"U of G Researchers Aim to Make 'Smart Farming' Work for Greater Food Security"

According to researchers at the University of Guelph, Canada's wide-open farm fields are vulnerable to cyberattacks and data privacy attacks, as well as unethical data use. Dr. Rozita Dara, a professor in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, said that just as farmers work to protect their crops and livestock from pests and disease, technology providers, governments, and farmers must recognize potential risks associated with cyberattacks and data misuse that come with increasingly pervasive "smart farming" technology. Dara calls for a multi-stakeholder approach to the governance of digital agriculture. Farmers and farm managers must take cybersecurity seriously and consider what might go wrong. She has published several papers this year on big data privacy and smart farm information processing with U of G food experts and other researchers in the School of Computer Science (SCS). Dara and her team from the Data Management and Privacy Governance Lab explained in an article published in the journal called Sustainability that smart farming systems use various sensors to collect data on everything from soil nutrition and irrigation to livestock and poultry monitoring. The systems use Machine Learning (ML) and data mining to analyze the information and assist farmers in making decisions to improve their practices. However, in the absence of adequate security and privacy, the data being collected, stored, transferred, or used may become vulnerable to attacks, thus making farmers more hesitant to adopt smart farming tools. The researchers suggest standardizing devices and assessing trust among farmers, technology providers, and other stakeholders. They also recommend developing legal frameworks to define responsibility and accountability, and investigating the use of secure platforms such as blockchain for transaction management. Dara stated that agricultural technology providers should always protect data and ensure responsible data use. Government can also help supply chain stakeholders form strong partnerships and support new and innovative business models and legal frameworks. Dara and her team recommended a smart farming platform to integrate, process, and use farm data. The platform would enable interoperability, reliable data-driven systems, scalability, real-time processing of data, and enhanced security and privacy. This article continues to discuss the team's research aimed at improving the privacy and security of smart farming.

UG reports "U of G Researchers Aim to Make 'Smart Farming' Work for Greater Food Security"