agricultura

Solutions development, based on artificial intelligence techniques and data mining.

The Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative, known by the acronym GODAN, aims to support "the proactive sharing of open data to make information about agriculture and nutrition available, accessible and usable." To this end, GODAN fosters dialogue and cooperation in agricultural activities between more than 760 members, including governments, private companies, international organizations or NGOs.

Through different working groups, GODAN contributes to share ideas and experiences to solve key problems and challenges in the agriculture and nutrition sectors, using open data. Some of these challenges are ridding the world of famine, ensuring food security, improving nutrition or facilitating sustainable agriculture.

In order to help more companies, organizations and citizens to be aware of the importance of open data to solve these challenges, GODAN promotes the creation and dissemination of resources that drive both providers and users reflection on agricultural open data. Among these documents, we can find:

• Reports, which analyze different challenges and include recommendations or good practices aimed at enriching the available information about agriculture and nutrition, encouraging their analysis and reuse.
• Success stories, which can be used as an example for those organizations interested in being part of this ecosystem, but do not know how to take advantage of open data to generate new initiatives that add value to the sector and solve the aforementioned challenges.
• Courses aimed at strengthening data producers and consumers capacity to manage and use open data in agriculture and nutrition sector.

We have compiled some of these resources, described in the following table:

To learn more about GODAN resources, you can visit their website publications section. In this section, which is periodically updated with new publications, users will find more documents and reports related to open data in agriculture. The dissemination of these contents can help develop high-level policies, and support the private sector for opening more data, which is fundamental to overcome important challenges for humanity.

High diplomacy traditionally plays a role in helping cultures and nations to dialogue with each other. But when it comes to strengthening the right to land, it is the local communities themselves that have to get involved.

This is the vision of the Land Portal Foundation, and the main reason to create the web landportal.org, a place where interested groups can gather and consult information about land governance. This information comes from diverse sources (fragmented and sometimes not accessible) and produced by governments, academia, international organizations, indigenous peoples and non-governmental organizations. Appart from gathering information, the platform promotes the generation of debates, the exchange of information and the creation of networks of contacts.

The organization, and therefore the platform, is based on the idea of the "open movement", which are embodied in concrete realities such as establishing by default open source licenses in all its computer developments, the consumption of open data and the publication of linked open data, or the use of open licenses when sharing information.

The portal collects statistical data, bibliographic data, or data on different resources (organizations, events, news, projects) and republishes them as LOD in a machine-readable format (RDF), using a standards-based and shared data model under an open license. With this, the foundation aims to create an information ecosystem and reuse it.

On September 27^th and 28^th, the Global Open Data for Agriculture & Nutrition (GODAN) held a series of workshops on agriculture and Linked Open Data in Berlin. This event took place during Germany’s G20 Presidency (Presidency they will hold throughout 2017) as part of the meeting of the G20 itself, with leading scientists in agriculture and information technology.

The agenda for both days had a very similar structure. The day began with a plenary talk, after which the audience was divided into two areas:  one focused more on the technical level (disruptive technologies, new applications and services) and the other focused more on the implementation of policies at the state level. In addition, the presentations of each area were grouped by category.  

Within the category of “Vocabularies, classifications and thesauri”, different tools were discussed (self-labeling, recommendation of labels) for the reuse of AGROVOC concepts, or problems were presented in the creation of a vocabulary regarding the domain of land governance (LandVoc).

There were several presentations on the results of projects with Spanish participation, such as the Agricultural Research Data Repository (REDIA) developed by the National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology of Spain (INIA). This repository seeks to guarantee the preservation of the data that is generated as part of the INIA’s scientific activity, as well as to satisfy its publication needs, following the requirements of funders and publishers, in order to increase its dissemination and reuse. Another project presented with national participation was FOODIE, where a Cloud-based platform has been developed to host spatial and other agricultural data, expressed through Linked Data.

