Smallholder Data Rights in Digital Agricultural Platforms

Marc Müller

Smallholder Data Rights in Digital Agricultural Platforms

Author(s)	Prof. Marc Müller
Country	United States
Abstract	Digital agricultural platforms increasingly mediate access to farm advisories, weather forecasts, input recommendations, machinery services, market information, credit assessment, remote sensing, farm records, and precision-management tools. These services can generate substantial value for smallholder farmers, yet participation also produces detailed datasets concerning farm location, production, input use, yields, transactions, land characteristics, and household-linked economic activities. When platform terms are complex, data cannot be exported, secondary uses remain undisclosed, or aggregated datasets create value without meaningful farmer participation, digital adoption can generate new asymmetries between smallholders and platform operators. This study develops a simulation-based framework for assessing smallholder data rights within digital agricultural platforms without presenting hypothetical farmer interviews or platform contracts as empirical evidence. Five governance configurations are compared: opaque platform control, disclosure-oriented governance, consent-centered governance, portable and purpose-limited data governance, and farmer-centered rights with accountable benefit sharing. A Smallholder Agricultural Data Rights Index is constructed using informed consent, access and portability, purpose limitation and transparency, security and accountability, and equitable value participation. Simulated index values increase from 27.8 under opaque platform governance to 91.6 under the farmer-centered model. A complementary cumulative analysis indicates that explicit consent, portability, purpose restrictions, auditability, and benefit sharing contribute distinct layers of protection and cannot be replaced by a generic declaration that farmers “own” their data. The study argues that smallholder data rights should be understood as a bundle of actionable controls rather than a narrow ownership claim. Stronger governance requires plain-language terms, granular permissions, accessible copies of farm data, interoperable export, transparent secondary use, reasonable retention and deletion provisions, safeguards against discriminatory analytics, and mechanisms through which farmers can share in value generated from aggregated agricultural data. Such protections can strengthen trust while allowing digital agriculture to support innovation rather than intensify platform dependence.
Keywords	agricultural data rights, smallholder farmers, digital agriculture, data governance, farm data, platform economy, data portability, informed consent
Field	Engineering
Published In	Volume 7, Issue 2, March-April 2026
Published On	2026-04-20

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American Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Innovation and Research

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

Smallholder Data Rights in Digital Agricultural Platforms

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