U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

26–385 PDF 2017

THE FUTURE OF FARMING: TECHNOLOGICAL 

INNOVATIONS, OPPORTUNITIES, AND 

CHALLENGES FOR PRODUCERS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

GENERAL FARM COMMODITIES 

AND RISK MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JULY 13, 2017 

Serial No. 115–9 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture 

agriculture.house.gov 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas, Chairman 

GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania 

Vice Chairman 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

DOUG LAMALFA, California 

RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia 

MIKE BOST, Illinois 

DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

TRENT KELLY, Mississippi 

JAMES COMER, Kentucky 

ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas 

DON BACON, Nebraska 

JOHN J. FASO, New York 

NEAL P. DUNN, Florida 

JODEY C. ARRINGTON, Texas 

COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota, Ranking 

Minority Member 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio 

JAMES P. MCGOVERN, Massachusetts 

FILEMON VELA, Texas, Vice Ranking 

Minority Member 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota 

CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois 

SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina 

DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania 

AL LAWSON, JR., Florida 

TOM O’HALLERAN, Arizona 

JIMMY PANETTA, California 

DARREN SOTO, Florida 

LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware 

MATTHEW S. SCHERTZ, Staff Director 

ANNE SIMMONS, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GENERAL FARM COMMODITIES AND RISK MANAGEMENT

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas, Chairman 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia 

MIKE BOST, Illinois 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DON BACON, Nebraska 

NEAL P. DUNN, Florida 

JODEY C. ARRINGTON, Texas 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota, Ranking 

Minority Member 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois 

LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

AL LAWSON, JR., Florida 

TOM O’HALLERAN, Arizona 

(II) 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Crawford, Hon. Eric A. ‘‘Rick’’, a Representative in Congress from Arkansas, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 2 

Nolan, Hon. Richard M., a Representative in Congress from Minnesota, opening statement ........................................................................................................ 3 

WITNESSES

Tiller, Billy, Co-Founder and Advisor to the CEO, Grower Information Services Cooperative, Lubbock, TX ............................................................................ 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7 

Janzen, J.D., Todd J., President, Janzen Agricultural Law LLC, Indianapolis, 

IN ........................................................................................................................... 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19 

Casurella, Deborah, Chief Executive Officer, Independent Data Management, 

LLC, Hudson, WI ................................................................................................. 28 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 29 

Royse, J.D., Roger, Founder and Owner, Royse Law Firm, PC and Royse 

AgTech Innovation Network, Menlo Park, CA .................................................. 35 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 36 

(1) 

THE FUTURE OF FARMING: TECHNOLOGICAL 

INNOVATIONS, OPPORTUNITIES, AND 

CHALLENGES FOR PRODUCERS 

THURSDAY, JULY 13, 2017 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GENERAL FARM COMMODITIES AND RISK

MANAGEMENT, 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in Room 

1300, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Eric A. ‘‘Rick’’ 

Crawford [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Crawford, Gibbs, Allen, Abraham, Bacon, Dunn, Arrington, Nolan, Walz, Bustos, Blunt Rochester, Maloney, Plaskett, Lawson, and O’Halleran. 

Staff present: Emily Wong, Mollie Wilken, Rachel Millard, Trevor 

White, Liz Friedlander, Mike Stranz, Troy Phillips, Nicole Scott, 

and Carly Reedholm. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM ARKANSAS 

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. This hearing of the Subcommittee 

on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management entitled, The 

Future of Farming: Technological Innovations, Opportunities, and 

Challenges for Producers, will come to order. Thank you for joining 

us today. 

Yesterday, the full Committee held a productive discussion on 

how technology is influencing specialty crop production. Today, our 

Subcommittee will explore how promising new information technologies, and the increasing utilization of data in agriculture, are 

influencing the future of farming. 

It is a critical time for everyone involved in production agriculture as we face tough choices ahead. Given tight margins and 

a continued slump in the prices at the farm gate, even routine dayto-day decision making can determine whether the farmer will turn 

an annual profit. These challenges in farm country underscore the 

importance of the decisions we make in the next farm bill, which 

we will have to write with fewer resources than we had the last 

go-round. 

But as we begin to answer the tough questions, one thing is clear 

for farmers and policymakers alike: Technology plays an undeniably important role in how we address these challenges. The decisions we make surrounding data and agriculture technology will 

2 

decide the future of farming in America and impact producers for 

years to come as technologies continue to expand and evolve. 

This is the third hearing we have held in the last year-and-a-half 

related to big data and the ground is already quickly shifting. Big 

data is influencing planting decisions, optimizing yields, it gives 

farmers tools to more accurately assess soil health and water 

usage, and it is even cutting down on labor costs. Farmers are also 

quickly learning that smart investments in new technology will not 

only make them more efficient, but will also conserve resources and 

ensure their land will remain productive for generations to come. 

Finally, big data is making USDA farm programs more accurate, 

efficient, and easier for farmers to navigate. 

But while cutting-edge technology promises many benefits, there 

are also significant challenges to overcome. There continues to be 

considerable uncertainty in the legal and regulatory landscape. 

Farmers are justifiably concerned about the privacy and security of 

their data, while questions loom over data ownership. Inadequate 

rural broadband access is also a significant barrier for farmers who 

lack the high-speed Internet needed to take full advantage of the 

innovations we are discussing today. And, as the industry continues to make investments in its future, the Federal Government 

must keep pace to modernize and adapt to a rapidly changing environment. 

Our distinguished witnesses here with us today will present 

some of the promising benefits of big data in agriculture and will 

also enlighten us about how they are tackling the many challenges 

they are facing. I look forward to hearing their views as we assess 

the role of government in the modernization of agriculture. I believe this is key to ensuring that America remains the most abundant and affordable supplier of food and fiber in the world. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Crawford follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM ARKANSAS

Thank you for joining us today. 

Yesterday, the full Committee held a productive discussion on how technology is 

influencing specialty crop production. Today, our Subcommittee will explore how 

promising new information technologies and the increasing utilization of data in agriculture is influencing the future of farming. 

It is a critical time for everyone involved in production agriculture as we face 

tough choices ahead. Given tight margins and a continued slump in prices at the 

farm gate, even routine, day-to-day decision-making can determine whether the 

farmer will turn an annual profit. These challenges in farm country underscore the 

importance of the decisions we make in the next farm bill, which we will have to 

write with fewer resources than we had the last go-round. 

But as we begin to answer the tough questions, one thing’s clear—for farmers and 

policymakers alike—technology plays an undeniably important role in how we address these challenges. The decisions we make surrounding data and agriculture 

technology will decide the future of farming in America and impact producers for 

years to come as technologies continue expanding and evolving. 

This is the third hearing we’ve held in the last year-and-a-half related to big data 

and the ground is already quickly shifting. Big data is influencing planting decisions 

and optimizing yields, it gives farmers tools to more accurately assess soil health 

and water usage, and it’s even cutting down on labor costs. Farmers are also quickly 

learning that smart investments in new technology will not only make them more 

efficient, but will also conserve resources and ensure their land will remain productive for generations to come. Finally, big data is making USDA farm programs more 

accurate, efficient and easier for farmers to navigate. 

3 

But while cutting-edge agriculture technology promises many benefits, there are 

also significant challenges to overcome. There continues to be considerable uncertainty in the legal and regulatory landscape. Farmers are justifiably concerned 

about the privacy and security of their data while questions loom over data ownership. Inadequate rural broadband access is also a significant barrier for many farmers who lack the high-speed Internet needed to take full advantage of the innovations we are discussing today. And, as the industry continues making investments 

in its future, the Federal Government must keep pace to modernize and adapt to 

a rapidly changing environment. 

Our distinguished witnesses here with us today will present some of the promising benefits of big data in agriculture, and will also enlighten us about how they 

are tackling the many challenges they’re facing. I look forward to hearing their 

views as we assess the role of government in the modernization of agriculture. I believe this is key to ensuring that America remains the most abundant and affordable supplier of food and fiber in the world. 

The CHAIRMAN. I would now like to recognize my friend, the 

Ranking Member from Minnesota, Mr. Nolan, for any comments he 

would like to make. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD M. NOLAN, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM MINNESOTA 

Mr. NOLAN. Can you hear me? There we go. I had it covered up. 

Thank you, Chairman Crawford, for getting me turned on here, 

if you will pardon the expression. But I thank the other Members 

of the Committee, the Subcommittee here, for holding this important hearing regarding the future of farming and the opportunities 

and the challenges presented by data technology innovations. 

And thanks to the great panel of witnesses that we have here. 

We thank you for coming. We have a couple old sayings around 

this town. First is, you better come to town and make a case for 

yourself, because if you don’t there is a possibility that this town 

might not know you exist. Worse yet, if they know you exist and 

you don’t show up, they might think you don’t care. Thank you for 

taking the time to be here. 

And you should know that the proceedings and the knowledge 

and the information garnered here will end up going far beyond the 

Members of this Committee and our staffs. It is reviewed and paid 

attention to by policymakers and thinkers and advocates not just 

in this country, but all over the world. Your testimony is very, very 

important here today. 

And the other old admonition is that in this town, if you are not 

at the table you might be on the menu, and you don’t want to be 

there. 

So welcome. 

The fact is that technology innovations have greatly benefited 

our farm economy. My gosh, when I was first elected to the Congress, if you reaped 80, 90 bushels an acre of corn, you were an 

all-star. And nowadays, why, it is like get out of town, where have 

you been? We have quadrupled yields, not just for corn but so 

many of the other important commodities that have not only helped 

feed America, but have helped feed in many cases a starving and 

a hungry world. Agriculture has played such an incredibly important role in our economy and in the world economy. 

More recently, farmers have become more efficient with those 

crop yields, as I mentioned, do a better job of predicting the environment and innovation there through the use of data technologies. 

And while we have undoubtedly seen great benefits from these inVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:21 Sep 05, 2017 Jkt 041481 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\115-09\26385.TXT BRIAN
4 

novations, there are also important questions we must answer related to ownership of data collected on farms as well as its security 

and its privacy. 

We must also assure that access to information is balanced, does 

not allow for the manipulation of markets, as we have sometimes 

seen in the past. Some of us may remember how clever the Russians were back in the seventies at manipulating our farm markets, not to imply any parallels with what is happening today. 

Finally, we must continue to invest in rural America, broadband, 

to ensure that our producers have the ability to receive and to send 

data at acceptable speeds and affordable prices. 

High-speed broadband is not unlike what the REA and the Rural 

Telephone Administration were for past generations. If you don’t 

have the latest communications capabilities, you are out of luck. 

You are not going to grow. You are not going to prosper. You are 

not going to be able to fully communicate and participate in all 

that America has to offer. 

American agriculture might be entering a new era because of 

these data technologies, but we need to make sure farmers and 

rural communities benefit from these innovations as well. 

So with that said, I am looking forward to your testimony. I 

know all the other Members of the Subcommittee are looking forward to your testimony as well. And once again, I thank Chairman 

Crawford for holding this important hearing. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir, I appreciate it. 

We have four distinguished witnesses with us here today, and I 

want to introduce each one of them. But first I would like to recognize the gentleman from Texas to introduce our first witness. 

Mr. Arrington, cotton-eyed Jodey, you are recognized. 

Mr. ARRINGTON. There is a story to that, but I will spare you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is my honor to introduce to you a 

fellow west Texan and a friend from my hometown of Lubbock, 

Texas, Billy Tiller. He is a fourth-generation ag producer. He received his accounting degree from the greatest university in the 

land, Texas Tech University. He has been on a bank board. And 

as a CPA, he understands the business of agriculture, and he certainly has a unique perspective on industry profitability and those 

challenges as an ag lender and what they present to our ag lenders. 

He is an entrepreneur and he has been involved in ag technology 

startup companies, where I met him as Vice Chancellor for Research and Technology Commercialization at Texas Tech. He and 

his wife Crystal are parents of four children and five grandchildren. 

We got to visit before this hearing, and I said, ‘‘What do you 

want me to say about your background?’’ He said, ‘‘Two things: I 

am a cotton farmer.’’ And that is what he is most proud to be 

known as, is a cotton farmer. He said, ‘‘If you are going to do something to help the cotton farmers, I am in. If you are not, I am not 

going to be a part of it.’’ 

That is my philosophy too, Billy. Thank you for being here. 

And, Mr. Chairman, thank you for indulging me. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir, thank you. The gentleman yields back. 

5 

I would like to introduce Mr. Todd Janzen, President, Janzen Agricultural Law, from Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Welcome. 

Ms. Deb Casurella, CEO, Independent Data Management, Hudson, Wisconsin. And finally, Mr. Roger Royse, founder of Royse Law 

Firm in Menlo Park, California. 

I would like to direct the witnesses, direct your attention to the 

lights in front of you, a green light, a yellow light, and a red light. 

It is just like driving. When you see the light is green, keep your 

foot on the gas; when it turns yellow, get ready to stop; and when 

it is red, slam on the brakes. And we will get through this and get 

to our questions as quickly as we can. 

So, having said that, I would like to recognize our first witness. 

Mr. Billy Tiller, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF BILLY TILLER, CO-FOUNDER AND ADVISOR TO 

THE CEO, GROWER INFORMATION SERVICES COOPERATIVE, 

LUBBOCK, TX 

Mr. TILLER. Thank you, Chairman Crawford, Ranking Member 

Nolan. And Jodey, thank you for the introduction. 

I would like to add something to his introduction. In the data 

world, I am about all farmers. And the beauty is we all collect 

acres, we all have planting varieties, and we have seed, and we put 

out chemicals. As we do all these things, it is all measured against 

land. If I do it in cotton, you can do it in corn, you can do it in 

soybeans, you can do it in specialty crops. That is the beauty of 

what is going on. 

He has pretty well introduced me, so I am going to jump right 

into what is going on here. I have a grower information services cooperative that I founded. It is a cooperative owned by growers. The 

idea behind it was to create value and control for the grower. 

Because what we are dealing with today is really a world where 

there is some fear among growers, what is going on in this data 

world. If we have a governing board at the cooperative, I am hoping this continues to grow, I think you will see that really taking 

hold. 

We have 41 states covered, about 1,400 members. And out of 

that, I would say there are 10,000 growers that have talked to me 

in the last 5 years, have tremendous interest. And when the platform is up and fully functional, you will see those growers come in 

to help us. 

I want to talk today about the opportunities, the challenges, and 

literally the innovations in agriculture. I could focus on GiSC, but 

I want to talk about what I have been able to see in the last few 

years. 

And as I say that, the opportunity is real. Ag 2.0 and Ag 3.0 is 

here, and we are seeing some things happen now around the Internet of Things. There are a lot of challenges to creating adoption in 

agriculture, and they are due to the fact that I have had a lot of 

tools created for me and many of them I don’t need. They don’t 

solve any of my pain points. They look cool, they cost a lot of 

money, but I am looking for things I can actually put into the farm, 

I can implement, and that I can use to collect data. 

6 

I would say that so far the value has not exceeded the maximum 

cost that has been charged for some of these things, not all them, 

but a lot of them. I think there is also fear on the part of the grower not understanding what is going on. You will be interested in 

Mr. Janzen’s testimony about something called the Transparency 

Evaluator that is very vital to the industry. 

The other thing I would say are the time factors. Farmers are 

caught up in prioritizing and reprioritizing their time on daily 

basis. When they are collecting data it has to be more of an automated fashion. It has to be autonomous. They are not going to go 

in at night and spend 3 hours actually entering data about seed varieties and those sorts of things. They are through at the end of 

the day. We will be able to use new technologies that you see coming onto the forefront to be able to automatically or 

semiautomatically collect data. 

There has been a lot of ag hype, and it has been promises, promises, promises that have gone on around ag tech companies and 

hundreds of millions of dollars that have been invested, and yet 

they haven’t solved our problem. Money hasn’t quite been the 

issue. 

The ownership issue is there. I would love to sit with any of you 

and talk about that. But the ownership of the data, it is a critical 

issue. I have groups today tell me, ‘‘Billy, your co-op, your members, you can’t own your data.’’ I mean, that is ludicrous to me. 

What do you mean, I can’t own my data? Are you going to go tell 

a small business owner he can’t own his data? That is the craziest 

thing I have ever heard. Just because I use a certain piece of equipment, I can’t own the data? 

I am hung up on I am going to own my data off my cotton farm, 

and that way I can do things with it. And I may share it with third 

parties so I can get value. 

Then there is the concern about disruption in the industry. There 

is no doubt we have disruption going on in the industry, and that 

creates fear among the industry players. We have to literally stop 

the fear among the industry players so they feel like that we can 

move forward. 

I want to hit a few points before I run out of time here, and those 

are, how could you help us? One problem we have is we need to 

make sure that we have the rural broadband, the connectivity in 

place, and that is a place this Committee could really play. 

I am going to ask you to really think hard as you are making 

those investments into the USF fund, those sorts of things. We 

have to have them, because we need speed. 

I am going to tell you, if these millennials want their food to 

talk, and they do, they want traceability, the only way we are going 

to make it talk is to actually have connectivity all the way back to 

the field level. Keep that in mind. 

People are moving to town, but the land is never going to move, 

so we need the connectivity back. It is not so much for the residents. It will help, telemedicine, all those things, but it is so that 

we can use it on the farms. 

I want to wrap up by talking about on the challenges something 

Ken Zuckerberg said. Ken is the head of research for Rabobank, 

and in a statement he said: ‘‘We believe that a standardized system 

7 

is necessary to drive farmer adoption of digital agriculture services. 

Yet without a common data platform and operating system, it is 

unlikely that growers, or the vendors providing precision farming 

services, will fully capture the value associated with digital agriculture.’’ 

I would say this last: We are working with a lot of companies, 

from big ones like IDM and The Weather Company, great things 

that we can innovate and bring right in to groups like Farmobile 

and their PUC, to groups like IBM, and Deb’s reporting tool that 

you are going to hear about. These things are there. We just have 

to integrate them, get them back to the farmer. 

Thank you for what you do for the American farmer. I am so appreciative of how you all build and create and protect the CLU 

layer and all those things that you do around section 6 and section 

1619. Thank you for your hard work. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tiller follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BILLY TILLER, CO-FOUNDER AND ADVISOR TO THE CEO, 

GROWER INFORMATION SERVICES COOPERATIVE, LUBBOCK, TX 

Good morning. My name is Billy Tiller, founder of Grower Information Services 

Cooperative (GiSC). I am honored to be given the opportunity to talk to you about 

the state of ag data innovation today. My interests in this subject are personal; not 

only as the founder of GiSC, but also as a 4th generation farmer operating a 6,400 

acre family farm in the high plains of west Texas, producing cotton, grain sorghum, 

and sunflowers. As a farmer who has long realized the value of digital data systems—from the efficiencies of digital information capture and data exchange to the 

productivity potential of data analysis—I began to see the almost endless use cases 

for technology applications for my operation and my partners’ operations in the food 

& fiber supply chain. In 2010, I began a conversation with my longtime friend and 

associate Monty Edwards, a large crop insurance agent with deep generational roots 

in agriculture, about how digital technologies could improve our businesses, communications with partners, and ultimately, our quality of life. 

Through those conversations and additional investigation, we determined a unified, digital agri-information system with certain capabilities was needed to truly 

‘‘digitally transform’’ farm operation information. Ideally, this information system 

would be capable of: (1) capturing and collecting significant farm operation data, (2) 

organizing and normalizing that data into logical data sets; and (3) sharing information, both from farmers to their trusted third parties and from those third parties 

back to farmers (with farmers in control of that sharing). At the time GiSC was 

formed in late 2012, the then commercially available technology existed to create 

an information system with these capabilities. However, at that time no such system, or similar solution, had been adopted by growers on any scale. 

Today, in 2017, that continues to remain the case. Farmers’ data related to their 

operations are stored in ‘‘data silos.’’ Some of that data are stored in various 

‘‘clouds’’, uploaded from technology applications purchased by fa[r]mers or provided 

to them by various vendors. Other data are stored locally in thumb drives and hard 

drives. Yet even more data are recorded on paper, stored on farmers’ pickup truck 

dashboards and farm office desks and filing cabinets. 

GiSC sprang from the conclusion that the ‘‘disconnect’’ between current information collection and distribution practices and the digital possibilities was (and continues to be) at least as much a business organizational problem as a technology 

problem and involves the relative value of farmers’ data. Unlike the data captured 

and communicated on typical technology/information platforms for consumers, such 

as social media platforms, farm operation data is, in essence, intellectual property— 

the farmer’s trade secrets and ‘‘know-how.’’ Farmers are hesitant (and rightfully so) 

to entrust that data with third parties in which those farmers have no vested interest. 

Bridging this disconnect, for us, was to turn to an organizational form U.S. growers have turned to for generations to solve shared problems: farmer cooperatives. 

Granted, the vision of GiSC, as a data cooperative, was a unique idea back in 2012 

and, as far as I am aware, remains a one-of-a-kind organization to this day. GiSC, 

as a technology/business platform, provides its farmer-members what no other platform can: real control over their Intellectual Property, their farm operation data. 

