Farmer’s Business Network (FBN), the rapidly growing independent farmer-to-farmer network, recently completed ADT third-party certification affirming that its analytic offerings are private and secure. FBN, which now represents over 23 million acres of farmer members in the U.S. and Canada, joins the ranks of companies such as John Deere, Growmark and Beck’s as a certified in their data transparency to growers.
“Farmer’s Business Network was created to help put Farmers First through the power of networking farmers and farm data,” says Charles Baron, co-founder of FBN. “Our values and mission have been crystal clear from inception and have never changed. We fight for our farmer members and their profitability. Transparency is a core philosophy of ours and something we support wholeheartedly, whether in ag input markets or in ag data.”
“Agronomic, land, machine and weather data should remain in the control of the farmer,” says Bev Paul, Ag Data Transparent board president. “The company providing the technology should be able to use the data, but the transparency in how it’s used is what our purpose is all about.”
A multi-organization and multi-company project, Ag Data Transparent verification allows companies that engage in and collect on-farm data to align to industry-wide principles to build trust with users of ag precision technology. Among these core principles, transparency in data collection, access, use, portability, availability and retention are all required.
“We’ve seen our members use analytics to gain yield with hybrid selection, reduce seed and chemical costs through price and genetic transparency, and market their crops aided in their precision field data,” Baron says. “The value to growers in using data can be incredible—tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars in gains in a season. So we’re proud to achieve the Ag Data Transparent certification so growers step confidently into farming’s digital age.”
Learn more about the Farmers Business Network at www.farmersbusinessnetwork.com. To see current certified companies or learn more, visit www.agdatatransparent.com.