The Open Ag Data Alliance is an open project designed to bring interoperability, security, and privacy to agricultural data. The OADA is open to anyone interested in building open standards data transfer tools in agriculture, including: existing agriculture organizations, farmers, software engineers, academics, and private companies. There is no cost to participate. The application of data science in modern production agriculture has the potential to improve crop yields and use natural resources more efficiently by enabling farmers to evaluate past, current and future farm management decisions through the analysis of agronomic data generated in the field. However, a significant barrier to the adoption of these new technologies is the incompatibility of data formats between platforms and inconsistent approaches to data security and privacy. Farmers deserve a clear understanding of the security and privacy standards service providers follow in the use and management of the farmer’s data. To that end, the OADA will develop protocols and will create security and privacy working groups that collaborate with other stakeholders to ensure farmer peace of mind regarding the protection and use of their data across a broad range of business policies and practices. The open standards of OADA will give farmers the flexibility and control they need to choose data science products and services that will work on their farms to help manage their data and make more data-driven decisions, enabling the next wave of agricultural production.”