Within the presentations on “Visualization, navigation and search”, we’d like to highlight VIVO, an open source software and an ontology used to represent academic activity, which allows for information storage, the search for experts, the analysis of work networks or the evaluation of the impact of an investigation, among other things. This work was presented by one of the founders of the tool from Cornell University (United States).

And within all of the presentations, there were a few concepts that were repeated constantly:

• the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) as good practices for the publication of scientific data
• and the importance of metadata when it comes to preserving information and having greater traceability in regards to its origin.

These seem to be some of the issues that the Linked Open Data community is working on and we are sure that we’ll be seeing progress in the near future.

The world faces a global problem of food safety and sustainability. With world population growing to levels of around ten billion by 2050, the current agricultural system is under more pressure than ever before to meet growing demand with quality food.

That is why achieving a more sustainable agriculture system is one of the challenges that have been classified as a high priority by the United Nations for the next 15 years as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. But achieving this goal will not be an easy task, since it involves much more than simple changes in productivity, and covers issues as complex and diverse as the actions needed to achieve more equitable markets, improved access to finance or the preservation of natural resources and biodiversity.

Such profound, diverse changes will only be possible if they are undertaken with a totally innovative approach that drives us to achieve those objectives. It is at this point that data comes into play. Governments and many other organizations have an enormous amount of data relevant to the agriculture sector, ranging from data on climatology and climate change to data on food price evolution, as well as other data sets as varied as land ownership, land degradation, genetic variability of seeds or availability of water resources. However, the current lack of openness of this data leads to possible innovation in this sector having been very limited so far.

By opening up data from the agriculture sector, by creating collaborative networks and preparing the appropriate data infrastructure to support it, we will be able to solve the major challenges of sustainable agriculture in three complementary ways:

•  By facilitating more effective and efficient decision-making at all levels, from policy makers at the highest level to small farmers.

• By promoting innovation in a way that benefits us all through new knowledge, services and applications.

• By bringing about an internal transformation of the sector in which prime importance is given to greater transparency in food production chains.

With the aim of facing all these challenges with the greatest possible guarantees, the  Open Data Agriculture Package promoted by the Open Data Charter has been created. In this guide, and starting from a  participatory process for the exhaustive analysis of the needs and the demand of the sector, data sets, standards, case studies and additional resources are proposed that respond to the three previously identified key challenges:

1. Sustainable increase in agricultural production.

2. Improved production systems

3. More accessible and equitable markets.

This guide therefore constitutes a perfect example of a practical approach to the opening up of data, starting from the identification of real use cases that solve problems and concrete needs such as:

• Access to information on subsidies, agricultural policies and other restrictions.

• Planning of activities related to cultivation.

• Increased control over pests and pesticides.

• More accessible property records.

• Improvements in crop and speciality crop yields.

• New market opportunities.

• Traceability of the food chain.

• Protection against speculation in the markets.

• Fairer conditions of trade between the different agents in the chain.

Thanks to this practical approach, we will be able to see more and more success stories concerning the benefits of open data applied in the agriculture sector.

Water is, without a doubt, one of the essential natural resources for humanity and life on the planet. Publication of data on water management, from both the social and the environmental point of view, is fundamental for society as a whole. As far as the administration and competencies are concerned, agriculture and environment agencies are often responsible for water management data and, therefore, are responsible for policies regarding transparency and publication of information.

In Spain, for example, the Directorate General for Water of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Environment (MAPAMA) is responsible for preparing and publishing reports based on the assessment of hydrological plans, scarcity risks, water quality, etc.. However, the data is not currently available in transparent formats for reuse.

At European level, it is WISE (Water Information System for Europe, a partnership between the EEA - European Environment Agency - and the Commission), which coordinates the different agencies in relation to water policies. From the point of view of publication, the following can be highlighted:

• Thematic repository of the EEA, which includes space resources and the water quality database

• Water-related statistics, managed by Eurostat

At the international level (including the USA government agency, the UK, UN or Open Water Foundation) and from the technical point of view regarding the publication of water data, two approaches can be noted according to the nature of the data:

• In the case of numerical information, tabular plain text files are usually used for data representation. In general, the CSV (Comma Separated Values) format is used, although there are also cases, such as Eurostat, where the TSV (Tab Separated Values) format is used to represent the series.

