Location: Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory
Project Number: 3064-21600-002-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: Jun 18, 2024
End Date: Jun 17, 2029
Objective:
Objective 1: Develop and deploy sensors, tools and technologies that advance sustainable crop, livestock and integrated crop-livestock management while addressing data security concerns.
Objective 2: Develop improved, transparent, and end-to-end secure data architecture to support integration of new sensors and technologies in agricultural production systems.
Objective 3: Develop data management systems to facilitate cross-platform, cross-manufacturer data compatibility and interoperability to smooth the interaction of data between people, devices, and machinery.
Approach:
The rapid advancement of technologies used on a farm in day-to-day operations that rely on cloud-based computing, online data storage, and decision making supported by artificial intelligence and complex, large-data analysis leaves farmers and their trusted advisers with a limited understanding of where data generated from their operation goes, how it’s used, and how they, or their trusted advisers, can use the data returned to them. Furthermore, with rapidly evolving federal data management, access, and cybersecurity policies, ARS requires data technology research that will help equip our scientists with technologies that help them maintain data compliance with those policies while delivering agility, innovation, and relevance. There is a limited understanding how new technologies maintain data integrity, often with data manipulation, data sharing, or data usage not being transparent at the farm level. Lastly, farm data security as it relates to new technologies is of critical importance both to the farmer and to the nation and farmers need pressure testing of these systems to understand the security of their personal and farm-level data. The objectives of this project are directly related to the NP216 Sustainable Agricultural Systems Research Action Plan 2023-2027. Specifically, project objectives address Problem Statement 2D: Agriculture-environment-society nexus by assessing tradeoffs associated with emerging data technologies, identifying risks and benefits, and develop tools to support decision-making surrounding these technologies. The project objectives will also address Problem Statement 1C: Resilience to emerging and persistent challenges by addressing emerging challenges related to data usage and security.
