waaaay east central Colorado | Well, it all comes back to the idea of "big data". By itself, data doesn't do much, but when stacked with zillions of other points of data, then the statistics revealed start to mean something. In the end, with enough "big data", it doesn't matter if a yield monitor is calibrated. In fact, I contend that calibration means very little to most guys for most analysis. Unless you are using a yield map to generate a crop nutrient removal rX, the ONLY thing that you are doing with it is comparing whether this part of the field did better or worse than that part.
So, for the purposes of someone getting access to your data, if they knew that this field was planted to 33B54, and the field across the road to 60-88, then some assumptions about hybrid performance by soil type can start to be made. When you start stacking thousands of such comparisons, that means as much for "most" growers as it does for the individual grower where the data was generated.
Now we get to knowing if the planter was in the ground. You're correct, that's a weak link in "big data". The reason that argument is really only a talking point instead of a valid argument is this: Do you know a single grower who doesn't try as good as they can to raise a crop? We HAVE to assume that every grower is out there, trying equally hard to not screw up. If we accept that, then isolated issues all get averaged out and can pretty much be ignored.
In the end, you're correct about knowledge of your field being most important to you. No argument from me about that. That isn't the full scope, though. The idea with BIG DATA is to be able to leverage meaningful data from bazillions of data points across giant swaths of the country to make educated decisions that are more right more often for more people than what is currently done. That's where the slippery slope comes from. If you are either willingly or unwittingly helping someone else to improve their practices, should you be compensated? If some sort of voluntary data compilation service lets you put in your data, and compare it with only other growers who voluntarily opt in like some sort of data co-op, I have no problem with that. It's when someone has their information used without their consent or knowledge for someone else's gain that it starts to feel like digital larceny. |
FBN
