European farming, agricultural contractors, agricultural machinery sector and other associations launched a joint EU code of conduct on agricultural data sharing by contractual arrangement in Brussels on 23 April.
This non-binding initiative aims to set transparent principles, clarifying responsibilities and creating trust among partners. The signatories, looking to move swiftly into an era of digitally enhanced farming, recognise the need to grant data originators a leading role in controlling the access to and use of data from their businesses and to allow them to benefit from sharing the data with any partner that wishes to use their data.
“Farmers must have access to the data they share and safeguards in place to protect their data output”, said Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan at the launch of the code of conduct. “If we get this right from the start, we can avoid a situation where we are forced to take retroactive measures later on, as happened recently with UTPs (unfair trading practices) in the food supply chain”, he added. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)