UK farmers are being asked for their views to help AHDB shape a code of practice which will promote safe sharing of data across the industry.

Once developed, the code will provide a framework of trust and transparency, so farmers are confident they know what will happen with their data when sharing with the agri-food sector.

“The use of data is transforming every industry, including agriculture, and we need to have the systems in place to embrace this. The lack of a coherent set of principles that the agri-food sector can sign up to is, we believe, a significant gap which means data is not being shared in the volumes we’d like to see,” said Tom Hind, AHDB’s chief strategy officer.

“There are potentially huge productivity gains to be made from better data sharing throughout the supply chain. But these will not be realised unless farmers are confident that their data will be used responsibly and its use supports their business.”

Data sharing codes in agriculture have started to emerge in the past few years in New Zealand, the US and Europe. The main driver for these has been to protect farmers’ rights in relation to data that’s come from their farming operations.

The survey can be found HERE and will run until Friday, November 30.

The aim is to share the code of practice and recommendations for roll out in the new year.