8 

By offering a secure data platform service (an integrated system of technology 

tools and applications) to its members, GiSC can provide the obvious benefits of digitalization to an industry that finds itself outpaced by most other industries in information technology adoption, while at the same time protecting farmers’ interest in 

their data. A cooperative is owned by its members. Farmers, by owning the service 

that provides the digital platform to capture, collect, and store operational data, are 

afforded two valuable and distinct advantages: 

• Control—Through the data governance provided by GiSC (its members and 

board of directors) and GiSC’s primary value proposition: growers own all the 

data that originates on their operations or from their operations’ activities. 

• Value—GiSC is uniquely positioned to return value back to its farmer-members 

for their willingness to include their data in the Coop’s digital platform, whether in the form of operational benchmarks and insights, advanced data analytics, 

and/or member patronage. 

GiSC Today: At a Glance 

GiSC has grown from those initial conversations in 2010 and its formation in 2012 

to a nation-wide cooperative, with 1,400 forward looking farmer-members from 41 

states. GiSC has developed a vast network of loyal supporters who share its vision. 

As an example, GiSC has built a strong working relationship with the Agricultural 

Data Coalition (ADC), a coalition of research universities, prominent grower organizations and associations, equipment manufacturers, and regional input/service providers. These entities came together in an effort to help farmers better control and 

manage their data and to promote innovation in the industry. GiSC and ADC continue to work together to identify synergies and target opportunities for cooperation 

in areas in which the two organizations share mutually aligned values. 

The fact is many things have changed for GiSC since its inception to today. However, GiSC’s three key objectives, the Coop’s cornerstone and foundation, remain the 

same. 

(1) Bring attention to farmers’ vested interest in their farm operation data and 

continue, with like-minded individuals and organizations, to establish the 

precedent that growers should (and must) own and control the data related 

to their agricultural operations. 

(2) Offer its farmer-members (and future members) a secure digital platform 

that functions as a central repository for all of the grower’s operational data, 

while providing governance of how that data is treated through the cooperative model. 

(3) Return value back to its farmer-members as the digital platform grows in 

both users and information. 

GiSC has faced a myriad of challenges raising the capital necessary to architect 

a robust digital platform, especially given the premise that ownership of that platform resides with its members. In spite of those challenges, GiSC stands on the 

precipice of bringing its vision to reality. GiSC is working with Ag Simplicity, LLC 

to integrate GiSC’s licensed Authenticated Information Exchange platform with the 

information technology applications Ag Simplicity is currently developing. The integrated system, to be offered as AgSimpTM through GiSC to its members, provides 

key components for a robust, comprehensive digital platform solution. These components include: 

• A simple on-farm data collection solution that provides real-time operational 

data capture with little effort or time from farm operators; 

• A secure, cloud based Farm Information Management System with the capabilities to: 

» Interface with other technology tools and services utilized in a farm operation, collecting the data generated from those tools and services; 

» Synchronize all data sources for the most complete picture of an operation’s 

activity; and 

» Organize growers’ information geo-spatially, tagging information to its related farms/fields; [and] 

• An agri-data exchange information and sharing platform that facilitates the 

Coop’s farmer-members sharing data with trusted third parties, with member 

control over sharing capabilities. 

9 

The future vision for GiSC and the AgSimpTM platform solution is to provide additional value back to its members through data analysis as the wealth of information 

in the system grows. 

The Future of Farming: The Opportunity of Digital Ag 

From my experiences working with growers and industry leaders, I would say 

there is much evidence that the clear majority of farmers are not using data in any 

sort of systematic approach. This concept of utilizing farm data as a real operational 

toolset has been used in a million slide presentations to say that data-driven decision making is the next ag revolution, and Ag 2.0 (Ag Tech) heading to Ag 3.0 

(Internet of Things) will feed the ever-growing world with less arable land. However, 

nobody has cracked this nut; the opportunity is the grandest of visions, but it has 

not been proven at any scale. 

Ultimately, these circumstances should encourage us, not deter us, in the attempt 

to get a handle on this huge opportunity. Oh yes, the opportunity is real to utilize 

data to decrease costs and increase the efficiency of farming practices and make 

each field, the crop factory, perform to its potential, and we should view the current 

state of digital utilization on the farm as a blank slate: ripe for deploying the most 

powerful, yet cost effective, technologies available. 

The Future of Farming: The Challenges of Digital Ag 

Adoption Issues 

I want to take these few moments to cover the topic that I know best: the practical use of agricultural technology in my operation under ‘‘in the field’’ conditions. 

As a farm operator, I am in the middle of the pack regarding ag technology adoption, putting me in a similar position to most U.S. farmers in the market today. I 

am always searching for morsels of value: actual uses of technology to solve real 

problems in my operation. This is tough investigative work when the industry is fixated on the buzzwords of ‘‘big data’’ and ‘‘game changing platforms’’. The truth is 

‘‘you have to crawl before you walk.’’ For all the ‘‘game changing platforms’’ flooding 

the market, there is not enough data captured in a useable format to create any 

real and usable analytics in the industry at any scale, much less the ‘‘big data’’ answers. I think this is shocking to most people that are not inside of the daily operations of a farm. 

This is the dirty little secret in this data revolution: an actual shot has not been 

fired and the adoption of the current data solutions is at best defined as anemic. 

There has been a rash of ‘‘soft-adoption’’ in the past 2 years as Ag Tech start-ups 

offered farmers free chances to try the tools. Evidently however, farmers are for the 

most part not attracted to ‘‘cool tools’’ or the latest fad. They don’t want any tool 

that takes more time to learn and use than the perceived value any such tool garners. The second part of the problem is the huge data gap from operating in equipment-centric solutions that capture data with equipment, yet doesn’t interact effectively with the operator. The operator has many ‘‘points of light’’ in his little black 

book, and these data points are often not captured in equipment-centric solutions. 

For example, the seed variety and chemical cocktail used at planting may never be 

entered to the controller. My guess is the most widely planted variety of corn, as 

it is labeled in the controller, is just ‘‘CORN’’. 

There are a multitude of reasons why this data is not entered into the controller. 

One of those reasons that should not be discounted is the concern over who else is 

able to use that data if the data are captured on a piece of equipment with 

telematics transferring that data directly into a vendor’s cloud. Last, the real problem is that growers do not see the value in collecting this data, so they do not slow 

down to put the needed information it in the controller. This is a classic ‘‘the chicken or the egg’’ problem because the value comes from recommendations based on 

the analysis of good data. The data is not fully collected and most data sets have 

tremendous gaps in the necessary components to make them valuable without much 

post collection operations. 

I have people say to me that it is impossible to have farmers purchase something 

they don’t know they need. This is a challenge, but I am hopeful that we will see 

the adoption by growers. There are a couple anecdotes about Texas Instruments (TI) 

overcoming ‘‘adoption’’ challenges that I love. The first involved transistors. Pat 

Haggerty, then CEO of TI, realized that if he could create a radio small enough that 

it be carried on a person, these small radios would become a fad, developing a dynamic market for the transistor radio. He was right, but it was not just size: creating demand for the product meant getting the price point right too. A decade later 

Pat Haggerty challenged Jack Kilby, a TI lead engineer, to create a market for 

microchips by using them in ‘‘pocket’’ calculators. Pat wanted them small enough 

to fit in a shirt pocket and cheap enough to buy on impulse. The rest is history: 

10 

people, who had previously not realized they needed or wanted such a product, 

began to buy the calculators. Turns out, almost everyone had a need, and was willing to pay, for the convenience of on the spot addition, subtraction, multiplication, 

and division. These markets were born out of TI’s innovative approach. Not only its 

approach to technological innovation, but also, and maybe more importantly, its 

marketing innovations. 

We are at a similar place in the ag tech sector. There are obvious adoption challenges to overcome, but the answers are in sight. Solving the adoption dilemma is 

going to be defined by a product or set of products that solve real farm problems, 

especially problems which are either time consuming or expensive to solve today, 

and, much like the TI examples, the solutions must be packaged to attract grower’s 

attention and their price points must be fair and reasonable in the grower’s eyes. 

Second, as emphasized above, farm operation data is actually intellectual property 

and the grower must feel that the service provider has not overstepped in the use 

of the farmer’s data nor violated his privacy rights. The challenges are daunting but 

I see a bright future for innovation that keeps in mind the value and the trust needed to handle the grower’s data. 

Time Factors 

The challenges that make data collection in agriculture such a difficult task is just 

the nature of the process. Data collection, if it is done well, is a time-consuming task 

that must be carried out systematically, but farmers are under constantly changing 

pressures: prioritizing, and then re-prioritizing the work for the day. Farming is a 

highly time sensitive occupation. If you were to ask me what differentiates the most 

profitable farmers from the least profitable farmers, I would say the differentiator 

is not any one farmer’s land, equipment, education, or even technology. The most 

critical element to thriving in a farming business is ‘‘timing’’. 

Timing is everything, and it makes farming a race from start to finish. Timing 

in land preparation, seeding, fertilization placement, insecticide application, tillage, 

herbicide application, harvest, and marketing separates farmers into categories of 

failing, simply surviving, or thriving. Farming is a never-ending battle with the 

forces of nature and markets, and performing and making decision within these timing windows is difficult. External events outside the grower’s control, such as weather, can at times humble the very best farm managers. This year, for me is just such 

an example: the cotton growing regions around Lubbock have been the most challenging in my 35 year career. Technology has helped me to compensate for the challenging year, but its benefits cannot overcome the forces beyond my control: hail, 

blowing sand, and other adverse conditions. However, it can help me analyze and 

diagnose my current situation and help me decide the most opportune direction to 

move to salvage the year. 

The point is a farmer is deciding at any given moment what activity will make 

the biggest difference, when the year is over, to the bottom line. Effective data analysis from effective data collection will make a difference, but, for farmers, questions 

remain. Will it make as big a difference as getting this field harvested before an 

approaching storm system blows down my grain as it is ready to be harvested? Will 

it make a difference if the approaching rains ‘‘string out’’ my beautiful white field 

of cotton and lower the quality and then the price? These sort of situations is how 

gaps in data collection happen and this is one reason why farmers are not going 

to commit to time-consuming and costly processes, platforms, or services. We are 

looking for the ‘‘biggest bang for the buck’’ in both real dollars and time invested 

in the process. 

However, I always am reminded of a recent statement of Jeremy Wilson, Technology Specialist at Crop IMS: ‘‘At the end of the day you only get one chance to 

collect data accurately and if you miss it when that machine goes through the field, 

you cannot get it back.’’ Jeremy is a good friend and a great proponent of precision 

ag. I know he is right. I also know if we don’t collect harvest data in 2017, then 

the next chance we will have to collect harvest data is another year away. A farmer 

is going to need to see the real, useable value that can be garnered from this collected data for him to slow down any and do the necessary data collection, accurately and in real-time. 

Ag Tech Hype 

One of the most significant challenges that is yet to be overcome by any single 

technology, or integrated technologies, in today’s ag tech world is to create a product 

that: (1) solves a myriad of real pain points in agriculture, and (2) does so at a price 

point and time utilization metric that is attractive to growers. Both factors are needed to create value. Farmers are hopeful and are waiting, but the reality has not 

matched the hype. Technology companies, for the most part, have over promised 

11 

what their ‘‘game changing platform’’ will do for the grower. Farmers, as a result, 

have become extremely skeptical about technology and how to incorporate it in their 

operations. I love a term used by Jason Tatge, CEO of Farmobile. He calls it ‘‘AgTech Fatigue’’. Farmers have tried to see the value in the products offered, but the 

promises were over blown and using these products often became a leach on the 

grower’s time. In many cases, even if the time consumed to use the product were 

not excessive, the actual cost of the product would be out of line with a farmer’s 

expectation once the trial period was complete. Last, given the amount of time and 

money are acceptable, the grower may still be uncomfortable with using the product. 

That discomfort stems from questions regarding who owns the data collected and 

what rights technology providers have to use the data. At the end of the day this 

is the value proposition I am trying to find: I want to pay a fair and reasonable 

price for a product that delivers real information for making decisions on my farm 

in a timely manner and without the fear of my data being used by others without 

my express permission or in a way that may be ultimately detrimental to my farm 

or my neighbor’s farms. 

Ownership Concerns 

GiSC is trying to understand this complex world of data and its use. The issue 

is complicated, and one problem is that one size does not fit all. Deciding on a piece 

of data collecting equipment, based on its capabilities and features, is challenging 

enough, much less without the challenge involved in understanding the legalese. 

The fine print in an end-user license agreement (EULA) regarding my data is very 

complex. The various EULAs used in the market are so different and diverse that 

I could not even do justice to the discussion. In some instances, I own the raw data 

until it is on the provider’s servers, but then once the data is stored on those servers, it becomes the provider’s data. The provider, in many cases, will promise to 

never disclose my identity via a process known as anonymization. In many cases 

these EULAs will include phrases such as: ‘‘the grower grants (the service provider) 

a perpetual worldwide license to the use of any data stored in the system.’’ 

GiSC is trying to understand what all this means. Let me be plain when I say 

that we may need to decide if we, as growers, can accept these EULAs, and the 

treatment of our data under them, as they are typically structured today. I have 

tried to hold to an altruist view of what a farmer’s rights are in respect to data, 

but we may need to further investigate if there is potential value by coming to a 

new conclusion. GiSC and its grower members must decide the data model that 

brings the most value to the grower’s bottom line and is the least disruptive to our 

world and our trusted partners. 

Disruption Concerns 

Another challenge facing farmers and the ag tech space are the new players with 

little understanding of the grower’s ecosystem and his network of advisors. An often 

overused term among technology startups is industry disruption. Technology focused 

magazines and journals are filled with examples of new companies with game 

changing platforms that are destined to disrupt entire industries. Disruption is a 

common theme in tech start-up pitch decks shown to investors as the start-ups seek 

funding. In the ag tech space, claims such as this or that start-up is going to be 

the ‘‘Amazon of Agriculture’’. This sounds great to investors, but in truth, most 

great ideas did not uproot an industry to gain a foot hold. The ‘‘old guard’’ are not 

the farmer’s enemies; they are his support system: the seed dealer, fertilizer dealer, 

crop insurance agent, banker, equipment salesman, agronomist, entomologist, et 

cetera. This list represents people that the farmer knows on a personal level and 

contribute to farm’s profitability. When problems arise on the farm, farmers can call 

their agronomist at 10 p.m. or 6 a.m., and he will take their call. Farmers, and the 

businesses that serve them, are intertwined in a sonnet to produce a crop in a timely manner and at a cost that has them back next year to make new purchases from 

the vendor. Therefore, we must be cautious when we make blanket, reflexive statements, calling disruption ‘‘good’’. Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and venture capitalist 

offers this advice in his book ‘‘Zero to One’’: 

‘‘Silicon Valley has become obsessed with ‘disruption.’ Originally, ‘disruption’ 

was a term of art to describe how a firm can use new technology to introduce 

a low-end product at low prices, improve the product over time, and eventually 

overtake even the premium products offered by incumbent companies using 

older technology . . . . However, disruption has recently transmogrified into a 

self-congratulatory buzzword for anything posing as trendy and new . . . . But 

if you truly want to make something new, the act of creation is far more important than the old industries that might not like what you create. Indeed, if your 

12 

company can be summed up by its opposition to already existing firms, it can’t 

be completely new . . . .’’ 

Industry Fears 

I am borrowing this often-said phrase from others because it is true: ‘‘Ag is a 

small room, but I would not want to paint it.’’ I proceed with caution here, even 

though a part of me would like to hit ‘‘reset’’ and start over with ag digital technology, including data creation, data collection, data storage, and data analyzation. 

GiSC has tried to work closely with crop protection companies, input providers, and 

others with growers as customers, growers who would benefit from utilizing their 

data and aggregated data, improving those operations through benchmarking and 

other analytical tools. 

I have frankly been confounded by the fact that many, if not most, of these trusted partners of growers are not very open to the idea of their customers integrating 

the data captured and created via services offered by those trusted partners with 

other data related to the grower’s operation, much less integrating that data in 

anonymized, aggregated data sets of multiple growers. In fact, many such services 

require the data captured/created from the service be stored within the service provider’s system and only be utilized with the particular service provider’s tools. The 

Ag Tech world is littered with those that live in fear of what a farmer might be 

able to do with better data. Therefore, most try to create a stand-alone data ecosystem, in which the farmer’s data is stored for post-season analysis and creating 

next year’s recommendations. This creates the ‘‘data silos’’ mentioned earlier. That 

data is never benchmarked against anything, and therefore, the potentially most 

significant value of such data derived from groups of farmers working together 

never materializes. In my opinion, if current farm groups don’t find a way to move 

beyond this fear, then Silicon Valley will eventually have a heyday in the ag world, 

and the disruptions I cautioned against above, will become reality. 

Rural Broadband and Connectivity 

The last challenge I need to mention involves the continuing need to address the 

inadequate communications infrastructure in rural areas. While population continues to become more concentrated in the most urban, populated areas, the simple 

fact remains that those populations’ food and fiber continue to be supplied by farms 

in rural America. The dirt cannot move to town, and we need the means to move 

the data captured, created, and collected on the farm to ‘‘clouds’’, where the proper 

analysis can be performed. The rural communications initiatives in the U.S. need 

to be strengthened if we are going to be part of feeding the world. 

I would encourage Congress to continue, and even increase, support of FCC’s initiatives including Connect America Fund and Mobility Fund. I understand that 

serving rural areas requires higher costs, but those costs pale in comparison to the 

cost of failing to assure adequate communications in rural areas, the price of which 

is the inability to meet the objective of feeding the world. The current trajectory of 

total-factor productivity gains in agriculture is inadequate to fill the gap between 

food production capacity and demand. According to knowledgeable sources, the current gap implies starvation of at least 500M people by 2050, an alarming and totally 

unacceptable figure. Precision Agriculture advances and other technologies are required to fill that gap, but without new generations of fixed and mobile communications services in the rural areas that produce that food, those productivity gains will 

not be possible. We must have fast broadband available in rural homes and offices 

and wireless broadband at the field level with the capability of moving information 

to and from the cloud for processing, analytics and better decision making. 

There is great potential for innovation and entrepreneurship in rural America (Ag 

and other) but it requires fast Internet connections and 4G wireless services—the 

same tools that nourish entrepreneurship in metro areas. I make a plea that we 

cannot afford to deny our potential entrepreneurs and farmers the tools required to 

assure the maximum contribution to our economy. 

Challenges of Digital Ag—Rabobank Summary 

I would like to conclude addressing the challenges of digital ag with a profound 

synopsis of the issue made by Rabobank Senior Research Analyst Kenneth 

Zuckerberg. In May 2017 Rabobank’s RaboResearch issued a report titled ‘‘Bungle 

in the Ag Tech Jungle, Cracking the Code on Precision Farming and Digital Agriculture.’’ The full report is attached as an addendum to this written testimony with 

the permission of Rabobank Mr. Zuckerberg’s summary is as follows: 

‘‘Agriculture has, over the course of its history, embraced new technologies 

that improve productivity. ’Digital agriculture’ represents the latest wave of sector innovation—and while it offers many promising new technologies, farmer 

13 

adoption has remained quite modest. The consensus view is that growers will 

not invest in new/unproven technologies during a cyclical downturn, but there 

seems to be a bigger limiting factor at work here. This nascent industry has 

been trying to attract customers before the ecosystem has been properly constructed. What we believe is missing is a standardized way to gather and interpret data, and then translate actionable insights to commercial users—insights 

which then, in turn, can deliver value to growers. We believe that a standardized system is necessary to drive farmer adoption of digital agriculture services . . . Yet without a common data platform and operating system, it is unlikely that growers, or the vendors providing precision farming services, will 

fully capture the value associated with digital agriculture.’’ 

The Future of Farming: Innovation and Excitement 

I can complain every day about all the things that are wrong in the space, but 

that does not create what I need in my farm operation. The point is that even with 

problems that seem at times overwhelming, there are nuggets of gold; I find these 

nuggets all the time as I meet passionate founders of ag tech companies, pioneers 

who are trying to make a difference. They certainly are capitalist: they want to 

bring value to the grower and get paid for the value. I am also encouraged by ag 

groups such as AgGateway and the Open Ag Data Alliance (OADA) who are working to overcome the digital challenges growers face, and am especially encouraged 

as the ADC and GiSC continue working on behalf of the grower as a vanguard, allowing growers to focus on what they do best—producing a crop. 

Innovation is the engine of ever increasing agricultural productivity. As the founder of GiSC, I have the pleasure of seeing innovation happen in exciting new places. 

On my operation, I have tested many innovative products such as Farmobile’s Passive Uplink Connection (PUC), which lets you collect data and seamlessly move it 

to a cloud regardless of the color of your equipment. For instance, just last week 

at my farm Blue River Technology tested its ‘‘See & Spray’’ technology, which utilizes computer vision and artificial intelligence to treat weed problems in the field. 

I see innovation from major technology companies. IBM, as an example, is recruiting and employing highly competent people with expertise in the agriculture industry and has developed powerful weather analytics that can be integrated into digital 

platforms. Major cellular service providers are also working on applications that leverage their networks to deliver digital tools to growers. 

