Data Collection & Antibiotic Bills

Data Collection & Antibiotic Bills. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

It seems the more we integrate technology into our lives the more there is a pushback from many sectors and agriculture is one of them. The biggest question comes in the form of ownership. Who owns the data. Those questions and more have made farmers reluctant to embrace new data collection technologies. A recent congressional panel looked at the issue and Dr. Shannon Ferrell from Oklahoma State University told them:

FERRELL: I think the EPA lawsuit of a couple of years ago where we saw a lot of our information from our livestock operations put out there, I think the disclosure of lots of the farm subsidy information by the Environmental Working Group has led to farmers having a little bit of in trepidation about that information.

A pair of antibiotic bills in the Oregon legislature didn't fare very well during the last session. Neither bill was adopted but there is anticipation that they may return in a future session. The bills will need some updating since here were some issues that ag groups were not in favor of but the both bills sought to end the use of antibiotics for non-therapeutic uses of medically important antibiotics in animals raised for human consumption. California passed a similar bill earlier.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.