The American Dairy Coalition recently entered comments into the Federal Register reflecting farmer data concerns.
A recent survey by a dairy producers’ group shows farmers want to know how their farm data is used by processors and others in the supply chain.
Sherry Bunting with the American Dairy Coalition says Dairy Management Inc. and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy have asked USDA to collect more farm data for their sustainability modeling. “Water usage, in addition to what’s already surveyed on irrigation to get into, you know, how much water the cattle are drinking, parlor washdown, any reuse of that water, as well as more detailed feed ration components.”
Bunting says the groups also want proprietary farm data on purchased feed versus grown feed and manure management details reported at the county level for use in programs including FARM-ES. “Let’s make sure we have a few things right here, and you know the concern also is that this was a request from a checkoff organization which is overseen by USDA.”
Bunting says surveyed farmers wonder about so-called voluntary programs like FARM-ES, and what not providing more data would do to their operations. “And so we question, what does voluntary really mean because we’re hearing from farmers that their suppliers are asking for this data, and it feels like a condition of market access.”
Bunting says 77% of farmers responding to their survey felt the data request is more of a forced issue than a voluntary one. Thirty-two percent say they were told this would be required to ship their milk. Twenty percent felt immediate concern for penalties or loss of contract if they didn’t provide the additional farm data. Every farmer surveyed felt farmers should own and control their data, and 92% were concerned about how their data was being handled.