Last, without a doubt, innovation is about to take ‘‘front and center’’ stage around 

the Internet of Things (IoT), as data collection in ag becomes almost automatic. The 

handheld computer we all carry around, the smartphone, enabled by IoT sensors on 

the farm, will provide a leap in the data acquisition landscape. The day of a farmer 

spending a couple of hours at the end of the day entering data will be a thing of 

the past; data capture and acquisition will just ‘‘happen’’ as we go about our daily 

business as farm operators. I am thankful to be seeing the beginning of Ag 3.0, and 

I would suggest you all stay tuned, because ‘‘you ain’t seen nothing yet’’. 

Last Words 

Somewhere, somehow, in this complex vast world of data utilization, an ecosystem 

will get built that will overcome the digital ag challenges: the value challenge, the 

time/resource constraints, and the trepidations of both growers and their trusted 

partners. Ultimately, this digital ecosystem must be grower-centric and provide for 

the exchange of information and knowledge, a world where information is not in 

‘‘data silos’’ but is available to growers and growers’ trusted advisors. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about a topic that I am very passionate. I believe unless we, as farmers, have ‘‘stock’’ in the data we create, in the 

next decade our world will completely change, or be lost completely. GiSC is a proponent Section 1619 of the 2008 Farm Bill. We are not asking you to make it easier 

for others to access our USDA information. We appreciate that you understand that 

there is a right to privacy in our farm locations and our CLUs. Therefore, it would 

be beneficial to continue to guard the CLU (Common Land Unit) to protect the privacy of America’s farmers. Please continue to be supportive of more digital solutions 

at FSA/RMA, including automating data delivery from USDA to the grower. GiSC 

is a willing partner in the task, and we will continue to work hand in glove with 

FSA to try and understand how to keep the grower in control of this digital world. 

Last, thank you for all the hard work you do for the American Farmer. 

14 

RaboResearch, Food & Agribusiness, far.rabobank.com. Kenneth S. Zuckerberg, Senior Research Analyst, +1 212 916 7998; Dirk Jan Kennes, Global Sector Strategist, +852 21032423. 

ADDENDUM

RaboResearch 

Bungle in the Ag Tech Jungle: Cracking the Code on Precision Farming and 

Digital Agriculture 

May 2017 

Summary 

Agriculture has, over the course of its history, embraced new technologies that improve productivity. ‘Digital agriculture’ represents the latest wave of sector innovation—and while it offers many promising new technologies, farmer adoption has remained quite modest. The consensus view is that growers will not invest in new/ 

unproven technologies during a cyclical downturn, but there seems to be a bigger 

limiting factor at work here. This nascent industry has been trying to attract customers before the ecosystem has been properly constructed. What we believe is 

missing is a standardized way to gather and interpret data, and then translate actionable insights to commercial users—insights which then, in turn, can deliver 

value to growers. We believe that a standardized system is necessary to drive farmer adoption of digital agriculture services—and within this report, we offer our take 

on how digital agriculture can add value to production agriculture. Yet without a 

common data platform and operating system, it is unlikely that growers, or the vendors providing precision farming services, will fully capture the value associated 

with digital agriculture. 

Agricultural Innovation 

The Four Waves 

The complex process of crop and livestock farming has evolved over the course of 

thousands of years, and digital agriculture is simply the latest wave of innovation. 

Advances in farming have historically followed the growth and prosperity of civilization, with mechanization playing an especially prominent role throughout history. 

The invention of the horse-drawn seed drill in 1700 by Englishman Jethro Tull was 

notable in that it allowed farmers to plant crops in rows more efficiently than could 

be done by hand. 

Several other useful farm machinery innovations came after the seed drill, namely 

the cotton gin, reaper/binder, combined harvester-thresher, and gasoline-powered 

tractor. Collectively, these advances in machine technology fall into a category that 

we call the first wave of agricultural innovation. 

A second wave began in the 1940s, as chemicals used during the war years were 

repurposed for use in production agriculture. The associated yield benefits of applying nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides incentivized many U.S. farmers to focus on 

growing few types of crops, but on a much larger scale, abandoning the tradition 

of farming both crops and livestock. This wave also marked the birth of new farming 

practices—termed the ‘green revolution’—that helped improve crop productivity 

through more effective usage of synthetic fertilizers and crop production chemicals, 

as well as field irrigation. 

A third innovation wave started in the 1980s and 1990s, a period considered to 

be the birth of ‘precision farming,’ a precise sustainability-oriented approach to 

farming that sought to produce more with fewer inputs and lower environmental 

impact. The third wave also included gains in plant breeding through genetic engineering and controlled pollination, genetics-based animal breeding, the use of global 

positioning systems (GPS) on tractors, as well as remote sensing technologies utilizing satellites, drones, and other UAVs. 

Digital agriculture is the fourth, and latest, wave of agricultural innovation—and 

one that has been largely funded by venture capital (VC) investors, along with the 

VC units of several major F&A and equipment companies. Since the beginning of 

2014, over USD $6.5bn of capital has been invested in new precision farming and 

data-oriented technologies seeking to modernize farming for the digital age. These 

technologies have taken many shapes, forms, and sizes. These range from cloudbased software tools to hybrid hardware/software products that are ’smart’ in that 

they can communicate with other connected devices wirelessly and digitally, with 

minimal human intervention. 

15 

Table 1: The Four Waves of Agricultural Innovation 

Wave Description 

First wave Mechanization (seed drill, cotton gin, reaper/binder, combined harvester-thresher, tractor) 

Second wave Ag chemistry (nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides) 

Third wave Precision farming (biology, plant and animal genetics, GPS) 

Fourth wave Digital agriculture (smart hardware, analysis of temporal layers of spatial data, 

weather, and remote sensing to evaluate crop conditions) 

Source: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, USDA, Rabobank 2017. 

Another dimension of smart farming involves algorithms, artificial intelligence 

(AI), and machine learning, which, in essence, combines mathematics, data analytics, and predictive modeling to produce customized recommendations designed to 

help growers farm more efficiently, sustainably, and profitably. 

Figure 1: Investments in Ag Technology (excluding food e-commerce), Q1 

2014–Q4 2016 

Source: AgFunder AgTech Investing Report (Year in Review 2016) 2017. 

These customized recommendations are intended to be precise and prescriptive 

(building upon the original tenants of precision farming) in that they provide specific advice for managing critical tasks that occur throughout the growing/production 

season. For crop farmers, the prescriptions conceptually include instructions on 

what to plant, where and when to plant, what to apply to the soil and the plant 

(in the form of water, nutrients, and crop protection chemicals), how to most efficiently apply those inputs (e.g., on a variable rate basis), and when to harvest. For 

dairy and livestock farmers, the prescriptions offer direct guidance on when to feed 

the animal, provide vitamins and/or medicine, guidance on when to milk and/or 

when to slaughter, and other herd management matters. 

The Promised Value 

Digital agriculture offers the promise of greater income and lower volatility, utilizing data, mathematics, and logic to add value to farm decisions by removing 

human emotion and bias. In crop farming, the ‘promised value’ for growers consists 

of optimal financial risk-adjusted returns on the capital used to farm. The idea here 

being that improved agronomic practices, coupled with more precise field decisions 

(e.g., the timing and type of nutrient applications) tailored to local field and intrafield conditions, can create the promised value through higher crop yields and lower 

input costs (for example, lower and more precise nutrient and ag chemical applications), as well as operational efficiencies and time management (automatic, rather 

than manual collection of helpful data to drive decisions can allow farmers to complete tasks which cannot be automated). Another consideration is better grain quality and consistency, which results in additional value to midstream and downstream 

buyers. 

Below is a partial list of precision and digital technologies currently in use in the 

global farming community. 

Table 2: Leading Precision and Digital Technologies 

Auto-steering and guidance systems Remote sensing (drones, UAVs) 

Farm data management software Satellite imagery (high-resolution) 

Crop sensing/measurement Variable rate technologies 

Global positioning systems (GPS) Yield monitors 

Milking robots Yield maps 


11509001.eps
16 

Table 2: Leading Precision and Digital Technologies—Continued 

Precision irrigation & water usage monitoring Wireless weather stations 

Source: Rabobank 2017 

Barriers to Adoption 

Despite the strong conceptual foundation for using data-intensive tools in agriculture, farmer adoption has been quite low. While there are numerous reasons for 

this, we highlight five reasons that have been validated in our field research over 

the past 3 years with growers and data scientists: 

• First, many new software technologies lack a clearly articulated value 

proposition and, in fact, are not ‘proven’ in terms of demonstrating a calculated return or payback on investment. This contrasts with the situation that 

occurs when new seed technologies come to market, a process in which field 

trials over multiple growing seasons culminate in a proof of concept, helping to 

ensure customer trust and subsequent product adoption. Furthermore, we have 

observed that certain start-up companies and investors have an imperfect understanding of telemetry, artificial intelligence (AI), and data analytics. For example, just because a piece of equipment used in farming is smart—it can collect data and transmit data—such data must be further analyzed before it can 

be translated into an actionable insight. 

• Second, many farms actually lack the necessary technological infrastructure (enterprise-grade business computing networks, with proper/secure 

cloud storage and backup), beyond the missing proof of concept, required to 

interact digitally with industry farm management software systems offered by 

vendors such as Conservis, Farmers Business Network, Granular, or SST. Trying to get farmers to purchase both IT hardware and software is hard enough 

in a favorable commodity price environment, as farmers are typically resistant 

to change, given the ‘family tradition’ and experience-based nature of farming. 

Trying to do this during a downturn in the crop cycle (which the industry has 

been experiencing since commodity prices and farmer income peaked in 2012/ 

13) is, and has been, nearly impossible. 

• Third, selling software as a service (SaaS) to financially strapped farm 

customers has been a very difficult revenue generation strategy, given 

these dynamics. Perhaps a better strategy could be to provide growers basic 

software without charge, to encourage use and adoption, while selling premium 

add-on products and services to independent agronomists and crop consultants 

who advise the growers. 

• Fourth, data ownership and privacy has been a heated, widely debated 

topic ever since big data entered the global farming conversation. The matter 

is actually part of a larger consumer privacy conversation involving medical 

records, web browsing activities, and the resale of consumer data for use in 

marketing. An innovative idea to ensure greater privacy is creation of a farmer 

not-for-profit data cooperative, owned or operated by growers or by an unbiased 

third party such as an agricultural university. The industry has already seen 

examples of these ideas in the form of Grower Information Services Cooperative 

(GiSC) and Ohio State University’s Agricultural Data Corporative in the United 

States. Similar ideas have gained traction in Europe, especially the Netherlands, among both farmer cooperatives, as well as other groups, with a notable 

example being the Farm-Oriented Open Data in Europe (FOODIE) project in 

Spain, the Czech Republic, and Germany. 

• Fifth, digital agriculture lacks a universal operating platform in which 

to connect the entire ecosystem. At present, digital farming lacks a standardized 

operating system and/or data platform in which the value chain can upload, 

store, validate, refine, cleanse, and analyze data and in which relevant stakeholders can easily communicate with each other. Based on our research interviews with data scientists from various enterprise software and business analytics firms—including EMC, IBM, and Verisk—we believe that a data warehouse and data analytics structure (which connects all stakeholders: farmers, 

software vendors, equipment manufacturers, and data analytics companies, and 

can enable data sharing) is critical for digital agriculture to add value. 

A Framework for Adding Value 

Creation of a universal data platform is critical. However, going from the ‘concept’ 

stage to the ‘blueprint’ stage is a complicated exercise. How this happens and who 

pays for it will depend on which party/parties take leadership in organizing and 

aligning the industry, and how much capital is set aside for building, testing, and 

17 

maintaining required systems. Although it took 2 decades for electronic commerce 

to evolve after Internet access became available to the general public, we would expect creation of the necessary platforms for digital agriculture to occur much faster. 

Source: CEMA 2007. 

Concluding Thoughts 

Digital agriculture represents the newest—and perhaps the most promising— 

wave of industry innovation that, in our opinion, can help production agriculture operate more efficiently and sustainably, both in terms of long-term financial success 

and continued environmental stewardship. 

While this report approaches the subject of digital agriculture largely from the 

perspective of upstream farming (crop and livestock) and farm inputs (seeds, crop 

protection chemicals, fertilizer, and machinery) companies, a common operating system for data gathering, collaboration, and analytics is of critical importance to other 

players along the value chain. 

Midstream food companies and their supply chains (such as processors, storage, 

and transportation companies) are increasingly demanding more data and informaVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:21 Sep 05, 2017 Jkt 041481 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 P:\DOCS\115-09\26385.TXT BRIAN

11509002.eps
18 

tion. This is largely driven by the end-consumer who demands greater transparency 

about the origin of commercially sold food. In our opinion, consumer sentiment and 

regulations governing the interest of consumers will ultimately guide the further 

evolution and adoption of digital agriculture. 

Imprint 

RaboResearch 

Food & Agribusiness, far.rabobank.com. 

Kenneth S. Zuckerberg, Senior Research Analyst, kenneth.zuckerberg@rabobank.com, +1 212 916 7998. 

Dirk Jan Kennes, Global Sector Strategist, dirk.jan.kennes@rabobank.com, +852 21032423. 

© 2017—All rights reserved. 

This document is meant exclusively for you and does not carry any right of publication or disclosure other than to Coo ̈perative Rabobank U.A. (‘‘Rabobank’’), registered in Amsterdam. Neither this document nor any of its contents may be distributed, reproduced, or used for any other purpose without the prior written consent 

of Rabobank. The information in this document reflects prevailing market conditions and our judgement as of this date, all of which may be subject to change. This 

document is based on public information. The information and opinions contained in this document have been compiled or derived from sources believed to be reliable; however, Rabobank does not guarantee the correctness or completeness of this document, and does not accept any liability in this respect. The information and 

opinions contained in this document are indicative and for discussion purposes only. No rights may be derived from any potential offers, transactions, commercial 

ideas, et cetera contained in this document. This document does not constitute an offer, invitation, or recommendation. This document shall not form the basis of, or 

cannot be relied upon in connection with, any contract or commitment whatsoever. The information in this document is not intended, and may not be understood, as 

an advice (including, without limitation, an advice within the meaning of article 1:1 and article 4:23 of the Dutch Financial Supervision Act). This document is governed by Dutch law. The competent court in Amsterdam, the Netherlands has exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute which may arise out of, or in connection 

with, this document and/or any discussions or negotiations based on it. This report has been published in line with Rabobank’s long-term commitment to international food and agribusiness. It is one of a series of publications undertaken by the global department of RaboResearch Food & Agribusiness. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Tiller. Very well said. 

Mr. Janzen, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF TODD J. JANZEN, J.D., PRESIDENT, JANZEN 

AGRICULTURAL LAW LLC, INDIANAPOLIS, IN 

Mr. JANZEN. Good morning, Chairman Crawford, Ranking Member Nolan, and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Todd 

Janzen. I am President and attorney of Janzen Agricultural Law 

LLC, which is a law firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana. And we 

serve the needs of farmers, agribusiness, and also ag technology 

providers. 

You are going to hear a lot today about agricultural data and 

this movement of data from on-farm into cloud-based platforms. 

Yield data is a good example of that. In the past, farmers always 

kept this data on their farms, and now we are seeing a real movement towards moving that into third-party platform providers that 

host this data somewhere else. 

And together with this movement of data off the farm into the 

possession of third parties have come a lot of concerns. And groups 

like American Farm Bureau Federation have taken numerous polls 

about how farmers feel about this. And in my materials, I have 

more detail, but I would summarize it by saying there are really 

three concerns that I see. First, is a lack of trust among farmers 

in these ag technology providers, because they are giving up part 

of what makes up their livelihood. Second, is a loss of control to 

these companies. And third, would be frustrations with the complexity of the legal agreements they are asked to sign. 

And, of course, farmers are no strangers to contracts. They sign 

things all the time. But now they are being asked to check an ‘‘I 

accept’’ box that has some pretty important consequences for what 

happens to their data, followed by pages and pages of legal type 

that they may or may not read. 

American Farm Bureau Federation really led an effort a few 

years ago to come up with some ground rules for how companies 

should use and control ag data, and this culminated in a document 

called the Privacy and Security Principles for Farm Data, which I 

refer to as the Core Principles for farm data. And 37 companies 

signed onto these and said they were going to implement these core 

principles in their contracts with farmers. I was fortunate to be inVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:21 Sep 05, 2017 Jkt 041481 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\115-09\26385.TXT BRIAN
19 

volved in those discussions and be part of that as that document 

came to be. 

But just creating Core Principles isn’t really enough, because if 

companies don’t follow these Core Principles, we need some way to 

verify that. And so that is one of the things I want to talk about 

today. 

Farm Bureau, National Farmers Union, and commodity groups 

for corn, soy, wheat, soybeans, sorghum, and potatoes all came together and formed an organization that could help verify whether 

or not companies were being transparent with farmers’ data. And 

what they came up with was a way to recognize those companies 

after going through a certification process. And this is the seal of 

approval that this organization provides to companies that says Ag 

Data Transparent. And a company that goes through a certification 

process can obtain use of that on their marketing materials. 

The seal really recognizes companies that have been through a 

certification process. And in order to get the seal, ten questions are 

asked of these companies, such as what data are you collecting 

from farmers, how are you using that data, and then can a farmer 

retrieve that data back from this company at a later date if they 

want to. 

My role at Janzen Agricultural Law is to administer this project, 

and that is one reason I am here today. We review these companies’ submissions when they fill out these ten question forms, and 

we check to see are they really being transparent with how they 

use farmers’ ag data. 

I am proud to say that eight companies have already been 

through this certification process and been awarded the Ag Data 

Transparent seal. In fact, MyAgData, Deb Casurella’s company, 

was the very first one to obtain use of the seal. But there are still 

many more that could go through and become certified, and we 

hope that they do. 

We also post the answers to these ten questions when companies 

go through the process online at agdatatransparent.com, and in my 

materials I have a lot more detail about that. 

I will just conclude by saying there is still a lot of work to be 

done here. There are still a lot of companies that should go through 

the certification process but haven’t as of today. There are still a 

lot of complex, complicated contracts that farmers are asked to 

sign, and we can do better as a legal community to address that 

as well. 

I hope that when different companies come before you as a Committee you will ask them, do you have the Ag Data Transparent 

seal? Or if companies have been through the process, you will congratulate them for achieving that. 

I am honored to speak with you here today about this effort and 

the work that I do, and I welcome your questions later today. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Janzen follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TODD J. JANZEN, J.D., PRESIDENT, JANZEN AGRICULTURAL

LAW LLC, INDIANAPOLIS, IN 

Good morning, Chairman Crawford, Ranking Member Nolan, and Members of 

Subcommittee. My name is Todd J. Janzen, I am the President and attorney with 

20 

Janzen Agricultural Law, LLC, a law firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana that 

serves the needs of America’s farmers, ag technology providers, and agribusinesses. 

One of the reasons we founded Janzen Ag Law in 2015 was that we wanted to 

be at the forefront of the changes that have been occurring on the farm for the past 

few years. Farms are becoming more digital every day, and together with that digitalization is a movement of agricultural data stored on computers in the farm office 

to cloud-based data storage devices. Agricultural data (ag data) can be many things, 

including yield data, soil data, planting information, weather data, financial data, 

etc. This marks the first time in history that the majority of the information that 

farmers generate and use on their farms has been moved into the hands of companies outside the farm. 

As a result, we are seeing a digital land-rush occurring across the United States. 

The past few years have seen millions of dollars pour into ag data startups from 

Silicon Valley to Kansas City. Historic legacy agricultural companies, such as John 

Deere, are also at the forefront of this movement by expanding their product offerings to include cloud-based data storage platforms. All of these companies are 

scrambling to get the most acres of data into their platforms so that when consolidation of ag technology providers (ATPs) begins, they are in the strongest position. 

In the race to the cloud, we must also be cautious so that the American farmer 

is not left behind. Today I will address the issues facing farmers as digitalization 

occurs and how the industry has begun to address these issues. 

Issues Facing Farmers as Ag Data Moves into the Cloud 

American Farm Bureau Federation (Farm Bureau) conducted a poll of over 400 

farmers in 2016 to understand their issues concerning ag data privacy, security, and 

control. The poll highlighted what are essentially three issues that continue to come 

up when asking farmers about ag data concerns: 

1. Lack of Trust 

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of farmers expressed concern about which entities 

can access their farm data after the data is uploaded to cloud-based servers. The 

same percentage expressed concern about whether uploading the data could cause 

it to be used for regulatory purposes. 

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of farmers said they consider how outside parties will 

use their ag data when deciding whether to entrust their data with a certain ATP. 

A farmer’s lack of trust can come from many sources, but I speculate it originates 

in two places. Many ag data companies are new. Ag data startups lack the goodwill 

that older agricultural companies have spent years building. They have new sales 

associates who are strangers to the farm, or in some instances, strangers to agriculture. They are viewed as outsiders. 

Older, long-established agricultural companies do not suffer from a general lack 

of trust with the farmer, since they have spent years building that relationship. But 

when a seed company, equipment manufacturer, or ag retailer begins offering an ag 

data platform to store the farmer’s ag data, farmers often are skeptical about 

whether the storage provider is trying to help the farmer raise a better crop or 

using the ag data to sell the farmer more or higher-priced goods and services. This 

skepticism may erode a farmer’s trust. 

