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Farmers are mixed on if their information is secure in the cloud

Some Midwestern farmers are questioning if the information they share with companies is secure.

“It’s going to be hard, hard to know who and what to trust anymore,” says Nebraska farmer Mitch Oswald.

He tells Brownfield his trust is diminishing in companies that he shares farm data with after cyberattacks have hit the ag industry like Tractor House, JBS Inc, Iowa-based NEW Cooperative Inc. “I think it’s going to be one of those things where these companies will need to take a really hard look at a lot of their cybersecurity and how they can protect their information that we are giving them because you sit down with companies, and they say your information is protected and then you see stuff like this happening.”

Other farmers aren’t as concerned.

Quentin Connealy farms along the Missouri River and tells Brownfield, “We’re not too private on everything we do, I guess.” Connealy says. “We’re pretty open with who we work with. I have faith in whoever we work with like John Deere, agronomists, marketing – whoever the people I work with have faith in it and I think we’re going to be tight enough I don’t see it being too much of a factor.”