One of the biggest buzzwords of the modern business world is ‘big data’, and nowhere is this more evident than in the agricultural industry. The need for those who supply, manufacture and trade in agrichemical products to gather information on how and where their products work, and who and where their customers are has never been greater.
But with ‘big data’ comes a battle of rights and interests over how it should be used. For while industry chiefs make the case that the information gained from millions of dollars of worth of investment should not be handed out freely, lobbyists argue that agribusiness data is information on the food that we all eat, and should be shared freely.
Take for example, the European Food Safety Authority’s recent decision to “release the raw data used in the recent EU safety evaluation of glyphosate”. By doing so, the agency hopes that, “When combined with the detailed background documents already published on EFSA’s website, the information will be sufficient to enable a third-party scientist to scrutinise the evaluation of glyphosate that was carried out by EFSA and EU Member States.”
By releasing the research findings from industry studies, the EFSA claims it, “…will further increase the transparency of the glyphosate evaluation – while complying with its obligations under European law regarding the protection of commercially sensitive information.”
Monsanto meanwhile, decided not to issue a press release on the matter. Presumably they hope not to fan the flames on such a hot topic, but it is still possible to imagine their fear of how environmentalists will use the data. To quote Monsanto’s reaction to a New York Times report on GMO’s, “It’s easy for anyone to cherry-pick numbers to make a misleading argument.”
But even the release of the research data leaves no one happy. Agricultural chemical companies are concerned about the use of their data, which they paid for, being used against them, while environmentalists remained concerned that the research was conducted by Agrichem production companies.
How agribusiness handles ‘big data’ is a fine line, and while government bodies like the EFSA decide what they think is best. To share or to secure remains a key question, but who should answer it?