Harnessing the Power of Data to Improve Agricultural Policy and Conservation Outcomes

Abstract

Introduction It is estimated that globally we will be collecting digital data at a rate of 40 ZB (40 trillion GB) per year by 2020 (Tien, 2013; Song et al., 2016). This increased availability of high-resolution biophysical, demographic, and economic data, coupled with dramatic increases in storage and computational capacities, is creating exciting new opportunities for data-driven scientific discovery. The term “big data” and its applications in agriculture have received particularly intense attention, and while no single standard has been developed, it is generally accepted that datasets that include high-frequency, high-resolution data with low error rates have been developing at accelerating paces; computational techniques designed to optimize the informational content extraction result in increased acceleration of the data-collection cycle (Coble et al., 2018). It is frequently noted that the population will soon approach 10 billion people and that changing standards of living will dramatically increase not only demand for caloric resources but continue to strain environmental and natural resource systems.