Precision Agriculture: Making the Most of Big Data

The last 25 years have seen an increase in agricultural technology and data intended to improve yields, reduce costs, and aid environmental and commercial sustainability, yet these advances haven’t delivered to their full potential. This session looks at the challenges of creating step changes for agriculture, providing lessons for other sectors grappling with how to make data work for them. From the local to the global scale, there are now datasets on crop, soil, and weather attributes, local knowledge, and long-term evaluation of management. The panelists explore this topic from different perspectives, representing the viewpoints of researchers, growers, policymakers, and businesses. How can we get the most value from datasets (e.g., building trust, standardization of data sharing, and data access for predictive analytics)? How might open data enable more research and business activity on challenging areas of precision agriculture and wider global issues? What can policymakers do to help? Agriculture lies at the heart of many issues related to economics, health, and the environment, and advances in big data technology could mean benefits not only for the sector but also for society at large. How do we make sure big data works for us all?