2. Concern with Losing Control 

Farmers are also concerned that uploading their ag data to cloud-based platforms 

means they will lose control over downstream uses. Sixty-six percent (66%) of respondents in the Farm Bureau poll believe farmers should share in the potential 

financial benefits from the use of their data beyond the direct value they may realize on their farm. 

Farmers raised concerns that ATPs could use their ag data to gain an unfair advantage in the marketplace. Sixty-one percent (61%) of farmers expressed worry 

that ATPs could use their data to influence market decisions. 

These concerns arise from a fundamental legal truth about ag data—there are no 

laws that specifically protect farmers’ privacy and security concerns. Ag data is not 

typically ‘‘personally identifiable information,’’ such that it would be protected by 

state laws which prevent misuse of personal information like name, address, and 

phone number. Nor does ag data fit into a class of data that Congress has chosen 

to protect legally, such as medical information (HIPAA). Finally, ag data does not 

neatly fit into existing legal protections for intellectual property, such as patents, 

trademarks, or copyrights. Ag data ultimately may be deemed a trade secret under 

existing state and Federal trade secret laws, but that will depend upon whether 

courts interpret existing statutes to include information such as agronomic data. 

21 

These uncertainties mean that the contracts between farmers and ag tech providers are very important. These contracts will determine farmers’ rights in the ag 

data their farms create. 

3. Frustration with Complexity of Current Legal Agreements 

Fifty-nine (59%) percent of farmers were confused about whether current legal 

agreements allowed ATPs to use their ag data to market other services, equipment, 

or inputs back to them. Zippy Duvall, President of Farm Bureau, said: ‘‘This indicates a higher level of clarity and transparency is needed to secure grower confidence. One of the topics I hear most about from farmers on the data issue is having a clear understanding about the details of ‘Terms and Conditions’ and ‘Privacy 

Policy’ documents we all sign when buying new electronics. You should not have to 

hire an attorney before you are comfortable signing a contract with an ag technology 

provider.’’ 

Our experience as a law firm working in this area confirms that this is a real 

problem for farmers and ATPs. There is no standard agreement that governs ag 

data transfer, use, and control by ATPs. Instead, technology companies have adapted other forms of legal agreements to try to address the issues associated with moving ag data into cloud-based platforms, but with limited success. A farmer seeking 

to compare two similar products today might find that they are governed by two 

very different sets of contracts. 

This only adds to a farmer’s confusion. If we want to make technology easy to embrace and use—and we do—then we need to simplify the contracts farmers sign 

when implementing new ag data technology on the farm. 

How the Industry Is Addressing Farmers’ Concerns 

1. The Privacy and Security Principles for Farm Data 

Farm Bureau, National Farmer’s Union, and national commodity organizations 

for corn, soybeans, wheat, and sorghum, led an effort in 2014 to establish fundamental principles for companies working in the ag data space. These organizations 

held a series of meetings where roundtable discussions occurred among industry 

stakeholders, such as John Deere, CNH Industrial, AGCO, Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, Beck’s Hybrids, Dow Agrosciences, Farmobile, and other ag technology providers. The culmination of these efforts was the drafting of the ‘‘Privacy and Security Principles for Farm Data,’’ also known as ag data’s ‘‘Core Principles.’’ 

The Core Principles address thirteen key elements related to ag data. These include: 

• Education. 

• Ownership. 

• Collection, Access and Control. 

• Notice. 

• Transparency and Consistency. 

• Choice. 

• Portability. 

• Terms and Definitions. 

• Disclosure, Use, and Sale Limitation. 

• Data Retention and Availability. 

• Contract Termination. 

• Unlawful or Anti-Competitive Activities. 

• Liability & Security Safeguards. 

After releasing the Core Principles in 2014, Farm Bureau asked companies to voluntarily ‘‘sign on’’ to the document. As of July 2017, the following organizations and 

companies have agreed to implement the Core Principles into their contracts with 

farmers. 

AGCO DuPont Pioneer National Farmers Union 

Ag Connections, Inc. Farm Dog National Potato Council 

Agrible, Inc.* Farmobile LLC * National Sorghum Producers 

AgSense Granular * North American Equipment Dealers Assoc. 

AgWorks Grower Information Services Cooperative OnFarm 

Ag Leader Technology GROWMARK, Inc.* Raven Industries 

American Farm Bureau Fed. Independent Data Management LLC * Reinke Manufacturing Co., Inc. 

American Soybean Assoc. John Deere Syngenta 

Beck’s Hybrids * 

CNH Industrial 

Mapshots, Inc. 

National Assoc. of Wheat Growers 

The Climate Corporation—a division of 

Monsanto 

Conservis * National Barley Growers Assoc. USA Rice Federation 

Crop IMS National Corn Growers Assoc. Valley Irrigation 

22 

CropMetrics National Cotton Council ZedX Inc. 

Dow AgroSciences LLC 

* Company certified to be Ag Data Transparent. For more information, visitwww.agdatatransparent.com. 

A copy of the Core Principles is attached as Exhibit A. 

2. The Ag Data Transparent Effort 

Having the Core Principles in place was a great starting point for the ag data 

industry to address farmers’ concerns with ag data privacy, use, and control. However, the Core Principles are only guidelines, and only valuable if companies incorporate the Core Principles into their contracts with farmers. Therefore, following the 

release of the Core Principles, several farm groups and industry stakeholders 

worked together to create an independent verification tool that could help farmers 

determine if ag tech providers are abiding by the Core Principles. This tool is called 

the Ag Data Transparency Evaluator. It is a simple three-step process: 

• Participating companies must answer ten questions about how they store, use, 

and transfer ag data. 

• The ten question answer form is reviewed by an independent third party for 

transparency and completeness. 

• If the evaluation is acceptable, the company is awarded the ‘‘Ag Data Transparent’’ seal of approval for use on its future marketing materials. 

Participation is voluntary, but all companies that signed onto the Core Principles 

have been asked to participate in the Ag Data Transparent effort as well. 

a. The 10 Question Evaluation 

Here is a list of the ten questions that each participant is asked to answer as part 

of the evaluation: 

1. What categories of data does the product or service collect from me (the farmer)? 

2. Do the Ag Technology Provider’s (ATP’s) agreements address ownership of my 

data after my data is transferred to the ATP? 

3. If the ATP contracts with other companies to provide data related services, 

does the ATP require these companies to adhere to the ATP’s privacy policies 

with me? 

4. Will the ATP obtain my consent before providing other companies with access 

to my data? 

5. After I upload data to the ATP, will it be possible to retrieve my original complete dataset in an original or equivalent format? 

6. Will the ATP notify me when its agreements change? 

7. Will the ATP notify me if a breach of data security occurs that causes disclosure of my data to an outside party? 

8. Upon my request, can my original dataset be deleted when my contract with 

the ATP terminates? 

9. Do the ATP’s agreements establish how long my original datasets will be retained? 

10. Do the ATP’s agreements address what happens to my data if the ATP is sold 

to another company? 

Answers to all questions except for question 1 are ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no,’’ but companies 

are also given space to explain their answer. 

b. Reviewing the 10 Question Evaluation 

After an ag tech company completes the ten question evaluation form, the company submits its answers to an independent third party evaluator to determine compliance. Janzen Agricultural Law LLC is the law firm that has been selected to conduct the evaluations. After reviewing a company’s answers, we typically go back to 

that company with suggestions for improving its contracts and policies to bring into 

compliance with Core Principles. Companies then make those revisions to their contracts and policies and resubmit their ten question form. Once a company’s answers 

align with the Core Principles, we send an official letter designating the company 

as ‘‘Ag Data Transparent’’ and authorizing use of the seal of approval. 

The final, approved ten question answer forms are posted on the Ag Data Transparent website at www.AgDataTransparent.com Farmers can research and review 

23 

companies’ answers online. The website requires no log in and is free to use. An 

example of the home page is attached as Exhibit B. 

c. The Ag Data Transparent Seal of Approval 

Companies that undergo evaluation and are approved as ‘‘Ag Data Transparent’’ 

may then use the seal of approval on their websites and marketing materials. To 

date, eight companies have completed the evaluation and been approved as ‘‘Ag 

Data Transparent.’’ These eight companies are: 

• AgIntegrated, Inc. 

• Agrible, Inc. 

• Beck’s Hybrids. 

• Conservis Corporation. 

• Farmobile. 

• Granular. 

• GROWMARK. 

• Independent Data Management LLC. 

The participants are diverse, from a Silicon Valley ag tech startup, to a Midwestern seedcompany, to one of the nation’s largest farm cooperatives and ag retailers. These companiesmay use the Ag Data Transparent seal on their websites, denoting their compliance with theCore Principles. Farmers who see the seal of approval will know the company went through thetime and effort to certify its contract. 

The Ag Data Transparent process addresses farmers’ three main concerns with 

ag data. First, the process instills trust. No company submits its contracts to a voluntary evaluation unless the company is willing to revise its contracts, as necessary, 

to bring them into compliance with the Core Principles. Second, loss of control is 

addressed by requiring tech providers to obtain farmer consent before transferring 

data to third parties. Finally, farmers’ complexity frustration is addressed by condensing all of a tech provider’s contracts into a ten question form that answers the 

questions farmers want to know. The Ag Data Transparent process makes contracts 

better. 

d. Who is behind the Ag Data Transparent effort? 

The Ag Data Transparent effort is governed by a nonprofit corporation, the Ag 

Data Transparency Evaluator Inc. The corporate bylaws create two classes of directors: (1) farm organizations that are made up of farmer-member organizations; and 

(2) diverse ag technology providers, referred to as ‘‘industry partners.’’ The farm organizations are American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, 

National Corn Growers Association, National Farmers Union, National Sorghum 

Producers, National Association of Wheat Growers and National Potato Council. The 

industry partner board members are ag technology providers ranging from large corporations, medium-sized companies, and ag tech startup organizations. 


11509003.eps
24 

Janzen Agricultural Law LLC, which serves as the administrator of the program 

and conducts the evaluation reviews, is not a board member. 

3. The Ag Data Use Policy 

Our law firm also drafts terms of service, license agreements, privacy polices, and 

other contracts for ag technology providers. This work has confirmed many concerns 

facing farmers today when it comes to ag data. We see how companies struggle to 

communicate clearly how they intend to store, use, and transfer ag data. 

For these reasons, we have encouraged companies to draft ‘‘data use policies’’ or 

‘‘data use agreements’’ for their farmers. In a data use contract, the technology provider addresses all of the issues raised by the ten questions and the Core Principles. 

For example, a data use policy will explain what information the provider collects 

and what permission is required before the provider transfers that data to another 

party. 

From our standpoint, the Ag Data Transparent effort has helped drive more technology providers into creating data use policies. Thus, the effort has paid dividends 

even for some companies that have not participated in evaluations because it has 

caused them to rethink how they are contracting with farmers. 

Conclusion 

The Ag Data Transparent effort is great step towards bringing transparency to 

ag data contracts between farmers and their technology providers. Wider participation would certainly help the effort, but that is up to the industry. Out of the dozens 

of ag tech providers with cloud-based platforms on the market today, only eight 

have embraced the process. To be fair, others are in the process but adoption could 

still be faster and better. 

Farmers should ask their technology providers why they have not earned that Ag 

Data Transparent seal. This Subcommittee should ask technology providers this 

question as well when they come before you to testify. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your time and attention to this important issue. 

I look forward to answering any questions you may have for me. 

TODD J. JANZEN, Janzen Agricultural Law LLC. 


11509004.eps
25 

EXHIBIT A 

Privacy and Security Principles for Farm Data 

(Ag Data’s Core Principles) 

November 2014 

The recent evolution of precision agriculture and farm data is providing farmers 

with tools, which can help to increase productivity and profitability. 

As that technology continues to evolve, the undersigned organizations and companies believe the following data principles should be adopted by each Agriculture 

Technology Provider (ATP). 

It is imperative that an ATP’s principles, policies and practices be consistent with 

each company’s contracts with farmers. The undersigned organizations are committed to ongoing engagement and dialogue regarding this rapidly developing technology. 

Education: Grower education is valuable to ensure clarity between all parties 

and stakeholders. Grower organizations and industry should work to develop programs, which help to create educated customers who understand their rights and 

responsibilities. ATPs should strive to draft contracts using simple, easy to understand language. 

Ownership: We believe farmers own information generated on their farming operations. However, it is the responsibility of the farmer to agree upon data use and 

sharing with the other stakeholders with an economic interest, such as the tenant, 

landowner, cooperative, owner of the precision agriculture system hardware, and/or 

ATP, etc. The farmer contracting with the ATP is responsible for ensuring that only 

the data they own or have permission to use is included in the account with the 

ATP. 

Collection, Access and Control: An ATP’s collection, access and use of farm 

data should be granted only with the affirmative and explicit consent of the farmer. 

This will be by contract agreements, whether signed or digital. 

Notice: Farmers must be notified that their data is being collected and about how 

the farm data will be disclosed and used. This notice must be provided in an easily 

located and readily accessible format. 

Transparency and Consistency: ATPs shall notify farmers about the purposes 

for which they collect and use farm data. They should provide information about 

how farmers can contact the ATP with any inquiries or complaints, the types of 

third parties to which they disclose the data and the choices the ATP offers for limiting its use and disclosure. 

An ATP’s principles, policies and practices should be transparent and fully consistent with the terms and conditions in their legal contracts. An ATP will not 

change the customer’s contract without his or her agreement. 

Choice: ATPs should explain the effects and abilities of a farmer’s decision to opt 

in, opt out or disable the availability of services and features offered by the ATP. 

If multiple options are offered, farmers should be able to choose some, all, or none 

of the options offered. ATPs should provide farmers with a clear understanding of 

what services and features may or may not be enabled when they make certain 

choices. 

Portability: Within the context of the agreement and retention policy, farmers 

should be able to retrieve their data for storage or use in other systems, with the 

exception of the data that has been made anonymous or aggregated and is no longer 

specifically identifiable. Non-anonymized or non-aggregated data should be easy for 

farmers to receive their data back at their discretion. 

Terms and Definitions: Farmers should know with whom they are contracting 

if the ATP contract involves sharing with third parties, partners, business partners, 

ATP partners, or affiliates. ATPs should clearly explain the following definitions in 

a consistent manner in all of their respective agreements: (1) farm data; (2) third 

party; (3) partner; (4) business partner; (5) ATP partners; (6) affiliate; (7) data account holder; (8) original customer data. If these definitions are not used, ATPs 

should define each alternative term in the contract and privacy policy. ATPs should 

strive to use clear language for their terms, conditions and agreements. 

Disclosure, Use and Sale Limitation: An ATP will not sell and/or disclose nonaggregated farm data to a third party without first securing a legally binding commitment to be bound by the same terms and conditions as the ATP has with the 

farmer. Farmers must be notified if such a sale is going to take place and have the 

option to opt out or have their data removed prior to that sale. An ATP will not 

share or disclose original farm data with a third party in any manner that is inconsistent with the contract with the farmer. If the agreement with the third party is 

26 

not the same as the agreement with the ATP, farmers must be presented with the 

third party’s terms for agreement or rejection. 

Data Retention and Availability: Each ATP should provide for the removal, secure destruction and return of original farm data from the farmer’s account upon 

the request of the farmer or after a pre-agreed period of time. The ATP should include a requirement that farmers have access to the data that an ATP holds during 

that data retention period. ATPs should document personally identifiable data retention and availability policies and disposal procedures, and specify requirements 

of data under policies and procedures. 

Contract Termination: Farmers should be allowed to discontinue a service or 

halt the collection of data at any time subject to appropriate ongoing obligations. 

Procedures for termination of services should be clearly defined in the contract. 

Unlawful or Anti-Competitive Activities: ATPs should not use the data for unlawful or anticompetitive activities, such as a prohibition on the use of farm data 

by the ATP to speculate in commodity markets. 

Liability & Security Safeguards: The ATP should clearly define terms of liability. Farm data should be protected with reasonable security safeguards against risks 

such as loss or unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification or disclosure. Polices for notification and response in the event of a breach should be established. 

The undersigned organizations for the Privacy and Security Principles of Farm 

Data as of April 1, 2016. 

AGCO DuPont Pioneer National Potato Council 

Ag Connections, Inc. Farm Dog National Sorghum Producers 

Agrible, Inc.* 

AgSense 

Farmobile LLC * 

Granular * 

North American Equipment Dealers Association 

AgWorks Grower Information Services Cooperative OnFarm 

Ag Leader Technology GROWMARK, Inc.* Raven Industries 

American Farm Bureau Federation Independent Data Management LLC * Reinke Manufacturing Co., INC. 

American Soybean Association John Deere Syngenta 

Beck’s Hybrids * 

CNH Industrial 

Mapshots, Inc. 

National Association of Wheat Growers 

The Climate Corporation—a division of 

Monsanto 

Conservis * National Barley Growers Association USA Rice Federation 

Crop IMS National Corn Growers Association Valley Irrigation 

CropMetrics National Cotton Council ZedX Inc. 

Dow AgroSciences LLC National Farmers Union 

* Company that has also certified its policy is compliant with the Ag Data Transparency Evaluator. For more information, visit www.agdatatransparent.com. 

27 

EXHIBIT B 

Ag Data Transparent Homepage (www.AgDataTransparent.com) 


11509005.eps
28 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Janzen. 

Ms. Casurella, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DEBORAH CASURELLA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE 

OFFICER, INDEPENDENT DATA MANAGEMENT, LLC, 

HUDSON, WI 

Ms. CASURELLA. Thanks for the opportunity to be here today. I 

am going to talk about production agriculture, also known as precision ag, its impact on farmers, the USDA, and crop insurance companies. 

A key way to help farmers, the government, and taxpayers realize the benefits of precision ag technology is to open the third-party 

channel and allow producers to report from home. This can be done 

with commercial software, much like the IRS did in 1986, by allowing taxpayers to use products like TurboTax to report their acres. 

To me, the most impressive pieces of precision ag are the sensors 

connected to control systems that run the equipment. This technology allows farmers to achieve better yields, use fewer resources, 

and reduce the impact on the environment, and ultimately meet 

world food demand. 

The adoption rate is increasing. Estimates say that precision ag 

is already used on 70 percent of acres. A significant byproduct is 

data. Farmers and ranchers are collecting all sorts of information, 

but they are last to the trough to get benefits from their own data. 

Both FSA and crop insurance agents require farmers to submit 

an annual report of farm acres, but we don’t make it easy for them. 

Farmers who use precision ag start with an electronic version of 

their planting information, including the exact geographic location 

of each and every seed in the ground. The current reporting process 

will see that data translated somewhere between three and eight 

times back and forth between tabular data and maps, from electronic to paper and back, all to end up in electronic form where it 

started, but in government systems. 

For 7 years, the USDA has been working on a new system to 

share common information electronically between agencies. For the 

past 3 crop years, farmers have been able to report the common information just once, either to the FSA or their crop insurance 

agent, and have that information electronically shared with the 

other. This is a good step and a direct result of the Acreage Crop 

Reporting Streamlining Initiative, ACRSI, which was reauthorized 

in the 2014 Farm Bill. 

The reporting standards for RMA and FSA include geospatial 

data, the map, along with crop and acreage information, but much 

of that information is not required, which causes two problems. 

First, even if a crop insurance agent collects the geospatial data, 

and many do, they don’t provide it to the FSA because it is not required. And second, FSA and RMA don’t exchange that optional 

data, the maps, with each other. Because the data is incomplete, 

the other agency doesn’t use it. 

Frustrated farmers must still visit both the FSA county office 

and their crop insurance agent and share the same information to 

complete reporting. Three main reasons for the visit. First, farmers 

must validate and sign their acreage report in each office. Second, 

farmers must provide program-specific information to the second 

29 

agency that wasn’t collected by the first agency. And third, farmers 

need to complete their maps. 

The USDA knows it is a problem and is actively working on it. 

In 2015, as part of the ACRSI initiative, FSA conducted a pilot for 

electronic acreage reporting using precision ag data. One of the 

things the pilot tested was allowing farmers to use third-party commercial software to report their acres. Independent Data Management, using MyAgData, was selected to test that channel, and the 

pilot was an overwhelming success. MyAgData was a bridge, because it included words, numbers, and maps, not just the required 

data but also the optional data, and one report could be used for 

both FSA and RMA. 

Because the data was more precise, participants reported an average of 4.7 percent fewer acres. That means a lower insurance 

premium for the farmer, decreased premium subsidy funded by 

taxpayers, lower indemnity for crop insurance companies and the 

RMA, and a reduction in claims because yield was not diluted 

across unplanted acres. 

Think of the numbers with expanded use. If 25 percent of the 

acres were reported using a grower’s actual field boundaries, and 

the average reported acres were 4.7 lower, producer premiums and 

taxpayer subsidies could be reduced by up to $179 million annually. That is a conservative number, but $179 million is a reasonable number to expect with 25 percent of acres. 

And that is only insurance premiums. What are the savings on 

indemnities? What if this also applied to farm programs? 

Again, just using map tools to do reporting changed the agency’s 

visit length from hours to minutes, and despite the success the 

third-party channel remains closed. 

