Join the E-Consultation on ethical, legal and policy aspects of open data affecting farmers from 4 to 8 June, 2018 on e-Agriculture
GODAN, Global Forum on Agricultural Research and Innovation (GFAR), Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and Kuratorium für Technik und Bauwesen in der Landwirtschaft (KTBL) will hold an e-consultation on ethical, legal and policy aspects of open data affecting smallholder farmers from 4 to 8 June 2018. To participate click here
Data-driven agriculture is expected to increase agricultural production and productivity. It can help farmers adapt to or mitigate the effects of climate change. It can also bring about more economic and efficient use of natural resources, reduce risk and improve resilience in farming, and make agri-food market chains much more efficient.
However, smallholder farmers in developing countries are not harnessing the power of open data. This is due to certain challenges and risks that make it difficult to ensure digital investments benefit them. The two main challenges are, firstly, difficulty accessing relevant data and services provided by others and, secondly, making sure that any data they share does not actually weaken their positions. These challenges vary in nature (technical, capacity, policy). Nonetheless, previous discussions and recent research have revealed that the ethical, legal and policy aspects related to farmers’ accessing and using available data, as well as sharing their own data, are now seen as key to empowering farmers through regulations, agreements and an enabling legal and policy environment.
This is why this e-consultation focuses on ethical, legal and policy aspects of open data affecting farmers.
e-Consulation Objectives
The objectives of this e-consultation are to:
- clearly identify the ethical, legal and policy gaps that currently prevent data from benefiting smallholder farmers;
- using practical examples, give a clear picture of what the desired scenarios would be by 2030 for a policy, legal and ethical ecosystem that helps farmers benefit from data-driven agriculture;
- move back in time from these scenarios, identify long-term changes needed compared to the current scenario;
- indicate concrete short-term steps to be taken to move towards the desired scenarios.
Discussion Questions
The discussion will be organized around five questions, with each day dedicated to one question. The following are the discussion questions
- Monday June 4: Which major gaps and challenges would you identify in the current scenario from a policy, legal and ethical perspective, which prevent smallholder farmers and communities from benefiting from data-driven agriculture?
- Tuesday June 5:Desired scenarios for a future where data-driven agriculture is successfully adopted by smallholder farmers
- Wednesday June 6:What are the long-term ethical, legal and policy changes that need to happen to move from the current scenario towards the desired scenarios?
- Thursday June 7: Moving to the present and near future: what actions should be taken in 2018-2021 to ensure smallholder farmers benefit from agricultural data? Which actors would you expect to take specific roles?
- Friday June 8: Please summarize what in your opinion have been the salient points of this discussion and recommend the priority aspects on which our face-to-face consultation should focus.
The conclusions of this e-consultation will feed into a high-level expert consultation that will take place in July. This face-to-face consultation will build on previous discussions and publications, as well as this online consultation, and will in turn set an actionable plan for the future. This will help ensure a follow-up to our conversation, making your views very valuable. Participation in the face-to-face expert consultation will be by invitation and there is still room to co-opt a few experts from participants in this e-consultation.
Participation in this e-Consultation
The e-consultation is open to all individuals interested in this subject and who wish to participate.
- You will need to log-on to the e-Agriculture platform in order to post contribution.
- Once you logged in you can access the discussion by clicking the specific questions or discussion days .
- If you do not have an account on e-Agriculture, please create one here
Additional instructions to participate are here
Please use the event hashtags: #FarmersDataRights #OpenData4farmers