Published on the 26/08/2026 | Written by Heather Wright
Farmers challenge who profits from shared data…
New Zealand’s agritech sector is facing a growing battle over one of its most valuable resources: Data.
A new discussion paper from the Helen Clark Foundation and New Zealand Rural Land Company argues that information collected from sensors, drones, satellites and connected farm equipment is rapidly becoming a commercial asset, creating tension between farmers who generate the data and tech companies that use it to build products and services.
“Farmers may be sceptical of third-party access to data they have generated. Innovators, meanwhile, are incentivised to build proprietary datasets.
The report, Growing Innovation: The Next Wave of AgriTech for Rural New Zealand, identifies agricultural data as one of five critical themes to ensure that the benefits of agritech revitalise rural communities and deliver maximum economic and sustainability outcomes for New Zealand. It warns a lack of consensus around ownership, access and commercialisation could become a barrier to innovation and adoption.
“Data is the crown jewel of 21st-century commerce,” the report notes, highlighting the value being created as farms become increasingly digitised.
The report, based on interviews with farmers, co-operatives, levy bodies, venture capital firms and public sector leaders, highlights agritech not just as a productivity and efficiency booster, but as an environmental sustainability enhancer. A World Economic Forum study found a 20 percent increase in agritech adoption in the EU could improve farmers’ livelihoods by €1.9–9.3 billion annually, improve soil health by 14 percent and reduce emissions by six percent by 2030.
Today, data is being captured across New Zealand farms through technologies ranging from environmental sensors and livestock monitoring systems to drones and satellite imagery. Agritech companies use that information to develop tools that improve irrigation, fertiliser use, emissions reduction, animal welfare, product quality and farm productivity.
But as the commercial value of that information grows, so too do questions over who should control it and who should profit from it.
The report says farmers and technology providers are becoming increasingly intertwined in the data economy. Farmers generate the information, while agritech companies use it to train algorithms, refine products and create services that can be commercialised across the sector.
The relationship is not always straightforward.
“Farmers may be sceptical of third-party access to data they have generated, concerned about intent and ownership,” the report notes. “Innovators, meanwhile, are incentivised to build proprietary datasets to gain a competitive advantage by locking up data, or to generate new revenue streams by charging a fee for access.”
That can leave farmers unable to access insights derived from collective datasets, despite contributing to the underlying information.
That dynamic can create barriers to agritech adoption, the report notes.
Aiden Gent, ASB general manager rural banking and a contributor interviewed for the discussion paper, says the industry remains divided on fundamental questions around data control.
“There are people competing to own data and commercialising on the fact that they own that data, rather than an open and free market,” he says.
The debate mirrors broader discussions unfolding across industry as organisations wrestle with how AI systems, analytics platforms and software vendors generate value from data supplied by their customers.
According to the report, there is currently no agreement within New Zealand’s agritech ecosystem on who should own agricultural data.
Some stakeholders favour a data sovereignty model, arguing that farmers should directly benefit because they generate the information. Others see data as a commodity that belongs to those who collect, process or commercialise it.
“These perspectives highlight the need for clear frameworks that balance commercial opportunity with fairness and trust and maximise value to the New Zealand food and fibre sector.”
The discussion paper argues that resolving those questions will be critical if the sector is to maximise both innovation and trust.
Nick Rowe, head of customer innovation at Silver Fern Farms, says the challenge is creating mechanisms that reward both parties.
“The challenge is creating a two-way street by connecting supply of high-integrity data generated by landowners, with market demand for verified farm-level data products and enabling an exchange of that data which creates value for both sides.
To address the issue, the report recommends establishing an Open Data Insights and Benchmarking Platform that would aggregate and manage agricultural data on behalf of farmers.
Under the proposal, farmers would be able to benchmark performance metrics such as yields, emissions intensity and water-use efficiency against regional and national averages without exposing sensitive information. Researchers would gain access to aggregated datasets, while agritech companies could use the information to support product development and innovation.
The platform would operate as an independent repository governed by agreed principles around data sovereignty, transparency and de-identification. Rather than individual farmers negotiating separate arrangements with multiple technology providers, the platform would manage licensing and access arrangements on their behalf.
The report also proposes that revenue generated through commercial licensing of aggregated datasets could be returned to participating farmers and reinvested into the platform itself.
The recommendations come as New Zealand’s agritech sector continues to expand. The paper cites MBIE estimates suggesting there are more than 500 agritech companies operating in New Zealand, generating annual revenue estimated at between $2 billion and $3 billion. Technologies spanning automation, AI, biotechnology and precision agriculture are increasingly being deployed across the food and fibre sector.
The report argues that agricultural data will sit at the centre of that growth.
The bigger agritech push
The issue of data ownership is one of five themes identified in the report, which argues New Zealand risks leaving economic value on the table unless it accelerates agritech adoption and addresses barriers to innovation.
It says the sector’s potential is bing held back by financing barriers that favour large operators over family farms, gaps in rural connectivity and services, the fragmented data ownership and a slow regulatory environment.
Among the themes identified is designing homegrown technologies which also target global challenges to capture international markets and creating innovation-enabling conditions with connectivity, risk-sharing, adaptive regulation and targeted incentives to accelerate adoption of new technologies and de-risk investment.
The paper outlines 13 recommendations aimed at strengthening the sector, including modernising agricultural education with digital and AI skills, creating new agritech micro-credentials, establishing a digital extension service to improve technology uptake and improving rural connectivity.
It also proposes a co-funded Agritech Adoption Fund to help farmers share the risk of investing in new technologies and a regulatory sandbox to enable faster testing of emerging innovations.
The report argues that New Zealand’s food and fibre industries are generating increasing amounts of valuable data while facing growing pressure to improve productivity, sustainability, traceability and compliance. In that environment, technologies such as AI, automation, precision agriculture and digital farm management are expected to play a larger role across the sector.
Among its more ambitious proposals are a national “Living Knowledge Bank” to capture farming expertise and an open benchmarking platform that would make agricultural insights more widely available while protecting individual farm data.
The paper’s broader message is that technology alone will not deliver better outcomes. Investment, skills, trust, connectivity and data governance will all be needed if New Zealand wants to convert agritech innovation into productivity gains and export growth.