USDA can accept the standard. They share it between agencies 

today. Both FSA and RMA understand the benefits, and the FSA 

union supports it. All that is required are minor system changes. 

Farmers plant fields. Let them report what they plant. It is more 

accurate. It saves time and money for farmers and the agencies 

and it saves taxpayer dollars. 

Complete accurate data is the lifeblood of farm programs, crop 

insurance, and conservation programs. The data is already being 

collected. Let’s use it. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Casurella follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DEBORAH CASURELLA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, INDEPENDENT DATA MANAGEMENT, LLC, HUDSON, WI 

The company was founded in 2012 and funded primarily by farmers to provide 

technology to make it easier for farmers to submit acreage reports to the USDA. 

That sounds pretty simple, but like many things in agriculture, it is a bit more complicated than it appears. 

We started with software that could take data from a wide variety of precision 

ag equipment (about 110 different formats), translate that data into usable annotated maps, overlay the government’s description of the field called a Common Land 

Unit (CLU) on the map, give the farmer tools to review and fill in any missing data 

and print documents that the farmer could take to their crop insurance agent or 

the Farm Services Agency (FSA) and report. We’ve grown into a full function acreage reporting suite of tools including a mobile version that allows data capture in 

the field. 

I have over 30 years of hands on experience delivering practical operations and 

information technology solutions to solve real business problems. I have worked in 

30 

environments ranging from small startups to large multinationals in insurance (including crop insurance), transportation and health care. 

I chaired the AgGateway data privacy policy committee that, together with American Farm Bureau Federation produced the first widely recognized set of privacy 

standards for ag data. AgGateway is a leading ag industry group. Those privacy 

standards have been largely adopted by more than 50 ag technology companies. 

I am going to talk about precision agriculture (precision ag) technology, how that 

technology has impacted farmers and their interactions with government programs, 

USDA and the crop insurance companies and I will suggest that a key way to help 

farmers, the government and the taxpayers realize some of the potential benefits 

that have been unlocked is to open the third party channel for acreage reporting 

and give farmers the option to report from home using commercial off-the-shelf 

(COTS) software much like the IRS did in 1986 by allowing taxpayers to use products like Turbo Tax and other third party software to report income tax. 

In 2009, I became CIO of an Approved Insurance Provider (AIP) and was surprised at the widespread use of technology in farming. Most impressive are the control systems that run the equipment and the precision agriculture instrumentation 

that guides them to allow farmers to achieve better yields, use fewer resources, and 

reduce the impact on the environment. 

The adoption rate of this technology is increasing. Some estimates say precision 

ag is already used on close to 70% of crop acres. 

One of the significant by-products is data. Farmers and ranchers are collecting 

all sorts of information about their operation, but they are last to the trough to get 

benefits from their own data. The ‘‘big ag’’ companies and equipment manufacturers 

find ways to collect and aggregate data and use it to their advantage but the application of farm data to directly benefit the average farmer is rare. 

When I refer to tabular data, I mean words and numbers. When I talk about 

geospatial data, think maps. 

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) requires farmers and ranchers participating in 

their programs to submit an annual report on all cropland use on their farms. Crop 

insurance agents for providers approved by the USDA Risk Management Agency 

(RMA) also require these reports. But we don’t make it easy for the farmer. For 

years, farmers and ranchers have been required to enter the common information 

from their acreage reports at both the county FSA office and at their crop insurance 

agent’s office. 

Farmers using precision ag start with an electronic version of their planting information including the exact geographic location of each and every seed in the ground. 

The current reporting process will see that precise data translated somewhere between three and eight times, back and forth between tabular data and maps and 

from electronic formats to paper and back, all to end up in electronic form (where 

it started) in the government systems. 

For the past 7 years, USDA has been working on a new system to better collaborate and streamline the collection of common information that can be securely and 

electronically shared between FSA and the Risk Management Agency (RMA). For 

the past 3 crop years, farmers and ranchers been able to provide the common information from their acreage reports just once—either to FSA or to their crop insurance agent—and have that common information securely and electronically shared 

with the other. This is a direct result of USDA’s Acreage Crop Reporting Streamlining Initiative (ACRSI) which was reauthorized in the 2014 Farm Bill. 

The reporting standard for both RMA and FSA includes geospatial data (maps) 

along with regular crop and acreage information but much of it is not required. This 

causes at least two problems. First, even if a crop insurance company collects the 

geospatial data (and some do), they don’t provide it as part of their report because 

it is not required. And second, FSA and RMA do not require the exchange of optional data with each other. This means that the interagency exchanged data is usually ignored because, to use the data, each agency requires some of the optional 

data. The end result is that frustrated farmers must visit both the FSA county office 

and their crop insurance agent’s office and share the same information to complete 

reporting. 

There are three main reasons for this: 

1. Farmers must validate and sign their respective acreage reports in each office. 

Electronic signature is accepted in crop insurance, but not yet in FSA reporting. 

2. Farmers must provide the program-specific information to the second agency 

that was not required to report to the first agency. 

3. Farmers must complete maps (the geospatial data). 

31 

USDA knows this is a problem and has been actively working on it. In 2015, as 

part of USDA’s Acreage Crop Reporting Streamlining Initiative (ACRSI), the FSA 

conducted a pilot for electronic acreage reporting. One of the things the pilot tested 

was allowing farmers to use third party commercial software to report their acres. 

Independent Data Management, using MyAgData® participated as the 3rd party 

software provider and the pilot was an overwhelming success on several levels: 

Farmers that reported using precision ag data saw an average of 4.7% fewer acres 

reported. The increased accuracy of precision ag data meant a lower crop insurance 

premium for the farmer, decreased premium subsidies funded by taxpayers, lower 

indemnity for crop insurance companies and the Risk Management Agency (RMA), 

and a reduction in claims as yield was not diluted across unplanted acres. Ultimately this will result in higher guarantees for a producer. Think of the numbers 

with expanded use. If 25% of acres were reported using a grower’s accurate field 

boundaries and the average was a reduction of reported acres of 4.74%, producer 

annual premiums and taxpayer subsidies could be reduced by up to $179M. That’s 

only crop insurance premium. What are the savings on indemnities? What if this 

also applied to farm programs? 

The third party software provided the bridge because its reporting included not 

just the required data, but also the optional data and one reporting could be used 

for both FSA and RMA. 

Just using map-based tools to do either precision ag based reporting or electronic 

manual reporting provided a big reduction in the effort involved to report for the 

farmers and for USDA. 

Despite this success, the third party channel remains closed. 

USDA can accept electronic transmissions from any third party. The standards 

have been out to the ag industry for a year and used for 3 years by the agencies. 

The FSA and Risk Management Agency (RMA) both understand the benefits. The 

National Association of FSA County Office Employees (NASCOE) has been supportive of ACRSI. All that is required are minor system changes and a policy change 

to open the third party channel for reporting. 

Farmers plant fields. Let them report what they plant. It is more accurate, saves 

them time and money, saves the agencies time and money and saves taxpayer 

money. And the more accurate data helps not only current programs, but future 

ones be more effective and more efficient saving even more time and money. 

Thank you. 

Fields as Planted by a Producer 

Taxpayer paid subsidies and benefits for crop insurance and farm programs could bereduced by 4.73% if acres were collected using a producers[’] 

electronic field boundaries. 


11509006.eps
32 

Producer Fields & Common Land Units (CLUs) 

While lines are the producer’s CLUs. 

Yellow represents planted corn, dark green is beans, red hashing is crop 

planted outside of a CLU, light green is idle ground with a CLU. 


11509007.eps
33 


11509008.eps

One Producers Story (Anonymous Blog Post) Page 1 

customer connection: Certifying· can It REAllY be THAT Painful? 6July 2015 

I often hear people joklrwthat~s farmers, we like to complain about 

everythlna. lthun't ralned-so we complain. It hu rained too much- so we 

complain. Cropprlcesarehlgh but our yields are low-sowe complain. OUr 

yleldsareh ghbutaop prluure low· so we complain. Equipment, fenilb:er, 

seed costs-way too much, so we complain. And SOMEnMES, I admit we 

might beblowlnghotalr. However, onecomplalnt lsdeflnltely leg~-and 1 

con say that because I experienced It firsthand. In the flesh last wee!<. Which 

one? Certifying acres. I went In thinking *'how bad can It be???"" I came out 

shaking my head and mentally exhausted. 

Here Is the skinny on acre un:lffatlof\. Each year, farmers are required to so lntothelr loeal countyFSA (Farm 

~rvlce Agency, which Is a division of the US Department of Agriculture or USDA) office toverlfyourcrops and 

acres. We do this post·plant so we e~n accurately report the number of acres. type of aop and planting date for 

eoch field. If we don't certify, •vewon' t be eligible for any applicable federal crop Insurance or generalized Farm 

Programs. It really shouldn't be too difficult given that most farmers keep accurate records of eoch field (whether 

documented vta GPSor manually). we simply have to verify and sign. Easy peasy (as my kids would say). Or Not. 

I would llkoto begin by saying this blog Is In no way a reflection on tho kind ladles In tho FSA offlaowho he~ us. 

They were terrific· and nearly as frustrated as we were. OUr original appointment was for 3:00pm In Oakland, lA· 

about 3.S minutes away. See, you certify at the FSA office-In the county that your farms are In- so for the portion 

of our operation that Is In Pottiwattamle County, we ao to Oakland and then to Atlantic for our cass county 

farms. Anyway~ myhusNnd}wasdellver1rccomtotheelevatorandwoundup10trudc.sdeeplnllneto 

unload. As a result,wepushedourtfmeslot~ckand It wunearty4:00 before we arrived. unfortunate tv, they 

close at 4:30. 

we brought along our planting data from our GS3 Greenstar- monitors, which show 

the date and acre quantity of all of thefleldswe planted. Keeplnmlnd that•field•ls 

as we (the farmer) define fl. Upon arrival, they handed us severalsate•telmagery 

pictures of our farms. First step: usu sharpie to outline the shape of the field, being 

careful to exclude any bulldlre sites. roads. or other non-planted areas. Step 2: use 

two separate colors (one for corn, one for beans) to highlight where eochcrop Is 

planted. Step3: lnsldeeochoftheseareas,wrllethecrop,totalacresand planting 

date. For the most part In a crop rotation llkeours(corn ~ beans ~ corn ~ beans). 

It should be nearly opposite of what we certified fist ye~r, unless we put In 1 com· 

on-corn rotation. Again· should be easy peasy. Well, herein lies the prob~m. 

'I• I 'ISc.rilotloN .s-m. FMIIS 

The FSA deflnesour fields as common land unlu, or 

ClUs, using a GIS system that Is different than the GPS we use In precision 

farmln&. Theydeflnea ClU as •an Individual contiguous farming parcel, which Is 

the smallest unit of land that has a permanent contiguous boundary, common 

land cover and land management, a common owner and/or a common produe« 

association•. In Its simplest form~ this sounds much like a farmerwoulddeflnea 

field, however t he difference Is that the FSA designates a field to be •a tract of 

land separated by permanent boundaries, such as fences, permanent 

waterways, woodlands, or uop llnM tNt are not subject to chanae due to 
34 


11509009.eps

One Producers Story (Anonymous Blog Post) Page 2 

farmlnapractlces-. Translation: their field definitions don' t match ours. A&aln, becausethlscertlfbtlon Is 

directly tied to future potential crop lnsur.tnee dalms and/or farm program payments, It Is Important for both 

parties that we are as accurate as possible. 

For example-let's say we certify that In ClU Field 8, 100 acres of com were planted on 26 May. Later that 

summer, a severe wind storm comes through and flattens a good portion of our 

crop, causing It to be totaled out for damages. If only 94 acres were actually 

planted, then the government pays out way more than they should. But, If lOS 

acres were actually planted, we(thefarmers) areshoned. More Importantly, 

however, accuracy Is critical because it directly Impacts our APH, or Actual 

Production History. If you aren't famlllarwithAPHorhow It Is used In crop 

Insurance, checkout the blog •sign Me Up-The March 1.5 Deadline Has Passed"' 

I wrote a couple of years ago. (Disclolmer- while the crop Insurance system 

chonged some wlrh rhe 20J4 Form Bill. the key lllformotlon remolns the some). 

Here's how that works: let's say we planted 100 aaes that yielded 200 bushels 

peraae. That putsthlsfleld'sAPH forthlsyearat 20,000 bushels. But,lfwehad 

certified that there were 106 aaes planted-and we yielded this same 20,000 bushels_ this flekS' sAPHwould 

only 188 bushels per acre (20,000/106). When your crop Insurance pays out at~ {or maybe lower) of your 

APH, you are pretty protective of ensuring it Is accurate!! 

What madethlsexperlenceso painful? Here ls)ustoneexampre_wehad a 

field that our planter monitor said had planted 71.03 aaes. The FSA had It 

as 69.5 aaes. Which of us Is correct? How can we tell? Here Is how it went 

down: we looked at each of their satellite pictures and notated the size of 

every terrace, headland and grass watenvay (as these weren't planted) so 

these areas would be taken out of the overallland measurements. You may 

not be able to tell from the picture, but In tiny print It says 1 = .24 ac 

waterway, 2= .4 ac headland, 3aand lb= two parts of a headland around a 

bulldlngtotallng.52ac, and soon. It took2 of them and 2 of usgoingover 

the maps, printouts and the computer system to finally find a 1.89 aae 

headland that was also Indicated as a 1.89 acre crop stand, thus accounting 

for it twice. One was marked as ., ... {which we found on the map) while the other showed up as -w• (that we 

couldn't find}. Once we'd figured that out, it was a pretty euy fix_.until we realtzed we were now off by S acres. 

WHAT? Our "fix" took us In the wrong direction!! Ultimately, we got It straightened out andcamewithin M aae 

of one another. By then, of course, the office was long dosed. Thankfuly most of our other farms and fields 

matched pretty closely and we didn't have too much to deliberate on. 

: 

At e offer produc:ers Automated Crop Report ire. which makes wor1c.ing with ouraop Insurance 0 

agent much easier and more accurate. They will accept ourGPS records as required prooffordalms, which can 

also be submitted electronically. However, with certification, becauseourGPSdlffers from the FSAGIS system, 

they cannot accept our precision records a san accurate means of certification. It Is a very manual process (I 

nevereltpected to be coloring maps on paper) that must be repeated lneverycountywefarm In, everyyeJr. I'm 

sure many of our customers areas thankfulas,veare that we only farm ln2 counties. Still, even 1·2certlflcations 

can be painful. imaginehavingtodothlsinmultlplestates! 
35 

The CHAIRMAN. Well done, Ms. Casurella. 

Mr. Royse, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF ROGER ROYSE, J.D., FOUNDER AND OWNER, 

ROYSE LAW FIRM, PC AND ROYSE AGTECH INNOVATION 

NETWORK, MENLO PARK, CA 

Mr. ROYSE. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me here 

today. I appreciate the opportunity to be at the table and not on 

the menu, at least for today. 

My name is Roger Royse. I am the founder of the Royse Law 

Firm. We are a Silicon Valley law firm, a full-service firm. 

I also founded a group about 5 years ago called Silicon Valley 

AgTech, which has since morphed into the Royse AgTech Innovation Network. And originally, I founded that group to address the 

problem that Mr. Tiller pointed out, and that is seeing a lot of very 

smart technologists in Silicon Valley come up with a lot of cool 

gadgets that nobody cared about. We have put the technologists together with the farmers, and with the venture capital community, 

to try to make things happen, and we have been pretty successful 

at that. 

In our law firm, I represent almost all technology startups. A lot 

of them are what we call ATPs, agriculture technology providers, 

a few VCs, but for the most part the people that are creating the 

technology that is being used in the field. And I am here to tell you 

that we are very interested in anything that will encourage innovation and not hinder it. 

I know today that we are going to talk about precision agriculture, especially about data, and it comes down to really three 

big issues: privacy, security, and ownership. And I hope we have 

an opportunity to dive into that, because as a lawyer, I can tell you 

that this definition of ownership is a relatively complex thing. It is 

not as simple as it might seem, especially when we get into data. 

I have been doing this for 5 years in the agriculture community 

now, and I have heard all these concerns about all these complex 

legal provisions that have to be negotiated, to which I reply, ‘‘Welcome to my world.’’ This is the way the rest of the world operates. 

This is how businesses operate. We negotiate these deals. And I 

would hope to encourage that Congress take a light hand here 

when it comes to reshuffling economic decks that have been negotiated by the parties. 

Having said that, I applaud these efforts to create standards and 

to create transparency and certification, but let’s keep in mind that 

not all data is created equal, and all of these agreements will have 

to be customized to some extent. 

Now, a couple of things I do want to mention. We do have some 

law here. We have section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair 

and deceptive practices. I acknowledge it is not likely to be applied 

in an agricultural setting. Hopefully, somewhere down the road the 

USDA may be empowered or enabled to enforce provisions similar 

to the FTC Act. 

I have heard some discussion about applying principles similar 

to HIPAA and Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which require privacy, disclosure, and security on collectors of data in healthcare and in financial services. Having suffered through Gramm-Leach-Bliley in my 

36 

practice, I don’t think that is appropriate in the agricultural setting. 

I do think we can take some instruction from the securities laws. 

I do a lot of securities financings, and securities is about disclosure. 

A lot of what we are agonizing over here could be solved with very 

good disclosure rules. 

In sum, again, I hope that Congress treads lightly on this. I hope 

that other than enabling the USDA to perhaps enforce some standards and remove bad actors from the market, I really hope that we 

will continue to respect the idea of freedom of contract, as a lawyer, 

and to allow the market to sort this out, and to let the industry 

work on these standards. 

With that, I am going to cede the rest of my time, and I welcome 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Royse follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROGER ROYSE, J.D., FOUNDER AND OWNER, ROYSE LAW

FIRM, PC AND ROYSE AGTECH INNOVATION NETWORK, MENLO PARK, CA 

Introduction 

Thank you for the opportunity to present my testimony and share my view from 

Silicon Valley and beyond on the AgTech Revolution and the potential role of Congress in its development. My name is Roger Royse. I grew up in western North Dakota, where my family has been (and still is) involved in the produce business since 

1948, both in trucking produce from around the country to the Midwest as well as 

sales of produce to the public. I now reside in northern California and am the founder of the Royse Law Firm, PC, a business law firm based in Silicon Valley with offices in San Francisco and southern California. The Royse Law Firm conducts one 

of the premier AgTech law practices in the country, helping tech companies with 

legal transactions including entity formation, financings, commercial contracts, and 

M&A. 

Five years ago, as an adjunct to our AgTech law practice, I started an AgTech 

group in Silicon Valley. That program has since evolved into the Royse AgTech Innovation Network. Our mandate has been to promote the growing field of AgTech 

through conferences, events, webinars, white papers, and facilitated meetings between tech companies and the farmers, big Ag and Food, investors, and potential 

partners. The Network sponsored an accelerator for AgTech companies recently and 

has taken its message worldwide. I can report that we have been spectacularly successful in our mission, as many of our constituents have launched from our platform, found funding, gained customers, and struck deals with partners. We are on 

the web at www.royseAgTech.com and www.svAgTech.org. 

I am here today to give you my view of this developing movement that I call the 

AgTech Revolution, including where it is, where it is going, and how you can help. 

Background 

American agriculture has undergone several eras of technological innovation. Agriculture was transformed by an industrial revolution through the transition to new 

manufacturing processes, a green revolution that increased agricultural production 

worldwide in the latter part of the last century, a genetic revolution that increased 

crop and livestock production, an information revolution that realized the value of 

data, and now an AgTech revolution that pushes every acre to its maximum potential. The current AgTech Revolution will be no less significant or sudden than any 

technological change that has come before it, and Congress has an opportunity to 

pave the way for this new day by reviewing existing law, considering new incentives 

and in some cases allowing the market to sort it out. 

Numerous factors have enabled the AgTech Revolution, and I summarize a few 

of them here: 

1. Food Security. Climate change, a growing global population, rising food prices 

and environmental pressures are factors that have impacted people’s physical, 

social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. Such pressures prompted a revolution in the agricultural industry that embraces technological innovation to optimize food safety and production. 

37 

2. The Rise of Consumerism. The ‘‘Grow Local Movement,’’ fueled by the growing 

middle class’ desire for convenience and year-round food, has encouraged development for technologies in urban and vertical farming, waste, transport, 

and packaging. Additionally, there has been increased consumer support for 

transparency in the supply chain and GMO and gene editing practices, as 

well as environmental sustainability. 

3. The Declining Labor Market. Farm labor shortages and rising wages have resulted in increased labor costs, which then contribute to increased investments in technologies that would replace the manual labor part of the farming process. The average farmworker in California is middle aged, and the 

problem will get worse before it gets better. 

4. The Changing Agricultural Markets. A comparison of agricultural production 

patterns in the U.S. between 1920 and 1995 shows that harvested cropland 

has declined from 350 to 320 million acres, and the agricultural labor work 

force has decreased from 26 to just 2.6 percent. In spite of this, agricultural 

production in 1995 was 3.3 times greater than in 1920 to account for greater 

demand, demonstrating that productivity has increased and agricultural production methods have changed. Likewise, as the world population has more 

than doubled between 1950 and 1998, grain production per person has increased by about 12 percent to keep up with the greater world demand. 