• Since water has a strong spatial component, interpretable through maps, much information related to water is published using spatial and geographical representation formats such as GeoJSON or shapefiles.

• Also to be noted is the most highly developed standard for representation of observations on water, designed for the publication and exchange of information between systems: WaterML, an open standard of the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium, used by some countries and organizations, although not adopted globally.

From the point of view of open data, it is surprising that there are few public catalogues related to water information at the national level, especially considering the sensitive nature and social interest pertaining to its management, and the relevance it has from the economic point of view (e.g. in the field of agro-industry and food). It is also important to highlight the lack of specific standards and formats for representation, which confirms that water has not been a central part of governmental data publication strategies.

However, pressure from cooperation support organizations, sectoral associations, the general public and the emergence of a new ecosystem of business initiatives fuel the hope that there will be a paradigm shift in publishing and accessing data from an industry, concerned with the management and exploitation of water, which annually moves more than 500,000 million euros worldwide.

AGRIS is a global public database providing access to bibliographic information on agricultural science and technology containing over 8 million records, references and links to related data resources on the Web, like DBPedia, World Bank, Nature and FAO country profiles (Food and Agricultural Organization of United Nations).

The initiative CIARD (Open Agricultural Knowledge for Development) maintains this multilingual database whose content is provided by the 150 institutions from 65 countries that form the network, which uses linked open data methodology to provide data covering a wide range of subjects: food, nutrition, agriculture, fisheries, forestry and environment.

AGRIS’ mission is to improve the accessibility of agricultural information available on the Web by:

• Maintaining and enhancing AGRIS, a bibliographic repository for repositories related to agricultural research.
• Promoting the exchange of common standards and methodologies for bibliographic information.
• Enriching the AGRIS knowledge by linking it to other relevant resources on the Web.

AGRIS bibliographic records contain rich metadata and are largely indexed by AGROVOC, FAO’s multilingual agricultural thesaurus; the content includes journal articles, unpublished scientific and technical reports, theses, dissertations and conference papers. When a user makes a search, the system creates a mashup page where all the results of the database are displayed together with other related Web resources. Currently, AGRIS contains more than seven million mash-up pages, all indexed by Google and accessible through a Google search.

AGRIS Application Profile

In order to provide a common format for exchange and description of information resources within the current AGRIS network; the AGRIS AP application profile was created, facilitating interoperability of metadata to enable linking of various types of agricultural information, therefore allowing users to perform cross-searches and other value added services.

Thanks to AGRIS AP a standard data model for bibliographic description of resources in the domain of agriculture is provided so communities around the world have access and re-use such information. Thus, it is also provided a common approach to share information between applications and standards makers, while promoting interoperability between systems.

The second Sustainable Development Goal stands for the end of hunger, food security, improved nutrition and the promotion of sustainable agriculture. However, facing these challenges requires data that can range from transparency in agricultural agreements to information on food safety. Open data plays an essential role both in developing solutions to current challenges and empowering citizens, who, thanks to this information, can make better decisions.

In this context, GODAN, the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition initiative, was launched at the 2013 OGP Global Summit; bringing together stakeholders from all sectors to collaborate on making agriculture and nutrition data available. Given the central role of agriculture and nutrition in many citizens lives, it is only natural that OGP Action Plans should include key commitments in this area:

● Making existing land tenure and landholding registries public;

● Disclosing contracts signed with extractive companies - including for agricultural land deals;

● Publishing data on commercial fishing licences, catch quotas and subsidies paid to the fisheries sector.

Currently, GODAN is a rapidly growing network of over 277 partners from government, international and private sector organisations all committed to organize and coordinate activities that promote the potential of open data in agriculture and nutrition. Using open data to monitor the implementation of key food security; adopting common open data standards for publication of information or releasing government held food product information as open data are some of the actions in which the entity is working.

