Potential implications and benefits for the agricultural technology sector from the introduction of the Australian Agricultural Data Exchange

The Australian Agricultural Data Exchange (AADX) is an initiative, launched in August 2020, with the vision of enabling agricultural industry participants to leverage a common data sharing infrastructure for the benefit of the agricultural sector. The data sharing gaps identified within the sector were believed to have led to inefficiencies andmissed opportunities for the sector. Thus, by addressing these gaps through a data exchange (DX) infrastructure, benefits ranging from enhanced management capacity to predictive biosecurity were envisaged. In September 2022, a Charles Sturt University research team was engaged to investigate the potential implicationsand benefits for the agrifood technology sector through the introduction of the AADX. The team adopted a mixof qualitative and quantitative approaches for the research study. For the qualitative part, a total of 15 Australian agricultural technology (AgTech) vendors and seven public agricultural data exchanges across the world were interviewed. For the quantitative part, 32 Australian agricultural technology vendors were surveyed, representing a 15% survey response rate. The qualitative data was analysed and triangulated with the survey data and secondary research to derive insights into the implications, merits and challenges that may arise from the existence of an agricultural data exchange in Australia. Five broad thematic narratives emerged around the study viz: (1) the agricultural data sharing landscape; (2) the data exchange opportunity; (3) data exchange barriers and risks; (4) characterising the adoption of data exchanges; and (5) the impact of data exchanges.