5. Increased Rural Internet Connectivity. The adoption and application of AgTech 

rests on the availability of the Internet. Due to the accelerating development 

of AgTech, it is the new rural driver for Internet utilization. As of 2012, about 

70% of farms in the U.S. had Internet connectivity. 

6. The Introduction of Venture Capital. AgTech startups raised more than $320 

million this year so far as a result of an uptick in rounds of Series B 

financings. Funding recipients, equipped with a diverse range of investment 

themes, are backed by willing and active venture investors who have become 

more comfortable with this space. 

7. The Rise of Big Data. Farm data includes site-specific data (e.g., information 

about seeding rates, soil nutrients, fertilizer, pesticides, water, yield data), 

meta data (e.g., information about number of acres, inputs applied, crops) and 

big data (i.e., the aggregation of farm data from numerous operations). Technology now enables farmers to utilize farm data to help inform their work decisions and optimize production. 

New Technologies 

A list all of the new technologies informing modern agriculture would fill a book, 

and I do not attempt to list them all here. However, it is worth pointing out a few 

of the new technologies that I have seen being developed or implemented in the 

field. 

5. Precision Agriculture. Precision Ag refers to the suite of hardware and software solutions that allow farmers to optimize efficiencies, reduce inputs, increase production and capture useful data. Precision Ag includes the sensors 

that gather information, the devices that transmit information, and the software programs that convert the data to actionable information. Sensor tech 

and the Internet of things (IoT) has gone from merely being able to report 

information back to the farmer to being able to make recommendations based 

on that data. The tech can make these recommendations at the level of the 

individual plant, can deliver that data to a handheld device, and now can 

even automatically adjust an input to optimize production. 

Many companies have automated the process to a degree previously not 

thought possible. Self-driving tractors, robotic weeders and thinners, and artificial intelligence (AI) and imaging enabled fruit sorters are in beta or in use. 

The rise in labor costs have made automation a necessity for farmers, and 

technology has stepped up to fill the need. 

2. GMO and Gene Editing. Almost none of our food today is made independent 

of some form of genetic engineering. A carrot today is a much different plant 

than a carrot of 100 years ago. The same is true of grains, fruits, and vegetables. The science of genetic engineering has now advanced beyond its original 

applications, breeding, and GMOs. Recently, genome editing (GEEN) has entered the marketplace. GEEN is a type of genetic engineering in which DNA 

is inserted, deleted or replaced in the genome using engineered nucleases, or 

‘‘molecular scissors.’’ GEEN technologies are being developed for both plants 

and animals that change the food we eat. 

38 

3. Controlled Environment Agriculture. Controlled environment Ag (‘‘CEA’’) is 

also referred to as urban Ag, vertical farming, and indoor Ag. The application 

of hydroponics, aeroponics, solar tech, LED lighting and advanced building 

techniques to agriculture has spurred an entire industry designed to grow 

anything, anywhere at any time. Previously CEA was challenged by high energy costs but advances in technology are making CEA an environmentally 

friendly solution to many of the world’s problems in food production. 

4. Soil Health or Quality. Soil health (or soil quality) is the capacity of soil to 

function as an ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans. Many 

technologies address soil processes to increase productivity, resilience, and environmental quality. Some technologies use biochar or biomass to add nutrients to the soil and some use natural agents to replace insecticides. 

5. Water. California’s recent drought has highlighted the need for water tech. 

Many of the new technologies are aimed at dealing with the next drought, 

and take new and innovative approaches. Some of these technologies convert 

salty or briny water to water that may be used for Ag, through desalination 

or filtering. Other technologies pull water from air, provide for transport, create water markets to more efficiently distribute water, assist in storage, prevent evaporation, or provide cheap access to groundwater. 

6. Food supply chain. Having been in the produce business, I have seen in-person the large amount of waste, damage and loss to food from the time it is 

harvested until it gets to the consumer. Retailers today still rely on methods 

that existed 50 years ago, but new and developing technologies will monitor 

produce from field to table so that the ripest product is sold first. E-commerce 

technologies provide new efficiencies in the shipment and marketing of 

produce. This is an area where information has real value in preventing 

losses. 

Farm Policy 

Today, I would like to propose a few areas where I believe the Federal Government can help agriculture solve the challenges facing it and assist the adoption of 

new technologies that are designed to help solve some of the problems described 

above. 

1. Rural Broadband Access. Broadband access is the key to adoption of AgTech. 

Farmers and their fields usually have reduced accessibility to high-speed 

Internet provided by the telephone or cable companies. We need Federal assistance to bring high-speed Internet service to these farms that are located 

in rural, sparsely-populated areas. Just as 19th century railroads and 20th 

century interstate highways played leading roles in American prosperity, 

high-speed Internet is the factor that determines which rural communities, 

and which farms, will enjoy economic growth and prosperity in the 21st century. 

One way to implement a rural broadband infrastructure is through 

FirstNet. FirstNet is the largest amount of Federal funding available for 

broadband infrastructure. Its purpose is to create a national system of emergency communications between all first responders. We propose that Congress 

ensure that FirstNet emergency communications are provided to rural regions 

of the U.S. and not limited to making urban population centers a priority like 

most broadband infrastructure initiatives. 

Alternatively, or contemporaneously, the Federal Government may implement a program that assists and encourages state and local governments to 

invest in rural broadband infrastructure. Congress can realize such a program 

by offering states like California a match of Federal resources. This way, from 

both Federal and state perspectives, the public resources that are invested 

will be leveraged. Notably, any leveraged public resources under this program 

would need to be invested in the form of grants in order to actually benefit 

the unserved and under-served areas of California. Successful funding models 

include the Internet For All Now Act in California and the broadband infrastructure in the state of New York. 

If we increase access to rural broadband in our nation’s rural areas, the 

same Internet platform used for farming in the fields can be used to increase 

the overall prosperity and quality of life in our nation’s rural communities. 

For example, broadband-enabled enterprises include health care, education, 

job training, public safety, and technology. Thus, funding rural broadband infrastructure is the single most promising public resource investment the Federal Government can make to provide unserved and under-served regions of 

39 

1Digital data is data that represents forms of data, including elements of the physical world, 

by using specific machine language systems that can be interpreted by various technologies (e.g., 

conversion of a physical scene into a digital image). Digital data collected from farming operations becomes farm data. Farm data includes site-specific data (e.g., information about seeding 

rates, soil nutrients, fertilizer, pesticides, water, yield data), meta data (e.g., information about 

number of acres, inputs applied, crops) and big data (i.e., the aggregation of farm data from numerous operations). Farmers can utilize farm data to help inform their work decisions and optimize production. 

the country with economic prosperity, opportunity, and technological innovation. 

2. Specialty Crops in the Farm Bill. Specialty crops generally consist of plants 

used by people for food, medicinal purposes, and aesthetic gratification. They 

are defined by the USDA as ‘‘fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, and 

horticulture and nursery crops (including floriculture).’’ The diversity of specialty crops and their variety of uses make the task of developing policy in 

this area particularly challenging. Federal funds can be used to support 

projects ranging from food safety compliance to distribution systems and marketing. 

Federal funds can also provide scientific advances that enable our country 

to use the most efficient and environmentally sound agriculture technology in 

the world. Funding this research is imperative due to the industry’s increasing reliance on science and technology to maintain profitable production. 

Likewise, labor dependency is an ongoing concern in the absence of labor saving technology. Federal support for specialty crops still differs in significant 

ways from commodity crops. Farm bills have historically focused on farm commodity program support for the staple, non-perishable, and generally storable 

commodities such as corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, and sugar until specialty crops and organic agriculture were included in a separate title in the 

2008 Farm Bill. 

Federal investment in agriculture technology is a promising use of farm bill 

funds to stabilize prices, reduce manual labor, and create permanent jobs 

with higher income for domestic workers. Thus, adequate funding for the research and development of agriculture technology protects U.S. crop production and keeps producers in business. 

3. Privacy and Data Security in AgTech. A major issue that farmers are concerned about is whether they have sole ownership of farm data.1 Because 

farm data, if kept secret, is information that derives independent economic 

value from not being publicly known, it could possibly be accorded trade secret protection. Aside from trade secret protection, there are currently no 

other laws in place to protect the data farmers transfer to AgTech companies. 

Existing legislation and regulations regarding privacy and data security are 

applicable to personal information. In light of the importance of maintaining 

the security and confidentiality of farm data, Congress might consider legislation to demand accountability and transparency for AgTech Providers 

(‘‘ATPs’’) entrusted with managing farm data. 

The American Farm Bureau Federation has said that big data can do for 

agriculture what the Green Revolution and biotechnology did for agriculture. 

While big data analytics has resulted in improvements in farming, some 

farmers are concerned that, unless restrictions are imposed on the ATP’s use 

and disclosure of farm data, ATPs might share farm data, including farm research and specialist practices, of one farmer with competing farmers or with 

third parties, such as environmental and animal welfare lobbies, in a manner 

disadvantageous to farmers. There is also concern that ATPs might sell farm 

data to third parties in connection with marketing such third parties’ own 

products and services without compensating farmers for the revenue generated by the ATP from the sale of their farm data. 

As a first step towards dealing with these concerns, a coalition of certain 

farm organizations, including the American Farm Bureau Organization, and 

certain ATPs, have agreed to a set of non-binding ‘‘Privacy and Security Principles for Farm Data’’ that they hope will be adopted by other ATPs. The complete text of the Privacy and Security Principles for Farm Data is available 

on the American Farm Bureau Organization’s website. It reads very much 

like privacy and security principles for personally identifiable information, including that the ATP must provide farmers with notice that farm data is 

being collected and about how the farm data will be disclosed and used. 

Among other things, it requires that an ATP’s collection, access and use of 

40 

2The FTC’s primary legal authority to regulate consumer privacy and data security com[e]s 

from Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits entities from engage in unfair or deceptive acts 

or practices in interstate commerce. It states in pertinent part: ‘‘(1) Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, 

are hereby declared unlawful. (2) The Commission is hereby empowered and directed to prevent 

persons, partnerships, or corporations, [except certain specified financial and industrial sectors] 

from using unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce and unfair or deceptive acts 

or practices in or affecting commerce.’’ 3 California has regulations in place regarding privacy and data protection that Congress can 

adopt and apply to farm data. First, the California Online Privacy Protection Act requires operators of commercial websites and online services (including mobile apps) that collect CA residents’ 

personally identifiable information through a website to conspicuously post their privacy policies. Second, S.B. 1386 (the California Breach Notification Law) requires notification to affected 

individuals of an unauthorized acquisition of unencrypted computerized data that compromises 

security, confidentiality, or integrity of personal info of any CA resident. If applied to farm data, 

the provider of AgTech services would be obligated to notify all farmers whose data had been 

compromised. 

farm data should be granted only with the affirmative and explicit consent 

of the farmer and that the ATP will not change the customer’s contract without his or her agreement. 

The above standards are not law, however, and farmers must prioritize the 

availability and usability of big data over their own privacy and security. 

Farmers must also negotiate with data management companies regarding the 

use of their farm data. There is precedent for Federal regulation of data privacy, although not specifically directed at farming. 

The FTC Act (section 5) provides the Federal Trade Commission (the FTC) 

with broad discretion and authority to regulate data privacy and protection 

practices of companies across all industries.2 The FTC imposes sanctions on 

companies that (i) disclose sensitive information (without consent); (ii) fail to 

adequately keep consumer’s personal information secure; and (iii) fail to follow their own privacy policies.3

We suggest that, given the unique nature of agriculture, Congress consider 

an enforcement regime for farm data that is similar to that granted to the 

FTC under section 5 the FTC Act. 

4. AgTech Adoption Tax Credits. Despite the huge advances to be made in agriculture through technology, there are still challenges in its adoption. One of 

the first problems the Royse AgTech Innovation Network encountered was the 

disconnect between the technology entrepreneurs and the farmers who would 

use their tech. There was and is, to be sure, a difference between what technologists think farmers want and what they actually can use, but that gap 

has been closing as we reach out and involve the grower community in our 

efforts. The much bigger hurdle is the fact that investing in technology is 

risky for any business, but especially so for farmers. A grower in California 

might only have 50 harvests in his lifetime, and cannot gamble a crop on an 

untested technology. In addition, a grower might be presented with numerous 

similar technologies. How is he or she to justify the investment in evaluating 

them all? A partial solution may lie in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, 

as amended (the ‘‘Code’’). 

The Code currently allows for a research and development credit (‘‘R&D 

Credit’’), which was recently extended by the PATH Act to benefit startups. 

The R&D Credit is a general business tax credit under Code section 41 for 

companies that incur research and development (R&D) costs in the United 

States. While that credit incentivizes development, it does not incentive adoption. 

The investment tax credit (ITC), by contrast, allows a taxpayer to deduct 

part of the cost of installing certain types of energy systems and has been effective in promoting the adoption of solar technology. The ITC, however, is 

aimed at only a handful of qualifying uses, some of which could be called 

AgTech. We propose that the ITC be broadened and modified to encourage a 

wider range of Ag Technologies. 

The Royse AgTech Innovation Network is in the process of preparing a 

white paper on this topic, which will detail how such a credit would work. 

Conclusion 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and share my thoughts 

on the AgTech Revolution, current challenges, and possible solutions. I look forward 

to taking questions and continuing our dialogue 

41 

The CHAIRMAN. Well done, Mr. Royse. I appreciate you being 

here. 

The chair would like to remind Members that they will be recognized for questioning in the order of seniority for Members who 

were here at the start of the hearing. After that, Members will be 

recognized in order of arrival. I appreciate Members’ understanding. I would like to recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

Mr. Janzen, I will start with you. You touched on something in 

your testimony. Farmers have a deep sense of mistrust where data 

is concerned, the idea of uploading their data into the cloud. And 

you mentioned that that kind of stems from the fact that there are 

no laws explicitly protecting that data. 

Let me ask you: do you think that an independent verification 

tool like Ag Data Transparent is sufficient to address the concerns 

of farmers that they have, or do you think Congress should look 

into developing data protection standards in the future? 

Mr. JANZEN. Thank you. 

I think that we are definitely, through the Ag Data Transparency 

Evaluator, we are filling a gap there, because we are addressing 

those farmer concerns, that mistrust. If we have widespread participation in the industry, then I feel like we are addressing the 

farmers’ concerns in a way that means that there is no need for 

any additional legislation that would protect farm data. 

Now, if the industry ends up looking the other way and not caring about this, and farmers continue to express mistrust in the future, then it is definitely worth taking another look about whether 

or not there is something that could be done to improve that situation. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Tiller, your thoughts on that? 

Mr. TILLER. Well, I actually agree. As I am listening to Todd, I 

am thinking about what Mr. Royse said. I do think that farmers 

are astute businessmen. If they will take the time through the 

knowledge they will gain through things like the Transparency 

Evaluator, they will make contracts that make sense. 

I have always stood for farmers, if they knew what they were 

bartering. If I am bartering my data for tools, I would never want 

to take that away from them. Because I know farmers that do understand it, they say: ‘‘I don’t mind putting my data in an aggregated format, in other words, it be anonymized, my name is off it, 

to be part of a benchmarking set, when I get something in return.’’ 

All I can say to end it up is I just want to be careful that I don’t, 

even with the cooperative, in trying to understand ownership and 

all these issues, I create a world where we can’t be innovative, because sometimes innovative does create running out on the bleeding edge a little bit. And so that is where I would stand on that. 

I pretty much agree with Todd. 

The CHAIRMAN. Excellent. 

Let’s talk about actual application of technology and how we can 

use data in a hands-on way. 

Mr. Tiller, Mr. Royse, Texas, California, both of you are having 

water problems, maybe different kinds of water problems, but 

water problems. How does big data factor into the better use of irrigation, managing finite water resources? 

I will start with you, Mr. Royse. 

42 

Mr. ROYSE. Okay. Thanks very much. 

We know about water problems out in California. To start, I am 

seeing a lot of technologies around water that are attacking the 

problem from ways that are highly innovative and imaginative and 

sometimes unbelievable. 

But with respect to big data, I think that the tools now, the sensors are at the plant level. And we had heard a little bit about precision farming earlier. We are seeing the ability to provide some 

real conservation through these technology tools, again, highlighting why broadband is so important. 

It is important to note, by the way, that the technology has 

moved, that I have seen, to where each sensor is its own Internet 

user. In other words, it is not like a Christmas tree. It is not daisychained. Each sensor has to load up to the cloud. That requires a 

tremendous amount of Internet access. But through these sensors 

and through being able to provide just the right amount of water 

in the right place at the right rate, we are seeing data being used 

to reduce water usage and address our drought problem. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Tiller. 

Mr. TILLER. I would add a couple things there. I am in total 

agreement with what he is bringing up. But I spent a decade also 

as an ag lender, so profitability is everything in the end. 

What I would say is, it is about water use, but I can see farmers 

understanding profitability better and even changing crops, growing different things, being able to use their water in different ways, 

if they had the data to help them understand what is the most 

profitable crop on this piece of ground. 

Maybe I don’t have a full pivot or circle of cotton. Maybe that 130 

is now 60. What do I do with the other 70 acres? Those sorts of 

things data can help you understand. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

I now recognize Ranking Member Nolan for 5 minutes. 

Mr. NOLAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have just got one question, then I will yield to my colleagues 

here, and it is this: As ag data improves and has become more useful to farmers, there appears to be a widening gap among farmers, 

as well, that have access to this technology and those who don’t. 

And oftentimes some of the best producers in the world are a mile 

or two apart from one another as opposed to downtown where 

every 50 feet there is a user. It makes it a little easier financially 

for businesses to provide those services. 

To be sure, as these technologies continue to grow, those who 

have access to it will grow and prosper and those who don’t will 

suffer, even though they may very well be among our greatest producers. 

How do you expect the cost of getting these technologies to all 

the farmers, how do you expect those costs to go down? And what 

ideas or suggestions do you have for us to consider for getting those 

costs down to an affordable level where all of our farm producers 

will have access to them? Thank you. 

Whoever. Step up. Tell us what you think. 

Mr. TILLER. I will share a few thoughts, but I want to make sure 

I leave time for the other panel members. 

43 

That is a vision of the cooperative, right? I mean, that is what 

we would be about, making sure all producers had access to the 

technologies that are developed in a fair and reasonable cost mechanism. Some of the price points of some of the best tools have been 

too high, but I have news for you, the adoption of those has been 

very low. It looks like there has been adoption, but even among 

some of the biggest growers, not what you would think. They are 

going to have to bring the price point down to prove the value even 

there. 

I would say I really think innovation and technology and 

broadband is actually going to be very helpful for a grower with 

100 acres. He is going to be able to store data in ways he never 

could before because of the mobility of the smartphone, being able 

to carry that computer in his pocket. It takes so little cost of equipment to actually go out and implement these things. And these are 

very scalable technologies. 

I almost see it going the other way. Every grower will have access to tools to make decisions in ways they have never had it before. 

I think these sensors are going to get so cheap. I was looking at some Bluetooth technology that the sensor was $11, and you could 

utilize these. That is an example. I actually think it will go the 

other way. 

I will yield to the other panelists. 

Mr. NOLAN. Real quick like, however, it is apparent that some 

of the companies look at this and they say: Well, I have a customer 

every 11⁄2 mile, 2 miles, I am not going to invest in that. And they 

are not investing in it in many cases. 

You are right, the technology will lower the cost and increase the 

benefits and whatnot, but if you don’t have the technology, how do 

we make sure we get it to everyone? 

Mr. TILLER. What are you calling technology? I am going to tell 

you—— 

Mr. NOLAN. Broadband is what I am talking about. 

Mr. TILLER. Okay. Now, there you go. I am in total agreement 

with you there. Most of the farmers, I am amazed, even with age, 

carrying the smartphone. I have seen this happen. Four years ago 

I could be in a meeting and you could carry it on. It doesn’t matter 

what the age group, I can’t carry on the meeting unless I ask them: 

Can we all silence our phones? I never thought that would be an 

issue because of the average age of the farmer. 

We have it. But you are right, connecting that and being able to 

stay connected, it is a criteria we really are going to have a gap 

to feed the world. If we don’t close that gap by providing that infrastructure, that is something that is going to be missing. 

Yes, I do agree with that. That is kind of a third-party touch to 

the things I talk about. I don’t develop that, but I have to have it. 

Mr. NOLAN. Do you see an investment by the Federal Government in broadband expansion and infrastructure as being something we should consider? 

Mr. TILLER. What has driven out the rural growth of telecommunications all this time has been the support of the RUS, the 

Universal Service Fund, and that mentality. I don’t know why we 

can’t keep doing what we are doing. 

44 

I was involved with telecommunications for over 20 years, served 

on a cooperative telecommunications board. Some of the RUS permitting that is required to get the loan that you have to do even 

before the loan is ready to be made and the cost involved, if some 

of that could be looked at, it would be much easier to get there. 

There are a lot of things that you guys could do from the Committee to actually help build that out. You could be the catalyst to 

really keep that moving. 

Mr. NOLAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, my time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Hey, listen, I was watching the clock there. I 

didn’t want to cut you off. 

