Building trust is key for Big Data to deliver benefits to farmers

More than 650 policymakers, agriculture researchers and data experts met to discuss how building trust is key to securing the benefits of big data for smallholder farmers and consumers, during the 2019 Annual Convention of CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture.

“We are familiar with the cliché that data is the new oil. It is believed that data will bring prosperity just as oil did,” said Mr Jayesh Ranjan, IT Secretary to the Government of Telangana, during his keynote address.

“But we need to keep in mind that the term ‘oily’ also has a strong negative connotation as referring to something that is fake and lacking credibility. There are similar ethical implications with big data use,” he said underscoring the convention’s theme of trust.