Data Governance in the Dairy Industry

Data governance is a growing concern in the dairy farm industry because of the lack of legal regulation. In this commentary paper, we discuss the status quo of the available legislation and codes, as well as some possible solutions. To our knowledge, there are currently four codes of practice that address agriculture data worldwide, and their objectives are similar: (1) raise awareness of diverse data challenges such as data sharing and data privacy, (2) provide data security, and (3) illustrate the importance of the transparency of terms and conditions of data sharing contracts. However, all these codes are voluntary, which limits their adoption. We propose a Farmers Bill of Rights for the dairy data ecosystem to address some key components around data ownership and transparency in data sharing. Our hope is to start the discussion to create a balanced environment to promote equity within the data economy, encourage proper data stewardship, and to foster trust and harmony between the industry companies and the farmers when it comes to sharing data.