Blackmer: Who Has the Data? (And Whose Do You Trust?)

If you don’t make a profit, you’re out of business. There’s no other way to say it. And to make a profit, you must make hundreds of decisions. Some of these must be made with limited or no data.

Most growers easily understand the need for sound agronomic and marketing information. Often the impact of data (whether it’s good data, biased data, limited data or comes from an unknown or obscure source) goes unrealized except perhaps at a single field level.

As an example of how data makes a difference, the use of seed with genetically modified traits has had an impact on crop insurance. It certainly makes sense that using seed with genetic traits that reduce crop production risks should reduce insurance claims, and in turn lower the cost of insurance. But how comfortable are you with Monsanto or some other seed or crop input marketer providing the base of information for that?

A number of issues related to concerns about global warming (more recently called climate change) and water quality have dramatically increased government scrutiny of agriculture, and could ultimately lead to more nutrient restrictions and regulations. Unfortunately, many of these decisions will be based on models that are limited in the accuracy and quality of their data. The development of policy based upon such models has already had a big impact on agriculture in areas like the Chesapeake Bay region. While the data used as the base for decisions there have been shown to have some serious limitations, they are still being used because the needed data doesn’t exist.

The adoption of biofuels has also been affected by data used in determining the energy balance or greenhouse gas impacts that can be attributed to crop production. There are glaring errors in the data that have been used for some of this analysis, but they were used just the same. The use of flawed, incomplete data has impacted the interpretations of energy balance and greenhouse gas contributions of crop production, resulting in negative impacts on the adoption of biofuels, leading to a negative impact on growers’ bottom lines.

Agencies such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service claim to use science from Land Grant Universities when enacting programs that affect nutrient management. In Iowa, providing NRCS cost sharing for practices such as the use of a nitrogen stabilizer is a good example of how data can have an impact – or not. Iowa State University has not recommended the use of nitrogen stabilizers because university trials show the practice has only limited value. Such data has historically resulted in the Iowa NRCS state tech committee not supporting cost-share for such practices. However, NRCS administrators in Washington, DC decided recently to make use of a stabilizer a part of programming requirements for cost share. Go to www.isafarmnet.com/09STtrial/09resultstrial.html to see results of Iowa On-Farm Network® trials.

There seems to be trend among some companies to spend less money to help parties like the Land Grant universities or the On-Farm Network collect unbiased data, and more money on collecting their own data that they then use to influence government policy. This trend can be influenced by: 1. Pressure on companies to make their data in a public and credible way. 2. The value placed on data collected and reported by non-biased parties. Use caution with the term “third party.” It sounds unbiased, but some of these third-party organizations are very biased because their need to please the client in order to maintain their contract work (and stay in business) can at times create a conflict of interest. 3. Local data. Collect your own data, if possible as part of a network or group of growers, so grower organizations can use it on behalf of all growers.