Farmers Business Network

Interessant nieuws uit de VS: boeren zetten een software-netwerk op om data te benchmarken. En Google stopt er 15 mln dollar in. Zo melden de Amerikaanse social media deze week. Met het oog op ons werk in ICT en benchnarking in Europa leg ik maar even een paar zaken vast:
Wired framed het als een strijd van boeren tegen de multinationals. Enkele citaten: (FBN is)  a startup called Farmers Business Network, which aggregates data from farmers across the United States to help them learn from each other.

agri-data uit een etalage in Stockholm

 For $500 a year, farmers can submit their data, benchmark it against other farms nationwide, find the best seeds for their soil, and see a Consumer Reports-like review of hundreds of agricultural products, among other services, [..]  These tools have not only given him more confidence in his decision-making, but they’ve helped him cut through the often misleading claims of vendors.

De Silicon Valley blog Techcurnch meldt:  Google Ventures led the round, with help from past investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and impact investment firm DBL. FBN has now raised nearly $28 million in venture funding, Since launching in November of last year, FBN has aggregated data from 7 million acres of farm land across 17 states, and they’re growing 30% month over month. The platform is currently able to assess the performance of 500 seeds and 16 different crops.

FBN aggregates and standardizes all of this data being collected from farms nationwide to create an analytics dashboard, which also integrates outside information like weather or regional soil conditions. By leveraging the results reported by all farms in the FBN network, farmers can make informed decisions about which agricultural products and practices will produce the highest output.

However surprising it may sound to any of us who are unfamiliar with the inner workings of a modern farm, farmers are suffering from a data overload.

Tot slot: hier de website van FBN, met een mooie video.