Food Agility is pleased to announce the Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) template is now available and ready for industry-wide use.
The DSA template has been developed by Food Agility in partnership with tier one legal firm Minter Ellison, to provide a fair best practice contract template for data sharing between farm businesses (Data Originators) and those they share data with. The DSA is for service providers, researchers, and anyone else collecting, managing, or sharing farmers’ data. It is designed for agreeing data sharing arrangements between a few parties, such a research project contract between a farmer and a research institute. It does not replace service contracts, although it can be used to inform software terms and conditions.
The draft DSA was developed in 2021, opened for feedback with Food Agility projects and other stakeholders in 2022, and updated based on feedback in 2023. It is now freely available to the public for use.
Alignment with the Australian Farm Data Code
The DSA has been aligned to the National Farmers' Federation's Australian Farm Data Code (the Code) to provide data protections for farmers.
The DSA is an important tool to assist with compliance against the Code but does not guarantee compliance. To ensure full compliance against the Code, products, projects, and services should be assessed against the Code by the NFF under their certification program.
What farmers need to know
The DSA offers farmers many data protections, but they should still check the NFF certification register to see if the product/service/project has been assessed under the Code by the NFF. Only certified product/service/projects are guaranteed to be compliant with the Code.
If you've received a contract claiming to be based on the DSA
Unfortunately there is no way for Food Agility to ensure the DSA template hasn't modified, so if you have received a contract claiming to be based on the DSA we suggest you request a copy of the official template for comparison (please see below).
How to use the Data Sharing Agreement
The DSA can be used for sharing of data between a farm business (the Data Originator) and one or more Data Recipients.
In case of multiple Data Recipients, separate Schedules can be completed for each Data Recipient if details vary. The terms in the DSA would apply to all Data Recipients listed in Schedule 1. If different terms are required for different Data Recipients, then a separate DSA should be created per Data Recipient.
The DSA can be used in scenarios where the Data Originator is sharing existing data, or new data is being collected e.g. by the Data Originator, by someone else on behalf of the Data Originator, or by someone else on behalf of the Data Recipient.
The DSA is not suitable for scenarios where the Data Originator is paying for a service. The provision of the service would need to be the subject of a separate service agreement, because a number of other provisions would be required (to describe the service, the standard to which it is to be performed, etc).
Get your copy
Please complete the form below to receive the Data Sharing Agreement template, or contact Gabi Ceregra for further information.
The Data Sharing Initiative project received investment (DOI: 10.47486/DC102) from the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC). The ARDC is funded by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
