Photo by Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives. 2019.
Often, when we think of Oregon, we think of its natural beauty – the high desert, the higher mountains, and roaring seas and rivers. Lately, our natural wealth has attracted data centers – a fraught issue. Much of the public conversation around data centers focuses on land, water and energy use. But less attention is paid to the governance of the data itself, how it is used, who benefits, and how decisions are made. That gap is what one of our projects has aimed to address. What is often overlooked, but of vital interest, is the data stored in those very same data centers.
At the time of our nation’s founding, the only constitutionally required “data” was the decanal census – a simple(r) count of the people, collected by hand, summarized by individuals, stored on paper, and accessible only by being there. Today, data drives our modern economy. It’s seemingly collected by everything, everywhere, all at once. And yet, our tools for managing data – its portability, who has access to it, how it’s shared, who “owns” it – are largely constrained by the rules formerly applied to pencils, papers, and hand-counting.
While data centers represent the physical infrastructure of the digital economy, that is, where data is stored, they do not address the equally important question of how that data is governed. Questions about who can access data, how it is used, and who benefits require shared rules, trust, and clear agreements.
In 2025, the National Policy Consensus Center partnered with the National Agricultural Producers Data Cooperative funded through the University of Nebraska to support a farmer-centered Agricultural Data Governance project to establish a neutral, facilitated space where researchers and institutions could jointly define shared data principles, roles, and practical tools for how digital and analog data is collected, used, shared, and protected.
Rather than following the traditional interplay of proposed rules, public comment, and lawsuits, team focused on trust, transparency, and clear expectations. Within a circle of trusted collaborative engagement, the team was able to develop a modern, mutually beneficial, and sustainable set of guidelines and rules for data governance in the agricultural sector.
In addition to the actual output, the project strengthened cross-sector relationships and built durable governance capacity in the sector – demonstrating why and how collaborative governance matters not only in Oregon, but across the United States. Data increasingly shapes public problem-solving from research and community engagement to policy evaluation and design, yet clear, shared expectations about data use are often missing. By grounding data decisions in shared values, clear roles, and plain-language communication, the project helped partners navigate risks and responsibility more transparently, reinforcing trust and supporting durable collaboration across sectors.
NPCC, homegrown right here in Oregon, is among a very select group of national leaders focused on applying collaborative practices to complex governance challenges. We are grateful to our colleagues at University of Nebraska, as well as our federal partners in the USDA for supporting and encouraging this work.
Interested in learning more about our programs or collaborative governance? Reach out to our team at npccdesk@pdx.edu.