Australian Agrifood Data Exchange

Home / Australian Agrifood Data Exchange Update 1

Progressing to design and delivery phase

The nationally recognised Australian Agrifood Data Exchange (OzAg Data Exchange) project led by Meat & Livestock Australia and KPMG for supporters of the project is a national collaboration with the long-term vision to create an interconnected data highway for Australia’s agrifood value chain through a digital platform. This platform, the OzAg Data Exchange, is where data can be exchanged between supply chain participants and where data owners control the access to the data they choose to share, enabling industry to gain better insights and benefits from their data.

Initially, GGA was involved in representing WA growers to target priority use cases for further investigation. 2022 saw GGA continue to support the benchmarking in the grains industry experiment and focused on the Data Governance Workstream for the business case.

There were four proof of concept experiments investigated.

  1. Centralised data for compliance and certification – Wine Grapes
  2. Biosecurity and contamination information – Sheep Meat & Wool
  3. Voluntary benchmarking for comparisons and decisions – Grains
  4. Compliance and trace ability – Rock lobster in WA

GGA participated in the working group investigating voluntary benchmarking in the grains industry helping to identify gaps and opportunities and working closely with AxisTech as the lead AgTech solution provider. AxisTech, using their AxisStream data management platform, demonstrated the intake and standardisation of farmers’ data such as soil test results, rainfall and yield and the generation of benchmark data which was provided back to the grower with analysis against their individual results. This experiment and the other three experiments are explained via animated videos here.

All experiments were presented at a Demonstration Day in March 2022. The experiments’ solutions depended on secure robust data infrastructure and buy-in from partners to contribute data and shape the solution for data consumers. While the experiments focused on a specific industry, each of the solutions could be of value to other agrifood sectors. All solutions were viewed to be highly relevant and could be implemented straight away.

From the experiments and the Demonstration Day the working groups proceeded to investigate Data Governance and operating models for the Data Exchange. Six Data Sharing Principles were developed:

  1. Transparent, clear, and trusted use and sharing of data
  2. Compliance with applicable laws and regulations
  3. Data Sovereignty
  4. Documentation and record keeping
  5. Security and privacy of data
  6. Fair and equitable use of data

As workstream partners the project team members identified the critical must haves, the core services and minimum requirements for data ingestion, modelling, and storage to inform the development of an operating model and assist with the development of a business case.

Considerable progress was made in 2022 with the endorsement of the business case and a clear pathway for the establishment of a data exchange in 2023. The project will now progress to the design and delivery phase with the following key steps:

  • Securing funding for design and delivery of core infrastructure and applications.
  • The procurement process, the establishment of a legal entity, and appointment of governance and leadership roles.
  • Developing, testing, and launching the data exchange and priority applications into the market in 2023.

For more contact Alison Lacey of GGA via alacey@gga.org.au