Your farm data is valuable. Here's what to check before you share it

Farm data has always had value, but the rise of digital emissions reporting has sharpened that reality considerably. An emissions profile captures detailed information about how your business operates: livestock numbers, input volumes, production figures, management practices. In the wrong hands, or shared without clear conditions, that information could be used in ways you didn't intend and can't undo.

The good news is that data security in agricultural platforms has improved significantly, and there are now clear benchmarks to look for. The NFF Farm Data Code sets out standards for privacy, security and data sovereignty that responsible platforms adhere to (Ruminati is registered under this scheme). If you're evaluating an emissions tool, it's a reasonable first question to ask whether the platform operates in line with those principles.

Beyond the code, there are a few practical things worth checking. The most important is whether you retain control of who sees your data, what level of detail they can access, and for how long. A well-designed platform lets you grant permission to specific organisations (for example a bank, a processor, a Landcare group) and revoke that permission at any time. It also lets you see exactly what has been shared and with whom. That's a meaningfully different situation to emailing a PDF report to someone, where you have no visibility of where it goes once it leaves your inbox.

The other thing to understand is how your data is used in aggregate. Platforms that work with large datasets (including Ruminati, which now has close to 2,500 users) draw on anonymised, aggregated information to generate industry benchmarks and insights. That's how national emissions intensity averages get calculated, and how producers can compare their own performance against the broader dataset. Understanding whether your individual data is identifiable in that process, and what consent you've given for it to be used that way, is worth clarifying before you sign up.

None of this is a reason to avoid digital emissions tools, quite the opposite! A platform with strong data governance gives you more control over your information than a spreadsheet or a paper form ever did. It just pays to ask the right questions first, and to choose a tool that gives you straight answers.