Code of Conduct for Business
Farmer data in Europe better protected
In the Netherlands, data generated by arable farmers has been protected since 2017 by the Code of Conduct for Data Use for Arable Farming. Several agricultural organizations have now signed a European code of conduct. This gives all farmers more control over their data.
De code of conduct for the agribusiness sector has been signed by 9 organisations. In addition to the Copa and Cogeca farmers' cooperatives, it was also signed by Cema (the trade association for the European mechanization sector). The sectors of fertilizer, animal feed, young agricultural farmers, seeds, crop protection and forestry are also connected.
Contracts
The code of conduct is not binding, as are the Dutch arable farming agreement this is not. What the document mainly does is create clarity. The farmer has the certainty that he owns and remains the owner of data generated on his farm. If third parties want to use this, this must be contractually agreed.
In exchange for data protection, the affiliated parties hope that sharing data will also become easier. This should give precision agriculture an important boost. However, if affiliated parties do not adhere to the agreements, then no consequences will apply.
Farmer is always owner
In all cases, the affiliated organizations must recognize who the producer of the dates is† He is in charge of the entire process and then decides who can use his data and under what conditions. The right remains exclusively with the company or the farmer. The data is always provided anonymously, unless other agreements are made about this. The owner should always be clearly informed about data usage.
bottleneck
European Commissioner Phil Hogan is happy with the code of conduct. "Europe is moving towards a modern and future-oriented common agricultural policy. This makes technical solutions more important than ever; think of precision agriculture and coming up with data-driven solutions."
European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, responsible for the digital economy, says that the code has solved an important bottleneck in digital agriculture.
Niels van der Boom
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