In this part of the world the weather has stayed cold preventing your loyal scribe from getting out and doing all the things I like to do in getting ready for spring. For those of you with a heated shop that is the least of your worries, but for those of us who don’t have one or don’t have any type of shop, getting things ready under the warmth of the spring sun is a rite of passage. Another year of growing crops is ahead of us. We had better get ready. in 2023, that is so much different than it ever used to be.
Simply put, in 2023 you are not alone. Sure, you might have satellite radio in your tractor cab and maybe you even have a family member that checks in from time to time, but irrespective of that keep in mind there are lots of people keeping you company. I remember very clearly several years ago when I told a top agronomist in Ontario that I wasn’t worried about losing my farm data to any big agricultural corporations. I told him I didn’t have any type of farm equipment that shared or collected any type of data. He looked at me a bit mystified and laughed, Phil, Google is taking pictures of your farm every day! We both laughed.
That was not lost on me as it was very telling. In my small mind I thought that just because I wasn’t giving it away meant that big companies didn’t know about me. I had never thought about some software called Google Earth, which actually took pictures of the whole world and what is going on in it. Regardless of how private you are, the world is finding out one data point at a time what’s your next intention might be.
Of course, that was awhile ago, like about three years. In 2023, the world is full of data, data, data. I found it fascinating last week when the CEO of TikTok was grilled in front of an American congressional committee. It is no secret that many western governments have grown nervous of the relationship between one of the world’s biggest social media applications and the Chinese government. Tik Tok is owned by Byte Dance, a Chinese company.  It is for that reason that Tik Tok has been banned from government issued electronic devices over the last several months in places like Canada and the United States. The users of TikTok, which represent approximately 150 million Americans would form a mother lode of data or intelligence, which according to some western commentators could fall into the wrong hands within the Chinese government.
The grilling of Mr. Show Zi Chew, the Tik Tok CEO was enlightening. When asked about whether the company was spying on American citizens, he replied that spying is not the right way to describe it. It was a fascinating answer, where many of the people listening grew more sceptical as the day went on. We know that as users of different platforms, whether that be social media or agricultural companies that data has become ubiquitous. In other words, by using some of these software applications we’ve become the product, our data is so important in some cases to the highest bidder. The algorithms, cousins of those trading algorithms at the Chicago Mercantile exchange use this information to generate more and more user interaction. It is a very vicious cycle.
It is also a generational thing. I think that younger people do not worry about that as much as old guys like me. Keeping things private in this data-driven world is increasingly a virtue. However, as it is, almost every facet of our daily farming lives is being broke down into publicly traded data. The cat was let out of the bag long ago and the toothpaste will never be put back into the tube. When tech CEOs are publicly grilled by government, they act like they are immune from scrutiny.
At the outset of the data revolution in agriculture I always maintained that farmers should be paid for their data instead of giving it away. I still believe that, but increasingly that is sheer fantasy. Social media algorithms as well as agricultural marketing algorithms as well as algorithms that you have never heard of will continue to become sharper in the future telling more and more about what we as farmers are doing.
I’m not advocating that we go back to the oxcart on Canadian farms, but what I am saying is that we need more scrutiny of the technology we use and the data that it generates. There is a certain paranoia in saying that, but at the same time that term is from a different time when every move you made wasn’t like it is today. You might not be getting paid for your data, but it’s in your best interest not to give it up easily.  User data is now more valuable than ever before and with the advent of AI apps which I talked about a few weeks ago, it will become even more so.
I’d still like farmers to get paid for it, but believe me, that’s not in the algorithms. Data mining has become everything. The data road ahead won’t be easier, just more complicated. However, it will be measured every step of the way. The CEO’s of Tik Tok and many other tech giants remind us its not spying. That makes me feel so good.
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