Norwegian Yara and IBM expand collaboration to advance sustainable food production

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Last week at World Economic Forum 2020 in Davos, Yara International and IBM, launched an open collaboration for farm and field data to advance sustainable food production.

An open invite to innovative industry players

How do we ensure we can feed a growing world population in the new decade? This is one of the key challenges of our lifetime, and to tackle it digital farming solutions company Yara and IBM believe an innovative, collaborative approach is required. We are inviting farmers, agribusinesses, experts, associations, academia and NGOs from the food and agriculture industry can join a movement to develop an open data exchange that facilitates collaboration around farm and field data, with the aim of improving the efficiency, transparency and sustainability of global food production.

The Open Farm & Field Data Exchange aims to bring data together from various players to address concrete issues and enable innovation. Sharing data allows farmers to receive higher value services and to be paid in return for sharing their data. The use of the open data exchange platform can also make it trustful for farmers and value chain players to meet potential regulatory requirements.

We challenge and invite innovators from the agriculture and food industry to jointly pilot concrete test cases and define the principles and practicalities of data collaboration. Participants will contribute to the development of a food ecosystem that is designed to enable data-driven innovation, addresses changing consumer preferences and reduces the environmental footprint of food production.

This new initiative will build on learnings from last year’s Yara-IBM partnership, where we joined hands to connect and support farmers around the world. To find out more, read the press release on how IBM works with Yara to include hyperlocal weather forecasts in its digital platform for real-time recommendations, tailored to specific fields or crops.

Our first focus lies on farm and field data management as well as data-driven, joint innovation for farmers, which is already successfully launched in various markets across the world.

With the experience gained, we are now aiming to expand data-driven innovation to a broader community to help feed the growing population in more sustainable and climate-friendly ways, allowing the world to grow more food with a smaller environmental footprint.

See the video to learn more on how IBM and Yara seek to advance sustainable food production: 

If you would like to know how you can join and benefit from this initiative  – where ever you are in the World  – feel free to contact me (andersq@dk.ibm.com) or Peter Rylander (rylander@no.ibm.com).