Data governance

Find out more about data governance, how it is currently being used and how we are working with others across the agriculture industry to effectively move it forward.

Data governance covers the policies, processes, standards and controls used to manage and secure data.

It traditionally covers four pillars:

• Data quality – the standards that make sure data is accurate, consistent, complete etc
• Data stewardship – data stewards are responsible for the management of specific data sets and ensure it is used according to the agreed policies and standards
• Data management – the technology and processes used to manage the data
• Data protection/compliance – the application of the security and regulatory requirements

Data governance is happening now across AHDB and the agriculture industry but it is not always consistent or co-ordinated, which can make it difficult to share data.

This is partly because there are few data standards across the industry that organisations can use.

The agriculture industry creates a huge amount of data from the various systems and machines it uses – such as sowing data, milking data etc.

This data is produced at pace and, combined with other data sources such as weather forecasts, can be used to provide useful insights and activity suggestions.

However, the large quantity of data and the speed at which it needs to be shared to make it useful means it is hard to achieve 100% accuracy.

There is a set of Farm Data Principles for agricultural organisations to help support greater data sharing across the industry, while ensuring it is safe and remains under the control of its owner.

Farm Data Principles also form a key part of the NFU's recently published investment and innovation blueprint (page 15).

We have a key role to play in the area of data governance, across the agriculture industry.

We're working with groups and organisations spanning the industry to find the most effective way to co-ordinate our efforts.

While data governance is very much a supporting capability, we feel that an increased focus in this area will result in improved transparency and control for our levy payers when thinking about their data and data sharing.

We will continue to advance discussions within the industry and we expect to share more news here in the coming months.