COUNTRY FOCUS: UK
Farmers are coming to terms with the
rate of agricultural innovation and are
thus improving crop management with
Information Technology software. Data is
quickly becoming the catalyst to success
and farmers must learn how to leverage
it in order to progress.
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UK agriculture must
harness potential of
managing data for success
D
ata is going to impact agriculture
more than anything else in the 21st
century, said Graeme McCracken,
Managing Director of Proagrica, during a
recent interview. Farmers will use their data
to apply the right products, at the right rates
and at the right time; distributors will use
data to properly buy inputs and to position
them properly; manufacturers will use data
to improve the way they manufacturer and
recommend the use of their products.
“But, it isn’t going to be easy to achieve
meaningful results in these areas,” continued
McCracken. “Today, as an industry, we are
collecting huge quantities of data, but I
would say 90% of it is wasted. Meaning
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INTELLIGENTCIO
that 90% of the collected data is not used
to impact the decision-making on the farm,
or higher up in the supply chain. Everyone
has grand ambitions in this area, but due
to the lack of trust between participants
and the lack of standards around data
management, progress has been slower than
the opportunity would dictate.”
Proagrica’s global agriculture integration
and data analytics network, which has
implemented data solutions across the globe,
works with a large base of collaborative
farmers and their supply chains to increase
the available data’s quality and consistency.
The insight produced from the accumulated
data provides actionable value for farmers
and their respective supply chains, sharing the
benefits across the collaborative supply chain.
“Trust is a big issue for the industry when
it comes to data, particularly given recent
events in the news outside of agriculture,”
said McCracken. “We believe that farmers,
agronomists and everyone else in the supply
chain should own and control the data they
collect, but to really gain value from their
data they will need to leverage each other’s
strengths on how to interpret the data to, for
example, make cropping plans and to execute
those plans.”
Proagrica believes data should be a tool
for a business’ own development, adding
value to its own processes and hard work.
www.intelligentcio.com