Mr. Abraham, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Royse, what are the protections in the agricultural sector for 

data, and how do they compare to other businesses as far as protection of data? 

Mr. ROYSE. Yes, so it is commonly said that there really is no law 

of farm data. There are general rules around data. There is no Federal law of farm data at this point. In California, where I am from, 

we have state law that protects the privacy of what we call personally identifiable information, which could apply to farm data. It 

doesn’t always. 

But most of the time, farmers are going to have to rely on the 

law of trade secrets. And as you know, we now have a Federal 

trade secret law. But trade secret is a little tricky. It is not automatic for farm data. The information has to be proprietary, has to 

be valuable, has to be secret, and the owner has to take steps to 

keep it secret. It is very easy for somebody to lose trade secret protection for this data. 

The way that it is commonly protected these days is through contract, I mean, and that is why we are having a lot of these discussions, is because these contracts can be relatively complex and involved. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you. 

Mr. Tiller, you said in your testimony, your written testimony, 

which I actually read, that all growers will be impacted by the information revolution, and I totally agree with that. We grow more 

cotton on my farm this year than we have grown in the last 10 

years. 

What will be the biggest impact of those farmers that don’t invest in the information revolution? 

Mr. TILLER. It is just very difficult to compete. I have never liked 

to think of myself as competing against my neighbor, because I am 

competing in a world market. Cotton price, it is a global economy. 

But in truth, as I do, there is a limited amount of land, and growers are trying to rent that land. The most efficient producer is 

going to do the best job of creating the yield off that farm. 

I think that the benchmarking that is there today, if we are not 

using data, just look at the varieties. Look at what has happened 

in cotton, as an example, in the last 10 years. I am amazed. I do 

cringe when I pay some of these technology fees, but, in truth, I 

have the best varieties I have ever had. 

45 

Now, do they compensate for the difference in a $100 bag of seed 

and a $400? It is difficult. I did the math this year in a very rough 

cotton year, and I am questioning about what I have in the field. 

But if we don’t continue to understand and be able to relate to 

those varieties and understand I should put this variety on this soil 

and these water conditions, I mean, I am not going to be as profitable as I can, and then I will be not as self-sustaining. 

Data helps us be more self-sustaining, so I can look to myself to 

help myself be shored up. And I can look to insurance when I have 

weather-related events that I have no control over, but I can control what variety I have in the field. That is an example. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. I mean, knowledge is power and knowledge is 

money in the farming community. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman yields back. 

I recognize Mrs. Bustos, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. BUSTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thanks for our panel members for being here today. 

Mr. Royse, your testimony, which I read in advance, was one of 

the most fascinating agricultural pieces of information that I have 

read in a very long time. But, it is a very impressive group of people here. Thank you so much. 

My district starts in central Illinois and covers the entire northwestern part of the State of Illinois. Ag is our number one economic 

driver. I am very, very interested in what you are talking about 

today. 

I want to tell you a really quick story. We have a brand new company that started in a town called Galesburg. It is called Integrated Precision Agriculture. And what they have done is they 

have taken unmanned aerial vehicles, and they are using that for 

spraying and surveying crops. 

But what happened was they go to the state’s Department of Agriculture and they encountered this issue where the state’s Department of Agriculture struggled to understand the business needs. 

And so they pointed out that in order to get their pesticide license, 

they didn’t know if they were sure of what kind of training they 

needed. Did they need ground training or did they need aerial 

training? 

And so I just bring that up to say there are some struggles here 

with new technology and how we are going to move forward. But, 

it is a story that illustrates that what do we need to deal with in 

government. My question really is aimed at all of you, maybe a 

couple questions. 

With regard to data and analytics, how can the Federal Government not only remain flexible, but also help usher in new technology? That is question number one. Is there a role for the USDA 

staff on the ground, or our university extension programs? 

Anybody can take that first. Nobody needs to repeat what the 

person ahead of them said. But whoever would like to address that 

first and then we will just kind of go through the list. 

And you have an Illinois connection, right? 

Ms. CASURELLA. I grew up in Illinois. 

Mrs. BUSTOS. Then you go first. 

46 

Ms. CASURELLA. All right. I will take that. I moved out of Illinois 

when I was 16, though. 

Mrs. BUSTOS. Okay, then you get moved. Go ahead. You are all 

right. 

Ms. CASURELLA. In terms of ag data and analytics and how the 

USDA can provide a role, a big part of it is providing best management practices for farmers. And I will use an example that impacts 

the Central Sands of Wisconsin as well as northern Illinois. 

With potatoes grown in sandy soil, they are typically irrigated. 

And if you use the data collected on a combination of sensors, it 

is sensors that understand the nitrates coming through the soil to 

know when you need to apply your fertilizer, your pesticide. If you 

apply it right after or right before a rain, it is going to go right 

down through to the place, it is not going to affect the top 8′′ in 

water growth. 

County extension and county offices, specifically on the NRCS 

side, can definitely help farmers understand data, available options, and what farming practices they need to use. And I will couple that with add EQIP dollars to, in the case of irrigated potatoes 

in sandy soils, add EQIP dollars to help the producer pay for what 

could be a $50,000 investment in technology. But for potatoes, if 

you manage them correctly, your N2 stores go from eight truckloads 

to one truckload if you manage irrigation. 

There are a whole lot of benefits if there is the right research 

study and best practices that a farmer can use, plus funding, to 

help him get that technology in place. That is one example. 

Mrs. BUSTOS. Thank you. 

Anybody else have anything to add? 

Mr. ROYSE. I do. It is an interesting thing from the standpoint 

of the tech providers that I work with, is they are always very surprised—that example you just gave, I have a hundred like that— 

to find out just how highly regulated agriculture is. And we run 

into walls all the time. We run into business models and business 

plans that just don’t work because of that. 

I love the idea of education. It would be nice to see some coordination possibly, but I don’t know that I have any answers other 

than that, but to say that you put your finger on what is a real 

issue in this area and something that, I don’t know if I would say 

it is stifling innovation, but it is one of those challenges we have 

to work through. 

Mr. TILLER. I want to make one last statement. You did mention 

the extension and the land-grant universities, and I am going to 

tell you, when I first started farming 35 years ago, they were unbelievably relevant; and they still are relevant, because they are the 

only agnostic view we may get. 

I think that digital agriculture will give them a new way to actually make their data visible. And so I am hoping that they can embrace that. They may need funding to do that. 

But I know it will be helpful, because they are not selling me 

anything. And to have them give me a view of the seed varieties 

or the secret recipes I should be using versus me trying to decide 

or have some company selling me something trying to tell me. I 

would definitely like you all to continue in that realm too. 

Mrs. BUSTOS. That is a great point. 

47 

And with that, I am out of time. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlelady yields back. 

And I recognize the gentleman from Nebraska for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BACON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate you all coming in today and sharing your expertise 

and your testimony. 

Some of the questions I have you have touched on a little bit, but 

I just want to make sure I understand it. But before I do, since I 

was raised on a farm, we raised corn and soybeans, beef cattle, 

until I was 21, then I joined the Air Force for 30 years, and that 

transformation over that 30 years is just incredible. 

When I was 20 years old driving on a tractor discing, my main 

concern was finding an AM radio station and trying to find a good 

baseball game for something to keep me amused. Today we have 

GPS on almost every piece of equipment. Our combines are pumping out maintenance data all over, yield data. Our irrigation systems know what part of the fields need more concentration than 

others. 

I was just at a ranch with 75,000 head of cattle. Every trough 

was computerized, every water tank, and based on the age of the 

cattle, different blends of feed. It was mainly computerized. Every 

head of cattle they had to analyze, so to maximize the output for 

each head of cattle. 

I just find it incredible where we have gone. I clearly see a need 

for broadband and big data. And I have seen different estimates 

what it is going to cost to fully put this out in our rural communities. 

Do any of you have a good estimate of what it will cost in the 

end to really do a rural broadband system for our country? A big 

question. What is the cost? Has anyone seen a good estimate? 

Mr. TILLER. I do want to say this. I wouldn’t tackle that one, but 

back in the day when I was sitting on a telecommunication board 

when Internet was new, we took a poll of the board. We said: ‘‘Who 

is going to want this?’’ And I can remember some of the older guys 

on the board: ‘‘Nobody.’’ And I was one of the guys who said: ‘‘Well, 

I want it.’’ We thought out of the 1,800 alliance subscribers that 

maybe 100 would want it. Look what happened today, they all 

want it. And they don’t want what? They don’t want that little pipe 

carrying 2,400 baud, they want a big pipe. 

What it is going to cost today it is hard to say, because technology is going to keep wanting more. It is going to have to feed 

the beast. But if we want to be effective, efficient, and productive, 

we have to do that. I don’t know the cost, but I know it is necessary. 

Mr. BACON. I just think it is probably good to start big picture. 

What is the cost to get broadband out there, and then we could 

strategize how to get there. 

Now, you touched on this a little bit. What can we do in the farm 

bill to make some progress there? You touched on it a little bit, but 

I just want to make sure we have clarity. Is there a way to partner 

with states and local governments and private industry? Because 

obviously people are going to make money on this as well, so it 

shouldn’t be totally a Federal cost. But any thoughts on that? And 

48 

I just open it up to the floor, because I am earnestly seeking answers here. 

Mr. JANZEN. Perhaps grants to State Departments of Agriculture. 

I know, like in Indiana, we always hear about rural broadband and 

the need for that. And perhaps with some incentive money in a future farm bill, that would be enough to push those states to invest. 

Mr. BACON. Incentives. 

Mr. JANZEN. Yes. And I don’t know the cost either of what this 

would be to make America’s farms connected. But I have to think, 

when you look back in history, every major investment we have 

made in rural infrastructure has paid dividends for generations, 

rural water, rural electric, roads. I think this is the next big one. 

Mr. BACON. If we get the broadband put out, I don’t foresee that 

changing as much. The applications riding within it will change, 

clearly. If you get the infrastructure in getting to your point, Mr. 

Tiller, that the applications within it will change. But we need to 

get the infrastructure in place. I am just trying to figure out the 

best way to do it. I don’t know if it is strictly a private endeavor 

or if there is a partnership there. I think there should be probably 

some kind of partnership. 

Mr. TILLER. The USF fund, that has been a private-public partnership all this time. I remember back in the day, I was on a farm 

board from 1986 really up to 2004. It is needed. I mean, that is 

that private-public partnership that goes on to make those things 

work. 

Bringing lending in different ways, through RUS, through the 

different funding mechanisms, that is the way you do it. I don’t 

think the government would just go out and say: ‘‘How do we take 

that?’’ It would be these private partnerships. 

Mr. BACON. I will just close. When I get feedback going around, 

I am from the Omaha district, so I have a county and a half, more 

urban than suburban. We have some farms on the west and north 

side and southwest and so forth. But we have a huge agri-industry, 

a lot of processing commodities and, I mean, transportation. 

But I get out a lot in Nebraska to learn on this, and the first 

issue is affordable crop insurance, I hear it all over. Second, footand-mouth disease concerns, what would happen, having an insurance plan there. Infrastructure, which is tied to broadband, is probably the fourth issue I hear. I think that is a common thing I hear. 

Anyway, thank you for your time. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman yields back. 

Ms. Plaskett, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all for being here. 

I wanted to ask a couple of questions. We have had a really good 

discussion on both sides of the aisle about this issue, really coming 

at this in a bipartisan manner in how we can address the issues 

of broadband in rural areas. 

It is interesting, because yesterday the Committee held a hearing 

about innovations in the specialty crop industry, but much of the 

discussion today is around commodity crops. And so one of the 

questions I have, and this is to any of the witnesses, how can technologies that you work with help fruit and vegetable growers? And 

49 

are there unique benefits of data technology and the discussion we 

have about increased broadband technology for specialty crops? 

Mr. ROYSE. I would like to just offer, one of the comments one 

of the panelists made, it is very true, is these technologies really 

do translate. And we see a lot of tech that originates in California 

in the specialty crop area, and almost immediately it is across the 

country. It is out in the commodity crops. 

In a way my viewpoint is that these are technologies that are 

going to be useful across a lot of different crops, especially the data. 

Ms. CASURELLA. What I would add to that is production agriculture, your row crops, is very different than your fruits, nuts, and 

trees in terms of how I would apply technology. If I were looking 

at fruits, nuts, and trees, I would focus more on your aerial imagery. I mean, the technology is such that you can count the number of tomato plants in a field very accurately using the automation, whether it is 3 to 5 meter imagery or drones. 

The application of technology will vary, depending on the crops, 

but I also agree you can try to cross. But you are not going to put 

a tractor in an area where you are counting your trees and your 

fruit on those trees. 

Aerial imagery and some of those kinds of things are far more 

expensive than the production agriculture, but there are a lot of 

pretty neat things that are happening, I will call it, in garages and 

homes and those kinds of things, but not a lot that, as Billy said, 

is good for mainstream specialty growers. 

Ms. PLASKETT. I know that you were talking before about fertilizer and the time in which to put that. I think that, for specialty 

crop growers, that is an issue as well. 

In the Virgin Islands we go from drought to heavy rains. And 

having technology to help the farmer support irrigation issues, 

which are really important for them, and how to regulate that 

would be something that this technology would be supportive of as 

well. 

Ms. CASURELLA. Yes. And there, you may want to start with sensors, soil sensors, and moisture flow as a pretty simple Internetconnected device to collect a lot of data. 

Ms. PLASKETT. I know that our extension, the University of the 

Virgin Islands, the extension is doing a lot in terms of sensors. But 

the technology probably isn’t going to come from the extension. It 

is going to come from other high-tech places and then being able 

to apply those or something that would be really helpful. 

My other question is for Mr. Tiller. We were talking about cooperatives. You noted that cooperatives are trying methods for 

farmers to come together to find greater market power, and you 

have been doing some work with farmers to do this in the ag data 

market. 

Could you explain how the Grower Information Service Cooperative is positioned to draw value for farmer members, and how 

would patronage return be generated from aggregated farm data? 

Mr. TILLER. That is a good question, and the reason it is a good 

question is today it hasn’t been done. I always tell growers, let’s 

be simple. Let’s start out with what I call collect and store. Let’s 

don’t get too far down the road, because until we get the data into 

place where we can do something with it. Because I always sort of 

50 

chuckle when this farm group says: ‘‘We are doing all this stuff 

with data.’’ And I always say: ‘‘What data?’’ They probably don’t 

have much data, because it has been very difficult to bring in and 

collect. 

We want to use the platform initially so farmers would have a 

place to store that data. And then they could begin to share that 

with their agronomist, with people that work with their data, not 

looking at big data initially, doing simple things to create small 

data that would be actionable for their farms. 

An example would be in the vegetable industry, et cetera, we 

want to work there and here is why. I have groups from all over 

the world that call me about this data cooperative. And I have said: 

‘‘I can’t see why we can’t franchise this same idea, same platform, 

to create data communities. Because if you only have 80 or 90 

growers, you don’t really want to set up a cooperative, wherever 

that is at, and try to get into all the technicalities and the cost, but 

set up a data community.’’ And we are trying to work with some 

groups right now of how that might look and be managed, managed 

on a similar platform to ours. 

So today I would say collect, store, but we have to analyze. 

Stored data is not worth anything to the farmer if we don’t make 

a decision with it. I have sort of reached a point where sometimes 

in the industry there are groups that say: ‘‘Really, we don’t want 

it shared outside of here because we don’t really want anything 

else done with it.’’ That doesn’t work for a grower. I have to be able 

to make decisions with that data. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlelady yields back. 

The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Gibbs, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GIBBS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First, I would make a couple of comments on broadband, the 

need in the rural area, absolutely, definitely. I don’t know if that 

means, broadband means more fiber, more cell towers, I don’t know 

how that interrelates. 

But I can tell you, working with one of my local companies in my 

district, fiber has come down, is cheaper now than coaxial cable. 

And this cable company, it is a privately owned company in several 

of my counties, is running fiber to every residence on their customer base. And the technology, how it all works, I had an interesting morning that day, I learned a lot. 

But I wanted to know, Mr. Tiller, your cooperative that you 

started, you say you have 1,400 members, when Mr. Royse talks 

about privacy, security, and ownership, what are your cooperative 

rules? How do you handle it? Because you would be like the miniature scale compared to nationally. 

Mr. TILLER. Well, we are still learning, but that is why I am so 

staunch about this. I appreciated Mr. Royse’s comments that ownership is a complex issue. But when I am talking to a grower, they 

want to know that their data is within the contractual rights of the 

co-op they own the data that is placed in there. They could be part 

of aggregated data sets and they would be anonymized. But they 

would own that data. They could take their data at any point. 

51 

Mr. GIBBS. What was that? 

Mr. TILLER. They could take their the data, it is portable. They 

would move it. 

Now, what could they do with it? That is the problem today. A 

lot of groups tell us: ‘‘You can take your data. But if you can’t do 

anything with it when you leave, and you really can’t take it in a 

format that you can really put it into something else, you haven’t 

left with a lot.’’ 

The beauty of this is, this is just a group of growers deciding 

what they want to do. If other growers want to join in that effort 

along those rules of understanding that; it is an evolving thing. 

Where we are at today won’t be where we are at in 2 or 3 years. 

I believe we will have data sets that will be valuable to growers 

around benchmarking within the next 2 to 3 years. 

Mr. GIBBS. And your 1,400 members, I am kind of assuming they 

are all different levels of capabilities. 

Mr. TILLER. They are all different crops, all different levels. 

Mr. GIBBS. Levels being able to collect data and how they are 

using the data, right? 

Mr. TILLER. Yes. I have farmers that joined the co-op that literally, they might have one tractor on their farm out of five that 

are using GPS. And I have asked them in the conversation, ‘‘What 

made you want to join the co-op?’’ Even some that don’t even have 

that. And they are looking for the co-op to even be an educational 

force for them. 

I don’t know what to do around data. We have always solved 

problems in ag, kind of joining together. There was a thought 

around that. We have had members join at that level. 

And then I wish the gentleman from Nebraska was still here. 

One of my most astute growers, Roric Paulman, out of Nebraska, 

I mean, this guy employs more technology. I learn more about how 

to employ technology when I go to his farm than anyplace I have 

ever seen. My example is, you are right, it is a spectrum. But it 

is all crops, too. 

Mr. GIBBS. Now, kind of an another thought. Data is collected, 

and let’s say it is flying pesticide, herbicides, or fertilizer, whatever. 

What are your thoughts about a government agency being able to 

come in? For one aspect, a producer could use as protection: I have 

the actual records here, blah, blah, blah. But the other side, say 

the EPA or whatever. Has that conversation ever come up? 

Mr. TILLER. That conversation comes up a lot. You are from 

Ohio, you may know John Fulton, Ohio State. Those are conversations we have had with him because he is academia, doing research, taking grant money. I am very concerned that when there 

is grant money involved it might be FOIAble. And a grower might 

not want that data out there. Not doing anything wrong, just 

wants his privacy looked at in that way. 

At the co-op we think about that. We have never looked to take 

grants or bring in any dollars like that, we have used private 

money to fund us, because we do want to be a separate database 

owned by growers where they own this individually. 

Mr. GIBBS. That is one aspect, from that aspect. I am thinking 

about another aspect of being able to come in and, I guess, subpoena you, or a search warrant. 

52 

Mr. TILLER. Well, I guess that can happen. Let’s use some examples of things that are out in the tech industry like Box, Dropbox, 

these places that store data. If that could happen to us, it could 

happen to them. 

I think that is a much larger issue than in ag because we have 

tried to remain totally separate and private for those very reasons. 

We have had growers concerned about that, to be honest. I mean, 

what would keep EPA from wanting to just subpoena my records 

around if I am in a watershed and if we stored them there. 

And those are things that we are trying to work through now as 

we talk to growers, so there is a lot of caution being put there. But 

at the same time there is so much to be garnered when farmer’s 

data are controlled and understanding that data so we can do the 

right things. We are good stewards of the land. 

Mr. GIBBS. I agree with that. It is a question of we have to be 

able to answer some of these questions so farmers have more confidence to do this. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlemen yields. 

Mr. Dunn is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DUNN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me start by saying, I am not a framer, unlike General Bacon, 

who was sitting here to my right, and I didn’t grow up on a farm. 

And I am fascinated by the sheer penetrance of information technology on today’s farms. You hear about rural broadband, and you 

think: Oh, people want TV out in the small towns, too. No, that is 

not what they are talking about. 

I am really, really impressed. We have a very agrarian district, 

a lot of farmers, 300 miles across. It is the number one economic 

activity in my district. And I am learning a lot about farming very 

quickly. 

Let me ask, Mr. Tiller, I will start with you, first question. There 

are large swaths of my district that do not have broadband. What 

happened to these farmers who just at this point in time, and 

maybe going forward for a while, don’t have access to broadband? 

Mr. TILLER. There are ways to collect data without broadband. 

You can actually store it on the phone, sync it later. 

Mr. DUNN. Walk the fields. 

Mr. TILLER. That is right. You do exactly what you have been 

doing. But my whole point, that is why we have to get there. 

Mr. DUNN. But they can’t compete as well, and they like to export, too. There are some pretty big farms. 

Mr. TILLER. That is right. It is something you need to address. 

