農(nóng)民對自己所租用的土地數(shù)據(jù)的隱私性表示懷疑

農(nóng)民對自己所租用的土地數(shù)據(jù)的隱私性表示懷疑

Parker Smith grows corn and soybeans on land near Champaign, Ill., together with his father and uncle. But Smith Farms doesn't own most of the land it uses. "About 75 percent of what we farm is rented ground," he says.

帕克·史密斯和他的父親和叔叔一起在伊利諾伊州香檳附近的土地上種植玉米和大豆。但是史密斯農(nóng)場并不擁有它使用的大部分土地。“我們大約75%的農(nóng)場是租來的，”他說。

This is common. Across the Midwest, about half of all the farmland is owned by landlords who live somewhere else. Farmers compete to rent that land.

這很常見。在整個中西部，大約一半的農(nóng)田歸住在其他地方的房東所有。農(nóng)民們競相租用那塊土地。

"There's only so much ground, and most of the farmers out there want more, so obviously it gets pretty competitive," Smith says.

史密斯說：“土地就這么多，而那里的大多數(shù)農(nóng)民都想要更多的土地，所以很明顯，競爭變得相當激烈。”

These farmer-landowner relationships can last for decades. They sometimes feel personal. So Smith was pretty upset when he heard that a company had sent letters to his landlords a few months ago, offering cash up front to rent the land that he's been farming.

這些農(nóng)民和土地所有者的關系可以持續(xù)幾十年。他們有時會覺得是私人恩怨。因此，當史密斯聽說幾個月前一家公司給他的土地所有者寫信，表示愿意預付現(xiàn)金租用他一直耕種的土地時，他非常不安。

The letters came from a company called Tillable, based in Chicago. It's backed by venture capital.

這些信件來自一家名為Ttillable的公司，總部設在芝加哥。它得到了風險資本的支持。

Corbett Kull, Tillable's CEO, says that his company sent out thousands of these letters to landowners. "A lot" of them took the offer, he says. His company will take that land and list it on its website as available to rent. It'll take bids from farmers and then sublet it.

Ttillable的首席執(zhí)行官科比特·庫爾說，他的公司向土地所有者發(fā)出了數(shù)千封這樣的信。他說，“很多人”接受了這份工作。他的公司將征用這塊土地，并在其網(wǎng)站上列出可供出租的土地。它將接受農(nóng)民的出價，然后將其轉(zhuǎn)租。

American farmers spend about $32 billion each year to rent land, "This is one of the beauties of digital marketplaces, where you can bring two parties together that otherwise might never meet," he says.

美國農(nóng)民每年花費約320億美元租用土地，他說：“這是數(shù)字市場的亮點之一，在這里你可以把原本可能永遠不會相遇的兩個人聚集在一起。”

Those letters to landowners, though, got a lot of farmers very angry. "They're reaching out to our landlords, that we have relationships with, to sort of go behind the farmer's back" and break up those relationships, Smith says.

然而，那些寫給土地所有者的信讓很多農(nóng)民非常憤怒。史密斯說，“他們正在聯(lián)系跟我們有聯(lián)系的房東，在某種程度上是背著農(nóng)民”，并打破了這些關系。

Smith admits that this kind of thing does happen among farmers competing for land. But another factor played a big role in farmers' reaction. It's an unproven, very Internet-era suspicion about data and privacy.

史密斯承認這種事情確實發(fā)生在爭奪土地的農(nóng)民之間。但另一個因素在農(nóng)民的反應中起了很大的作用。這是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)時代對數(shù)據(jù)和隱私的一種未經(jīng)證實的懷疑。

Parker Smith, like a lot of farmers, uses equipment that automatically collects all kinds of data about his operations — like how much fertilizer he applies and how much grain he harvests from each small piece of each field. He pays a company called the Climate Corporation to manage that data and help him understand it.

像許多農(nóng)民一樣，帕克·史密斯使用的設備可以自動收集有關他的作業(yè)的各種數(shù)據(jù)-比如他施用了多少化肥，以及他從每塊田地的每一小塊土地上收獲了多少谷物。他付錢給一家名為“氣候公司”的公司來管理這些數(shù)據(jù)，并幫助他理解這些數(shù)據(jù)。

Last fall, though, the Climate Corporation and Tillable announced a partnership. And after Smith learned about Tillable's letters to landowners, Smith had to wonder: Did Tillable target specific landlords because it got access to data about how productive and profitable their land is?

然而，去年秋天，氣候公司和Ttillable宣布建立合作伙伴關系。在史密斯了解到Tililable寫給土地所有者的信后，史密斯不禁要問：Tililable是否因為獲得了關于他們土地的產(chǎn)量和利潤的數(shù)據(jù)而瞄準了特定的所有者?

If someone had his data, Smith says, "they would know yields; they'd be able to roughly figure out how much money a guy was making."

史密斯說，如果有人獲得他的數(shù)據(jù)，“他們就會知道收益率;他們就能粗略地計算出一個人賺了多少錢。”

Farmers on Twitter started sharing suspicions about the Tillable-Climate Corporation partnership. They accused the two companies of trafficking in farmer data.

推特上的農(nóng)民們開始對Ttille和“氣候公司”的合作伙伴關系表示懷疑。他們指責這兩家公司販賣農(nóng)民數(shù)據(jù)。

Corbett Kull denies this. The accusations "were absolutely false," he says. "We had never accessed the data from Climate [Corporation]."

科比特·庫爾否認了這一點。他說，這些指控“絕對是虛假的”。“我們從未獲得過氣候公司的數(shù)據(jù)。”

Yet the storm on social media forced the two companies to announce that they were cancelling their partnership.

然而社交媒體上的風暴迫使這兩家公司宣布取消合作關系。