely we already know that there's a huge market for information storage. Cartographers are the big ones, who can produce maps to sell to the public, but also often produce custom excerpts of their datasets for building planning surveys, etc.
The other group are information brokers, like those behind credit check firms who again mainly exist to collect and sell data.
Re: The land grab for farm data
#6> Farmers tell me, “Look, I know that my data has value because everyone wants it. The part that frustrates me is that companies want my data in return for some undefined ‘value.’ Meanwhile they are often upselling me for additional services that would not exist without my data."
Sounds like a good description of what's been going on across the economy for 20 years. Farmers are asking the same question many others are asking: how can I keep more of my own data's value for myself?
Re: The land grab for farm data
#7>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...
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
Re: The land grab for farm data
#8I 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 (it's in my profile). I'll be in contact with the companies in the comments below, too. Thanks!
Re: The land grab for farm data
#9I'm the lead software architect at a major agricultural and construction equipment manufacturer. I deal with this stuff every day.
I'm not aware of any efforts to make collected data available but what I can say about the company I work for is that we largely view the data the farmer or operator's personal property. We don't transmit it back to any data center presently but we do have ways to copy the captured data off to a USB stick for post processing which a number of 3rd party precision farming applications are on the market to read it.
What I can say about the data is that it's voluminous. Our software collect all kinds of data besides just precision farming data. For example, CAN bus faults, GPS history (vehicle guidance), weather conditions (temperature, humidity), etc... And the way the data is collected follows no industry set standard - it's pretty much proprietary formats.
Also, much of our data collection is stored locally in a binary format to save space and improve performance. We have tools that move the data back to a flat file/text format for post processing.
I'm not involved with the 3rd parties that use the data but my guess is that someone has shared with them the formats and such.
Re: The land grab for farm data
#10I 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…
Yes, FarmersEdge (disclosure: I know the CTO) is a big player. I think, in a roundabout way, Monsanto is one of their competitors through acquisitions, though I'm not sure of their market placement wrt FE.
I think ag is an underrated software industry. It's ripe for disruption, but you need to do it in a way that makes sense to farmers, which can be tricky for at least a couple of reasons!