I mean, I am speaking for those farmers. I know they want better 

access to the technology of broadband. It is that simple. 

Mr. DUNN. I have spent a fair amount of time in the space 

launch programs, and I can tell you they want to put a lot of low 

Earth orbit satellites out there that they say will cover these areas. 

I don’t know. I also spent a lot of time trying to get fiber out there. 

In fact, one of our space launch consortiums was making fiber in 

space for telecoms and then sending it back to Earth to plant in 

the ground. It is a confusing world. 

I do want to address the gentleman from Ohio’s question about 

privacy of data, though. I think that that is really interesting. We 

53 

get it that you can own your data, but your data has already been 

shared with some big growers consortium perhaps, or not, or not. 

But is your data private from, let’s just say, the IRS? 

Mr. TILLER. Well, it is at this point. You would know that better 

than me. I mean, you all are making the rules. At this point I 

haven’t had those—— 

Mr. DUNN. That is a rule that would interest you? 

Mr. TILLER. That is where I am going to rely on you all to actually not protect just the farmers, you are going to want to protect 

everyone from those sorts of concerns. 

Mr. DUNN. But what are the privacy issues in agriculture, the secret issues? Are there secret competition issues? 

Mr. TILLER. That is never really the concern. Farmers, right now 

they are not even putting the data in a warehouse where it could 

be used. 

And I find that privacy is a concern. For most of them it is not 

the greatest concern. They want to know: If I want to share it, who 

can I share it with? They want to make sure they control those aspects. We are trying to really build a platform where they will have 

that control. 

The main concern farmers have is: How easily can I get it there? 

What value do I really have once it is there? Is there anything that 

can be done with it? Those are things that are important today, 

they weren’t as important 5 years ago, but today that is the question. Most of them because they have seen all the social media, how 

things go, so they are more comfortable around data. But they 

want to know what value. If I put effort and time and money, what 

do I garner when I get to the end of the day? 

Mr. DUNN. I will say, in closing, that no conversation with a 

farmer in my district ends without some comment about access to 

broadband. And that, of course, is much more acute out in the farm 

country. And we want to be sure we address that in the farm bill, 

and we want to be sure that you help us address it properly. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

And I recognize the gentlelady from Delaware for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER. Thank you. And excuse me for having to 

step out for a moment. 

This issue is one that is probably really important and exciting 

to me, especially in my home State of Delaware. I had an opportunity to go around with some of our farmers and use some of their 

technology and see what is happening. And so hopefully my questions that I am interested in haven’t already been asked. 

But one of the things that I was interested in is, I heard as I 

walked in about the issue of broadband, and right now there seems 

to be, just like in the past with the digital divide, you have sometimes those who get access to new technologies and others who 

don’t. 

I am curious about whether you think the cost of some of this 

technology, when we can expect to see it become more available to 

a broader group of individuals, whether they are farmers that have 

great big companies versus the family farmer. Can you talk a little 

bit about accessibility and kind of bridging that divide? 

54 

Mr. ROYSE. I will jump in just for a minute on one part of this. 

And that is, I am seeing that the cost of the devices is going down 

tremendously over the last 5 years. It is becoming very affordable 

and accessible. 

And you are absolutely right, cost is a very big issue with farms, 

a lot of which are very low margin businesses. And cost was a gating factor early on. But, that problem is being solved, at least at 

the device level, with regard to the Federal cost. The government 

cost of building the superhighways and the access, that I don’t 

know. 

Mr. JANZEN. I wanted to add that we are still at a place where 

farmers are trying to sort out what is the return on investment 

when they upload their data to all these cloud-based platforms. 

Right now most farmers are still paying to store their data in the 

cloud. 

But, the long-term hope is that eventually that value proposition 

flips and we start to see farmers getting paid to upload their data, 

because the companies are getting so much value out of that, that 

it is worth returning some of that investment back to farmers. And 

so that will bring the costs of these services down for farmers as 

well. 

Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER. Got you. 

When you gave your testimony earlier, I heard different things 

about trust, about fear, some of the different concerns about who 

owns the data. And I guess my question would be, we have seen 

that the technology has been growing, but we have also heard some 

of the challenges. 

Can you each identify what you would say is the one major concern that you have in making use of the new technologies? If you 

had just one thing that really is that major concern, what would 

it be? 

And we can start with Mr. Royse. 

Mr. ROYSE. Well, okay. I would like to come back to the privacy 

issue, because I want you to imagine a scenario where somebody 

walks into my office and they say: ‘‘I have this new technology. It 

is going to sit on a drone and it is going to gather yield data of 

a farm.’’ Or maybe financially, I am going to figure out how profitable that farm is. 

And then I am going the take that data and I am going to go 

sell it to the companies that sell the inputs to the farm because 

they know how profitable the farm is. And by the way, in California a lot of the farm land is leased. Maybe I will go sell it to 

one of that farmer’s neighbors so he can come and he knows what 

that farm is worth. Or maybe I will sell it back to the owner of the 

land. 

I think there really is a privacy issue here. Now, we deal with 

that, of course, through contracts, and in California we have this 

concept of personally identifiable information. But when I hear 

about trust issues, that is kind of the first thing I think about. It 

is not the only thing, but it is the first thing I think about. 

Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER. I have 50 seconds. 

Ms. CASURELLA. Yes. What growers are most concerned with producers are two things. One is if they use their precision ag data, 

55 

the data collected on their tractor for reporting, is the government 

going to get more than the government is supposed to get? 

What is on that card, what is in that data could be their seed 

planted in the ground and an as-applied fertilizer application. They 

only want to share the seed, they don’t want to share the variety 

and the type. If it is corn and it is planted on this field with this 

parameter, they are happy to share that because it is required. 

They don’t want anything else to go. 

The challenge is, how do you enable the use of the data without 

disclosing more than is required? 

Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER. Thank you. 

Nine seconds. 

Mr. JANZEN. My big concern is that farmers understand the contracts they are signing up for. 

Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER. Got you. Thank you. 

Mr. TILLER. I would just reiterate, collaboration of all the things 

we have talked about, going back to when Mr. Royse was talking 

about literally even the drones. Let’s take it from there even to the 

data level. If I shared data like Todd is talking about with a thirdparty company, do I understand what is going to happen to that 

data? Is it going to stay there? Are they going to share it with affiliates? Are those affiliates going to try to sell things to me based 

on what they learned? 

Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER. Thank you. My time has expired. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

I recognize the gentleman from Georgia for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, Chairman. 

And thank you for sharing with us. 

Obviously, technology is critical to the continued operation of our 

farming industry. And, of course, we have made tremendous 

strides. And, of course, you all have been a part of that and I appreciate all your efforts in making these things work. 

We are working through the farm bill, the next farm bill. And 

in the 2014 Farm Bill, it was clear that USDA should allow producers or an agent of a producer to report data, including 

geospatial data, electronically or conventionally, to the Department. This provision was designed to reduce the administrative 

burdens and costs for producers. 

Ms. Casurella, do you have some insight on why this is not being 

done? 

Ms. CASURELLA. I am not even sure where to start. First, it is 

the—— 

Mr. ALLEN. Well, we have 3 minutes and 55 seconds. 

Ms. CASURELLA. Okay. First, it is the uncertainty; well, no, first, 

the farmer doesn’t even know it is happening to them. If you are 

going into the FSA or you are going to your crop insurance agent 

and the FSA sends the data, the crop insurance—and the crop insurance data through their crop insurance company sends the data 

to the FSA, the producer doesn’t know it is happening. 

They also don’t know it is incomplete data. And the whole farming industry is conditioned to have data match. When they go into 

the FSA county office and they get their form 578 and they report 

32.78 acres, that equals their CLU. And then they go into their 

56 

crop insurance acres and report 31.2 acres of insurable acres for 

their crop insurance. 

If there is a GAO audit or a compliance or a claim, what are 

valid acres? Is it the acres that they reported in crop insurance, 

that are probably the acres that they planted in the field, or the 

acres that they certified in FSA? I mean, there are still so much 

confusion on the impact to a farmer, the impact on the FSA program. 

If I report accurately, do my base acres change? Well, not in this 

farm bill. But will they in the next one? 

Mr. ALLEN. That is why we are talking about it. Again, we are 

working on the next farm bill. 

Ms. CASURELLA. Yes. 

Mr. ALLEN. And we need to get this solved. 

Do you or any of the panel have any idea how we can solve this 

issue? 

Ms. CASURELLA. I will say one thing. Let the farmers plant the 

acres they plant. Let the farmers report the acres they plant. It 

doesn’t have to be farm tract field. It doesn’t have to be common 

land unit. And let the government figure out then, if I plant a 

boundary and it covers 3 CLUs or within 1 CLU, come up with the 

rules for how to handle that data. 

But don’t make the government report with boundaries that are 

set anywhere from 5 to 25 years ago that maximize producer benefits. Let the farmers report what they report, and give the agency 

the dollars to be able to adapt the program to collect actual data. 

Mr. ALLEN. Okay. Thank you so much for your feedback. 

Any other comments regarding that problem from the other 

members. 

All right. I have just a minute. It is my understanding that the 

NRCS, which is the Natural Resources Conservation Service within 

the USDA, is coordinating well with the 3D Elevation Program, or 

3DEP. And my question is to everyone on this panel. How can 

USDA best leverage elevation data via these standard mapping 

technologies, such as LiDAR, to maximize farm management decisions? Does it go back to this same issue? 

Mr. TILLER. You were saying elevations. 

Mr. ALLEN. Right. 

Mr. TILLER. Repeat the question. I had trouble hearing you. 

Mr. ALLEN. It is where the NRCS service within the USDA is coordinating with the 3D Elevation Program within the U.S. Geological Survey in the Department of the Interior—in short, 3DEP is 

the nationwide LiDAR, L-i-D-A-R Program, in its enhanced elevation data. And my question is, how can the USDA best leverage 

that elevation data to make it available? 

Mr. TILLER. Well, to make it available, maybe that could be a 

public data set. I would love to be able to pull that in to have that 

elevation data. As tractors are going through the field with the 

GPS on them, we get elevation data, too. 

Mr. ALLEN. Okay. 

Mr. TILLER. With that elevation data, you could actually do a lot 

to really check where you are at. Deb or one of the others might 

have a better feel for it. I don’t really know the value yet. There 

57 

are people around me that might. I don’t feel like I could really 

get—— 

Mr. ALLEN. Well, that is the concern that has been voiced to my 

office. I think it goes back with trying to solve this in the next farm 

bill. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I am out of time, I yield back. Thank you 

so much. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman yields. 

The gentleman from Florida is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LAWSON. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity. 

The biggest problem that I have is the way it happened in Congress is trying to do two or three meetings at the same time and 

read on my way coming here. I want to thank the Committee. 

I want to thank you all for being here. And I know that you already discussed the issue regarding the lack of broadband. 

But my question is different. Here in north Florida there is the 

issue with the lack of rural broadband and access. Can you elaborate on how the lack of rural broadband hinders the implementation of telematics among farmers and regions? Can anyone? 

Mr. TILLER. I would just reiterate for you, what it is boiling down 

to is this. Everything that is out there that really is trying to 

stream data through telematics into the cloud is going to need to 

use the broadband that is out there, the cell signal, or other things 

that could be put in place. Unless those are there, it is going to affect long-term the productivity and efficiency of our farms. 

There has to be an effort, because we may not get the private investment because they are not sure of the payback. But once it is 

there in its entirety, because the problem is, if you just do a little 

area, you are not going to get it, but if it is there in its entirety, 

and that is where you need the government. I think that is where 

you create those private-public partnerships with the industry that 

is out there building telecommunications, because once it is all 

there the value to the United States is going to be tremendous. 

I think that is what we have to understand. All this cloud that 

we talk about, it doesn’t have any data unless we bring it from that 

dirt, the sensors stuck in the dirt, we have to get it there. And 

there is no technology to get it there, I mean, other than me capturing the data off it with a USB stick, going to it. But we will 

never implement those technologies, there has to be ease in the automation. 

Mr. ROYSE. Sir, I would like to add that there are, as was mentioned, there are alternatives to broadband to capturing data, but 

they tend to be labor intensive, and we have one heck of a labor 

shortage out in California. 

And we are not going to be able to use it, there is the labor shortage that broadband helps address. But also the fact that the more 

we can take humans out of the equation and make this more automated and more machine based, the more reliable the data is going 

to be. There are some ancillary concerns to this. 

Ms. CASURELLA. What I will add to that is, right now it takes a 

technician to get the data. I will use an example of a farm in Illinois. It is all enabled with technology sensors, everything else, and 

the only time they are connected is when that tractor ends up back 

58 

in the shed, they turn on their mobile device and stream that data. 

It is all after the fact. 

And it is there, it is just really hard to get at, and again, takes 

a technician to figure out how to get the data anywhere, it is complicated, instead of letting the sensors talk to the cloud, which provides the information to the producer. 

Mr. JANZEN. And I would add as well that it is not just a matter 

of some farmers in the United States not being connected and others being connected. We should always keep in mind that our farmers are operating in a global market and other countries are making these investments in rural broadband so their farmers have a 

competitive advantage. And we need to make sure that all of our 

farmers have that same advantage here when they put goods out 

on the world market. 

Mr. LAWSON. I have little time left, but I wanted to say one 

thing. When you mentioned about California, about the labor shortage, are other countries experiencing the same kind of problem 

that California would be, experiencing a shortage of the labor market? 

Mr. ROYSE. Are other countries experiencing? I don’t know, but 

I do know that other countries, and we could talk a long time about 

what is going on in other countries. And we do a lot of work with 

China, India, and I was just recently in the Middle East, and they 

are in a race to implement technologies, including broadband, because they don’t have the kind of agricultural infrastructure that 

the United States has. Other countries are becoming very automated very quickly. 

Mr. LAWSON. Well, that is amazing. 

Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman yields back. 

I recognize the gentleman from Texas for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DUNN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I echo the sentiments from my colleague, Mr. Lawson, there 

are just too many things happening at the same time. My apologies, especially if I repeat questions or comments that have already 

been made. I certainly want to thank all the panelists for being 

here and for your insight. 

Utilizing data analytics, Billy, we talked about prior to this hearing, is a best practice across all industries. And I don’t know that 

the ag industry, certainly ag producers, are fully utilizing those, 

and no telling what the gap is in terms of productivity and efficiency that we can gain. 

But there is the question of who owns the data. You mentioned 

that. It is frustrating for you, why shouldn’t the producer own that 

data. 

What is government’s role in being a data repository? I want the 

government in a very limited role. I want unleashing the market 

forces because that is where innovation happens. I don’t think it 

happens a lot in the Federal Government. But the Federal Government has a role. Define that for me with respect to data. 

Mr. TILLER. Well, I am going to keep it simple. The role has to 

remain in the private-sector of how we store the data, who owns 

it, because it is going to get too complex. 

59 

And I really think that most things work best when innovators 

innovate, and that is what has to happen. We can’t have rules to 

make that happen. 

But I am going to say that the role that could really be played 

is how we interact with land-grant universities, how we interact 

with research that is going on, and how that data could be used. 

I mean, farmers are in fear of that becoming FOIAble, and all they 

are trying to do is help in a research project. 

That could be something you all could address, so that farmers 

could be part of a research project, help get to the real answers at 

the bottom, and not get in trouble just because they are trying to 

help others, because they might not even know they were wrong in 

what they have done. 

I have heard stories out of California where somebody was plowing some ground and got into a multimillion dollar lawsuit or something, and it is all because he shared some data. That makes farmers fearful. They are like, I would rather not play at all. 

The role has to be extremely limited. I think be very cautious. 

I would just caution, just like you said, just a little bit. We might 

need a little help and guidance. 

And I don’t have an answer how we bring that together. We just 

have to continue to innovate, encourage the producers to really 

work with groups like ours. If they want to digitally report like 

Deb’s tool there, any way that you all could innovate that, there 

are cost savings to the government out of things like that. 

Mr. DUNN. I can only imagine, as a bank board member, watching the burden and experiencing the burden of data collection that 

the government puts as a requirement because of deposit insurance 

and their regulatory role. I can appreciate why some would be very 

concerned about that, but someone has to have it. 

And I agree with you, if you are going to innovate and you are 

going to manage effectively, the co-op idea, is really a brilliant idea. 

This is for other panelists, and, Billy, please weigh in if you have 

an idea on this, but, in my role at Texas Tech, trying to bring research to market, ideas, to transfer them to something that will 

make a difference in people’s lives, this is the value proposition for 

R&D at the Federal Government. I am a big believer in it. It has 

made us competitive, more competitive than we would be otherwise 

without that investment. 

But it is a very difficult endeavor to have early stage technology 

from government R&D to move through the process. You have to 

have the good idea that is patentable, marketable. You have to 

have capital, that is venture capital, angel investors, and other 

early stage money. And then you need to have entrepreneurs. 

How do we make that a more efficient and a more successful 

proposition? Because taxpayers really get that. Some of this fundamental research, which I believe that basic science is important, 

too, but the applied and the transferred technology out of research, 

every taxpayer gets that, from Google to the Gatorade to all these 

things that have benefited us. 

Tell me how we improve on that on this side of the ledger. 

Mr. ROYSE. If I may offer a few comments. 

Mr. DUNN. Please. Yes. 

Then I am going to yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

60 

Mr. ROYSE. I know that Mr. Tiller doesn’t like it when I use the 

word disruptive, but I will tell you that I have seen lots of very disruptive things. And just in business generally, that happens mostly 

at the startup level. I mean, big companies, publicly traded, they 

have shareholders to report to, they are not likely to swing for the 

fences like our small startup companies are, to come up with some 

really, truly game-changing technologies. Anything that encourages 

startup companies is good for innovation. 

In my written comments I submitted a couple of proposals, I 

know it is not this Committee’s purview, on some tax incentives 

that I think would go a long ways. 

In terms of what the USDA can do, this trust issue is a real 

issue, it is a real thing between the tech companies and the farming community. And what is government’s role? It should assume 

that traditional role of removing bad actors from the marketplace 

in order that we can have an atmosphere of a little more trust. 

And we have a good model in the FTC Act. We just don’t have 

an enforcement mechanism, that I am aware of, that applies to agriculture. 

That is one thing that I think the Committee might want to consider. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

And before we adjourn, I would like to recognize the Ranking 

Member for any closing comments he might have. 

Mr. NOLAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just want to thank the panel. It has been very revealing how 

important technology is for agriculture and the future of agriculture, and our ability to feed the world and to continue to grow 

and prosper. And I just want to thank each and every one of you. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for bringing in this really outstanding panel, we get a lot of panels here, but this is one of the 

really outstanding panels that we have had. And I commend to all 

of our colleagues and anybody interested in food and agricultural 

policy to take the opportunity to read through their testimony. It 

is just excellent. Thank you so much. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank my friend from Minnesota. 

And I will close. I just want to share a few observations and 

thoughts real quick. 

One of the recurring themes that we have heard, not only in this 

hearing, but in some listening sessions and prior hearings, was the 

need for broadband. And, obviously, that is going to continue to be 

a recurring theme. 

Just thinking out loud here, we need to identify the key players 

from a technology standpoint, who can deliver and who can deliver 

and address changing technologies on the fly, first. 

Second, who has the infrastructure to reach rural America, identify those. 

And then, third, financing this. How do we do that? How big of 

a role, as you mentioned, how big of a role should the government 

play? Or should we be looking at public-private partnerships? 

But I view this kind of like a three-legged stool. The technology 

is a big part of it. The infrastructure. Access, getting that technology delivered to the folks that need it. And then finally, the 

third piece of the pie here, the third leg of the three-legged stool, 

61 

is financing. How do we pay for it? And that is going to be a struggle that we have to work toward collectively. 

Big data, addressing any concerns, as we have talked about the 

privacy concerns, some of the skepticism that is inherent in agriculture, particularly where the government overlap takes place. 

The legal, ethical concerns, those privacy issues. 

And then you mentioned this, Mr. Janzen, it is a marketable 

commodity, it really is. There is value in that data. How does the 

farmer realize the market potential to help improve his bottom 

line? There is definitely merit in exploring that and how you can 

monetize that data while protecting and safeguarding their privacy 

issues and things of that nature. 

And then, finally, something that didn’t come up, but just briefly, 

you may have touched on this, drone use, and how folks are using 

that and acquiring data through drones, how they are using this 

on their farms. 

Folks are so innovative and creative out there. I have a group in 

my district that they are creating drones and different applications 

so fast that it is 4 months down the road this one becomes obsolete 

because they are advancing so quickly on the applications that they 

are finding for using unmanned aerial vehicles. And it becomes an 

issue with the FAA and FCC, potentially. 

These are some things that we have to explore, and big data is 

the key and at the heart of that. 

I just would associate myself with the comments that Mr. Nolan 

made. This is a great panel. And we begun a conversation here, but 

we didn’t even scratch the surface on what the potential is for big 

data and how we can plug farmers into it in a more meaningful 

way. 

Thank you for being here. 

Under the Rules of the Committee, the record of today’s hearing 

will remain open for 10 calendar days to receive additional material and supplementary written responses from the witnesses to 

any question posed by a Member. 

This hearing of the Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities 

and Risk Management is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

Æ