Report: small farmer, big data

Smart farming to optimise agri-food systems is on the rise. The development of digital innovations in agriculture is phenomenal, offering farmers many new opportunities, such as macro agri-intelligence, market linkages, advisory services and transparent supply-chain management. With these new technologies, farmers can now share their own localised, personal and transactional data in order to receive support or access to services. Small farmer, big data.

The question is how the agri-food sector can safeguard that data, to make sure that the farmer’s privacy is respected and all necessary measures for data protection are taken, especially for smallholder farmers in low and middle- income countries. A new info sheet by CTA and Fairfood aims to explore the potential application of technologies such as blockchain to bring farmers into control of their own data, so that they can ultimately own, protect and monetise it.

This is an initiative by the Blockchain for Agri-food (B4AG) Community, a result of a partnership between Fairfood and CTA (Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation). The community exists of different actors in the agri-food sector who share blockchain learnings and work together towards a better food system. Both the community and community content are free and open for anyone to access. Join the community for weekly blockchain for agrifood news!

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This article is made possible with the financial assistance of CTA (Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation). The views expressed above can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of CTA.