Farm Data Exchange (FDE)

Tackling the challenges and exploring opportunities around sharing and using agri-food and environmental data across the wider agriculture industry.

We began investigating this in early 2024 and it became clear there were two key challenges for farmers and processors:

1. Requests for farming data are inconsistent and uncoordinated – often with different supply chains asking for similar information, but in slightly different formats or processed through different carbon calculators.
2. Demands on farmers to provide farming activity data are rapidly increasing – from retailers, processors or even banks.

Finding a solution

After engaging with dozens of key industry organisations and stakeholders to discuss what a solution could look like, we began a project to prove a solution – Farm Data Exchange (FDE) – which would support the transfer of data from various sources under the control of the farmer.

The FDE proof of concept explored how farm data that already exists across the industry could be shared more effectively – with farmer permission – to reduce duplication and make environmental and carbon reporting simpler and more consistent.

Farmers are increasingly asked to provide the same environmental and sustainability information to different organisations.

This often means entering the same data multiple times using different systems, with limited visibility over who can access the data and how it is used.

The proof of concept tested whether a trusted, permission-based approach could give farmers clearer control over their data, reduce unnecessary administration and make better use of information that already exists.

The proof of concept focused on beef and dairy farms.

A short-term technical prototype was developed to bring together existing data from:

• Processors
• The British Cattle Movement System (BCMS)
• Feed suppliers

This data was then shared with commercial carbon calculators.

Farmers used a permissions centre to:

• Choose which data sources to connect
• Decide which organisations could access their data
• See a clear record of what had been shared
• Withdraw access at any time

The system was designed to be transparent and farmer controlled throughout.

Seventeen beef and dairy farmers were closely involved in testing the prototype and shaping how it worked.

To understand wider views, we also commissioned independent research involving 480 farmers across beef, dairy, cereals and oilseeds.

This found around half of respondents would be likely to use a service like the Farm Data Exchange.

Trust was identified as the most important factor in farm data sharing, with AHDB consistently seen as the organisation farmers trust most to coordinate this type of work.

The proof of concept showed it is technically possible to bring together farm data from different sources and reuse it, reducing the need for repeated data entry.

It also confirmed strong farmer interest where data sharing is:

• Clear and transparent
• Under farmer control
• Linked to practical benefits such as saving time, reducing paperwork and adding value to existing data