State Government unveils ‘gold standard’ data-sharing platform for agribusinesses as security concerns rise

A new “gold standard” data sharing platform is about to be piloted in WA, enabling producers to transfer information through highly secure and trusted channels — helping to take agribusinesses to the next level. Extrata — pronounced ex-trah-tah — was developed by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development in response to producers’ concerns about the security of storing and sharing sensitive commercial and research data. The department is on the hunt for interested early adopters to participate in the Extrata pilot in coming months to help refine the product and its useability. Farmers increasingly rely on digital data collected from weather stations, soil moisture probes, harvesters, drones, sensors and other automated systems to make informed on-farm management decisions to improve productivity and profitability. This information is typically stored on individual cloud-based systems, which can be shared with data service providers, like consultants or research institutions, to run analysis to produce reports and decision making aids. DPIRD’s new Extrata service has been touted for its ability to transport data, encrypted end-to-end, with the State Government promoting it as having the “highest data security protocols”. The service was recently stamped with the Food Agility Cooperative Research Centre’s Best Practice Data Policy. DPIRD eConnect+ project manager Darren Gibbon said the service was designed to give farmers confidence their sensitive agricultural data would be supplied to the intended recipient only and remained confidential. He likened the new Extrata™ platform to a trusted digital data courier service. “Digital information and data collection has become a key component of modern primary production but it is nothing unless you make that data work,” Mr Gibbon said. “To do that, information must be shared and analysed so farmers can make evidence based, data-driven decisions that can improve agribusiness performance. “Extrata acts as a trusted courier to transfer that information between the producer, the data collector and the data service provider, with confidence that the bundle of information remains secure, backed by multi-factor authentication. “ Mr Gibbon said that unlike other data sharing services, the DPIRD-developed tool did not “retain the data at any point” and instead couriered the information to a destination with a third-party sharing agreement. DPIRD is using the Extrata platform to help devise a new liming strategy, as part of a Food Agility CRC project, in collaboration with the Grower Group Alliance, AxisTech and Curtin University. “Extrata will help to simplify the process of getting data from the farmer to the model and back, making the experience quicker and more efficient,” Mr Gibbon said. The free Extrata pilot is open to all producers and service providers involved in the broadacre, intensive grains, livestock, horticulture and aquaculture industries in WA and across Australia.