Modern technology can inundate present-day ag producers with data from their farms and ranches. Tractors, combines and sprayers, facilitated by satellites, sensors and drones in combination with crop and livestock information, together generate a regular flood of field information.

Those precision-ag data sets are vast, but they exist separately on a wide range of software platforms. That disconnect is a major hindrance, preventing producers from sorting and using the data for maximum efficiency, profitability and environmental sustainability.

A new, federally funded initiative is working to end that disconnect by creating a network of national ag data repositories, the National Agricultural Producers Data Cooperative. A group of University of Nebraska–Lincoln faculty members is in the forefront of leading the effort, which involves a wide range of universities and stakeholder organizations.

The project aims to establish “a national framework for data that will be supported primarily by our land-grant institutions in partnership with producers and ranchers,” said Jennifer L. Clarke, professor of statistics and food science and technology at Nebraska and director of the university’s Quantitative Life Sciences Initiative. The planned national data framework is intended to be accessible, secure and supported through compatible software platforms across the ag-tech industry.

To learn more about the project, read this article on UNL Newsroom.

Read the full article