John Raines leads global commercial sales and operations for Climate LLC. His team brings the best of agronomic science, data science and software together to benefit farmers. On his farms in Missouri, John raises corn, soy, cotton and peanuts. He has a B.S. in Agricultural Systems Management from the University of Missouri ‑ Columbia.
The Best of Both Worlds: Data Privacy and Connectivity
Read Time: 3 minutes
March 9, 2020
As a farmer in Missouri and lead of the commercial organization at Climate LLC, I’m fortunate to spend a lot of time on farms talking with other farmers. It gives me a deep perspective on the challenges facing farmers today, as well as the range of new technologies coming on the farm to help tackle some of those challenges.
At their heart, the greatest advancements in agriculture are coming from data. Whether it’s the newest, best-performing corn hybrid delivered by advanced plant breeding, or the digital farming platform that’s helping you better manage key decisions throughout the year — it’s all made possible by data insights.
Putting data to work for farmers is what we do. Since launching the Climate FieldView™ platform in 2015, we’ve looked, listened, and explored how to build the best digital ag tools. We know that while you want access to the latest innovations in ag, you also care about how your data is used.
And we do too.
That’s why when you use FieldView™, you can feel confident that your data is well protected by our data privacy commitment, which is published on our website. With today’s wealth of digital platforms in every area of our lives, it can be easy to skim over the specifics of how a company is using your data, so I want to share some key guiding principles of our commitment to you:
- Farmers own the data they provide to Climate LLC.
- We do not sell customer farm data to anyone.
- We do not and will not share a customer’s data with third-party platform partners without the customer’s direction and consent.
- Farmers choose whether or not to share their farm data with third-party platform partners.
Accessing Innovations and Tools Across the Industry
When you use FieldView, your data is all in one place. You don’t have to pull it from a monitor, keep track of jump drives, or dig up a binder from a past year. It’s in your account and ready to deliver insights. Since one platform can’t provide everything you need to run your operation, having the option to connect your data between the platforms you use can really boost your efficiency. That’s why we’ve built FieldView to be your central hub of digital innovation that gives you a broad, interconnected set of tools, services and data — not only from our own platform, but from other innovative companies as well.
When I talk with farmers about their experience using FieldView, they often mention that they like how easy it is for them to opt to share data with their key agronomic partners. Recently our customer Jerry Seuntjens, who grows corn and soy in Iowa, said it like this: “I like knowing that I can connect with the other farm data I’ve gathered, like my soil tests, and have that in a single place to make faster decisions. I just grab my iPhone® or iPad® and go, with all the information right there.”
“I like knowing that I can connect with the other farm data I’ve gathered, like my soil tests, and have that in a single place to make faster decisions.”
Jerry Seuntjens, IA Farmer
If you have an account with any of these ag-related companies that we partner with, you will have the option to take advantage of the ease and convenience of sharing or exchanging data between accounts. Today, about one-third of our customers are benefitting from these connections for their operations.
Examples of functionality enabled by these connections include access to:
Farmers are in the Driver’s Seat
It’s your choice whether to share your data or access these services. When talking to friends outside of ag, I make the comparison to using Google to share your photos or calendar with family and friends. Google provides its users the option to share or not. Many users choose to share because it’s convenient — it saves time and reduces the risk of losing photos or missing a soccer game.
“As an early innovator in digital farming, we pioneered the perspective that farmers own their data.”
As an early innovator in digital farming, we pioneered the perspective that farmers own their data. Because the companies with which we have data connectivity agreements are third-party platform partners, I want to reiterate how our data privacy policy applies:
- FieldView subscribers who have an account with a platform partner would have to take action in order for data to be shared, and the farmer is always in control of what data is shared.
- Platform partners do not have open access to FieldView data.
We’re honored that thousands of farmers have chosen FieldView as the data partner for their operations, and we look forward to continuing to deliver the innovations you need for many productive years to come.
If you have any questions regarding your farm data or our privacy policy, take a look at these FAQs or reach out to our fantastic Customer Support team at 1‑888‑924‑7475 or support@climate.com.
