The Power of Data & Technology: Part 1

When used correctly, data is a powerful tool. It can create new knowledge, better governance, and can shine a light on areas of improvement.

At The Yield, data is a critical part of our mission to help feed the world and care for the planet. Here’s why…

USING DATA FOR GOOD

The Yield collects data on weather and growing conditions and combines it with other data sources. Then, using intuitive mobile and web apps, we give growers insights into when they should plant, irrigate, spray, protect, and harvest different crops at different growth stages.

Ultimately this helps to optimise and maximise crop yields and can help match production to market demand.

DATA – A SUSTAINABLE RESOURCE

Ros Harvey, Founder and CEO of The Yield, views data as a powerful resource.

“Data as a resource is unique because, unlike things like oil or other things that we use to produce data, you can use it again and again and again. You can combine it with other data and every time you use it and combine it and transform it, it creates more value.

“This is a unique quality of data. It gives it enormous power. So, we need to think very carefully about the power of that data and how we can use it for social good and for the benefit of the people who are creating the data, consuming the data and for society more broadly,” she said.

Every day, the data The Yield collects is put to work on farms and in crop production throughout Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world to help produce food more effectively and sustainably.

Data Philanthropy

The Yield is bringing cutting-edge technology to the agriculture sector. By combining the power of data and technology, we can improve food production worldwide.

As data philanthropists, we strongly believe that data should remain available in a market situation. We aim to help create a pool of data that can be used for public good.

This concept of data philanthropy allows the huge volumes of data collected from the private sector to be combined with the right technology to benefit society in transformative ways. At The Yield, we work closely with the Food Agility Cooperative Research Centre and numerous universities to find new ways of using powerful data for a strong social purpose.

Check out how we are using data and technology to transform the world in a positive way in part 2 of our data and technology series.

Images courtesy of Joshua Sortino and Campaign Creators from Unsplash.