The Symposium brought together a people with a diversity of knowledge, experience and perspectives that helped generate a comprehensive view of the digital frontier in agriculture, the challenges, opportunities, key players and initiatives shaping this space, and the role co-operatives could play. This section presents high-level themes drawn from the symposium as a whole. Notes on each of the sessions and presenters have been summarized in Appendix A and B.

The Value of “Big Data” for Primary Producers

“Big Data” refers to “data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data-processing application software” (Wikipedia). The agriculture sector has undergone rapid automation and digitization of the production process with the advent of precision agriculture practices. Primary producers are generating large amounts of farm-level data from their agriculture technology (“ag tech”) tool. “Aggregation” refers to when these data are then combined with other data (e.g. weather, terrain, market information, etc.), by data aggregators to generate comprehensive comparative statistics, analytics and system-level insights.

The Symposium participants identified the following areas where agricultural data is already playing, and could continue to play, an important role.

Initiatives and Key Players

The symposium also illuminated the landscape of initiatives and key players in the agrotechnology space. We heard from some large companies such as the Farmers Business Network, which showed attendees what is possible with aggregated agricultural data. Others such as the Growers Information Services Co-operative inspired thinking around how co-operative alternatives can address some of the challenges and opportunities discussed above. A full list of initiatives discussed can be found in Appendix C.

Overall, participants at the Symposium seemed to share the view that the market is already saturated with agrotechnology solutions and services, and there is likely no need to “reinvent the wheel” in terms of building new technologies. That does not mean there is nothing to do or worry about. In fact, the question of who owns, controls, and benefits from agricultural data was a recurring and persistent theme in the Symposium. It was also something emphasized in the Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives report that served as a catalyst for the event.

Participants channeled this underlying concern, and the reality of a relatively saturated technology market, into four sub-themes that we can describe as ‘emerging’ — areas of activity that may be more relevant for future action especially if the big data sector continues to be dominated by a few large players, as we discuss in more detail below. These emerging areas include:

Key Challenges in Agricultural Data and Opportunities for Co-operative Solutions

While Ag Tech offers opportunities for producers, it can also worsen existing inequities in the sector. While the data produced by farmers can be of great value once aggregated, some farmers expressed concern that may not be getting their fair share of that value-added, especially because ag tech is highly concentrated in the hands of a few large companies like Amazon, Bayer, and Monsanto and competition may be weaker than it could be.

Farmers at the symposium also expressed concern that farmers are not sufficiently involved in the development of new ag-tech products, and that the “long tail” of smaller farmers are not well served. Traditionally, co-operatives have played a role in responding to these kinds of problems, and the opportunities for co-operative action in this sector are familiar. In this section, we explore some of the themes that surfaced around the challenges in the agricultural data space and the role that co-operatives could play in addressing them.