Farming futures: Perspectives of Irish agricultural stakeholders on data sharing and data governance

Claire Brown (), Áine Regan () and Simone van der Burg ()
Additional contact information
Claire Brown: Department of Agri-food Business & Spatial Analysis, Rural Economy and Development Programme, Teagasc Mellows Campus, Athenry
Áine Regan: Department of Agri-food Business & Spatial Analysis, Rural Economy and Development Programme, Teagasc Mellows Campus, Athenry
Simone van der Burg: Wageningen University and Research

Agriculture and Human Values, 2023, vol. 40, issue 2, No 12, 565-580

Abstract: Abstract The current research examines the emergent literature of Critical Data Studies, and particularly aligns with Michael and Lupton’s (2016) manifesto calling for researchers to study the Public Understanding of Big Data. The aim of this paper is to explore Irish stakeholders’ narratives on data sharing in agriculture, and the ways in which their attitudes towards different data sharing governance models reflect their understandings of data, the impact that data hold in their lives and in the farming sector, as well as their preferences for how data should be governed within agriculture. Seven focus groups were held in 2019 with Irish stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds, including agri-researchers, those working in SMEs, and farmers of varying ages and sectors. The primary activities carried out during these focus groups centred upon asking participants to discuss four different data sharing governance models, and to work their way through a set of value cards relating to these models. Focus group results are studied using an inductive, data-driven form of thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006). Five primary themes cross-cut these focus groups: 1) Desire for a data intermediary, 2) Reversing the value chain, 3) Categorisation of data, 4) The common good, and 5) Potential danger in data sharing. These themes are explored in the paper through a detailed discussion of the focus group results, in which the authors track the manifestation of these themes across focus groups, and the ways they sometimes morphed or changed depending upon the participating stakeholder group.

Keywords: Big data; Data governance; Farming; Values; Critical data studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10460-022-10357-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:40:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s10460-022-10357-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10460

DOI: 10.1007/s10460-022-10357-8

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture and Human Values is currently edited by Harvey S. James Jr.

More articles in Agriculture and Human Values from Springer, The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().