A PICTURE is worth a thousand words is the premise of a new technology project to help farmers capture benefits and opportunities from sharing onfarm data.

Data capture has become a key component of the constantly evolving ag-tech sector, feeding data driven decision making aids, services and research.

Weather, crop performance, pest and disease surveillance and production efficiencies are just some of the data captured on farms through internet of things sensors, monitoring and devices, as well as high-tech modern farm machinery.

Farmers can supply this information in the data marketplace to data service providers, such as public and private sector research organisations and commercial services and consultants.

One of the greatest risks and impediments to data sharing is licence agreements, which can be long, complicated and difficult to understand – eroding ownership, transparency, trust and exposing farmers to legal liability.

A Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) project is underway, delivered by The University of Western Australia (UWA), seeking to overcome these barriers by creating simple licence agreements based on pictures.

Known as ‘pictorial’ or ‘comic book’ contracts, these agreements are distilled into a pictorial storyboard, making complex information more accessible and easier to understand and apply, without compromising the integrity of the contract.

The three-year project is part of DPIRD’s eConnect+ project, which delivered the Extrata data sharing platform – a digital courier service that securely transfers data, encrypted end-to-end, from farmers to data service providers and researchers.

eConnect+ project manager Darren Gibbon said pictorial contracts were the next step in helping farmers to adopt data sharing and reaping the benefits.

“It is important for farmers, as data owners, to fully understand what they are signing up to when reviewing licence agreements with data service providers,” he said.

“Pictorial contracts are a legally binding, practical tool to communicate complex information in a simple format, which is more accessible and less time-consuming and ambiguous.

“UWA will draw on leading experts in pictorial or comic book contracts, across legal and intellectual property, marketing and data governance to deliver a robust product to help farmers engage in data sharing.”

The pictorial contracts will be developed in collaboration with industry focus groups, initially concentrating on mixed grain and sheep enterprises.

The contracts will be used by DPIRD’s Extrata data sharing platform and available to farmers and data licensees.

Mr Gibbon said data collection and sharing had become integral to modern farming businesses.

“Advances in science and agriculture production are becoming increasingly reliant on data-driven information, captured by farmers, stored by data collectors and processed by third party data service providers,” he said.

“Extrata securely transfers this data using the highest data security protocols, accredited under the National Farmers’ Federation Farm Data Code.

“Unlike other data sharing services, Extrata does not retain the data at any point, merely couriering the information to a destination bound by a third party licence contract.

“This means farmers can take control of their data – who gets to use it, what for and for how long.

“Farmers can even bundle data using Extrata to send to multiple service providers, making their digital information work harder to support production decisions and strategies.”

Farmers interested in participating in the Extrata early adopter program can visit the DPIRD website and search for ‘extrata’.