The largest-ever international dairy data partnership -- bringing together milk recording organizations and national databases across 13 countries -- launched in October 2020. The International Dairy Data Exchange (iDDEN) represents approximately 200,000 dairy herds, or 20 million dairy cows, according to the announcement, which noted that iDDEN that is aimed at streamlining data exchange among dairy herds, milk recording organizations and dairy equipment manufacturers as well as other dairy-related organizations.

IDDEN was established to operate as a nonprofit organization by seven groups providing dairy data services in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and the U.S.

Managing director Reinhard Reents of Germany said, “iDDEN will deliver data exchange services that seamlessly integrate on-farm dairy equipment and devices plus software with national dairy information systems and databases. IDDEN is founded on strong principles of data governance and autonomy and consent for data sharing.”

Reents said two-way flow of data between farm management software and milk recording organization databases is key, particularly as the volume of data available on-farm increases and systems move to cloud-based solutions.

“This will provide industry databases with access to a range of data currently not captured. IDDEN has the potential to reduce the costs of data integration by having one solution to connect multiple individual on-farm systems and dairy equipment data sources,” he said.

IDDEN purchased the Nordic Cattle Data eXchange (NCDX) platform and is investing to enhance the functionality of the software including integration with cloud-based systems, the announcement said, adding that iDDEN will integrate the International Committee for Animal Recording Animal Data Exchange guidelines and standards, where possible.

National Dairy Herd Information Assn. (DHIA) chief executive officer Jay Mattison said the establishment and operation of iDDEN provides an exciting platform for future innovation, technology and service development.

Mattison said, “iDDEN has brought together dairy industry organizations and major equipment manufacturers across Europe, North America and Australia to focus on solving data integration challenges. Ultimately, iDDEN is about supporting data exchange for data-driven decisions and innovative industry services that benefit dairy herd managers and their industry organizations.”

IDDEN is headquartered in Germany, and the seven founding organizations are: CRV (Netherlands), DataGene (Australia), Lactanet (Canada), National DHIA (U.S.), NCDX (Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden), RDV (Austria and Germany) and Vit (Germany).