One of the international initiatives that meets the objectives of GODAN and OGP is landmatrix.org, a project that uses data on land deals to promote greater transparency and accountability of large scale agricultural investments and development projects. As a data collection and visualisation tool, it is a powerful platform for citizens, researchers and public employees to conduct analysis and monitor land use over time.

One of the project within GODAN program is the International Livestock Research Institute, based in Kenya and Ethiopia; which offers farmers additional mechanisms to protect against weather risks and losses associated with them. Thus, thanks to the re-use of open data from satellites, it is possible to study the state of crops and the availability of pastures in the drier areas of East Africa.

Another example is the BROSDI project, an initiative that works with poor communities in Uganda to help farmers with economic funds and advice so they can re-use information productively and be responsible for their own development. This network has 300 breeders who meet regularly with the organization to monitor its progress and discuss about possible solutions to community problems. All information is collected and transferred to the National Agricultural Research Organization which processes and transforms data into value, sending it back to BROSDI in order to make communities re-use it.

Thanks to the support of the Open Government Partnership, it has been possible the implementation of this voluntary association, which has driven multiple activities dedicated to release the potential of open data in the agricultural industry worldwide. In addition, it has ensured that all partner agencies work following the same guidelines and principles, seeking to jointly promote new programs, best practices and lessons to improve the conditions of the poorest rural areas through the re-use of open data.

Thanks to the reuse of public sector information, new businesses and new business models are beginning to emerge. But, for that, public entities have to open the data they store and place them at the service of the society. According to the Characterization Study of the Infomediary Sector, in 2014 the financial turnover of infomediary businesses in Spain was from 450 to 500 million euros and the sector provided for approximately 4200 to 4700 jobs. In fact, the economic potential of open data and big data in Europe is 200000 million euros and in USA seven sectors alone could generate more than $3 trillion a year in additional value as a result of open data.

The economic value of the open data is already a reality. It has become the raw material for agriculture, nutrition or health sectors; boosting employment, providing services tailored to the society needs and developing innovative solutions. Open data is so important that, in the 4^th International Open Data Conference, a panel was dedicated to the business models based on open data. The conference was the appropriate event to present the Open Data Impact Map. This initiative is a searchable, centralized database of open data cases from all around the world. Still in beta, this map will be the Open Data 500 successor.

Over the last few years the health sector has focused on open data to reduce costs, increase revenues, save time and improve medical diagnosis. Mastondon C is an excellent example. This startup has been working with Open Healthcare UK on NHS prescriptions; reusing PSI to save millions of pounds on medical prescriptions. 

The scientific community is also aware of the importance of open data; not only to develope news product and services but to be sure about the integrity of any investigation or health advance. After all, if we have access to the data, we can evaluate the effectiveness of treatments and the fairness of medial studies.

Thanks to the data re-use, Google created the web service Google Dengue Trends; a near real-time tool which worked by capturing disease-related queries typed into Google and displaying a map indicating dengue activity. Though the map is disabled, the historic estimates produced by Google Dengue Trends are available to being reused by any user.

By information sharing and extracting data, technological advances has made them much easier.  Agricultural and environmental sectors have made use of leading-edge technology to create new business opportunities. The UK government has unleashed 1000 farming datasets to boost the national farming productivity and help business and consumers decision-making. The data will be used to improve the quality of crop yields and deal with disease outbreaks. This is what Plantwise offers. This programme is a global resource to increase food security and improve rural livelihoods by reducing crop losses.

Together with GODAN (Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition), Open Data Institute has published a discussion paper where they show how open data is a powerful tool being used to solve problems in agriculture such as drought, pests or food security.

Another noteworthy initiative is Foodie Project: an European platform hub on the cloud where data related to agricultural and farming sector are stored from open data portals and sensors located in crops and farms. This infrastructure integrates different datasets and provides high-value applications for the support of farmers and stockmen.

Analysis tools, food products, eHealth apps… There are as many business opportunities based on open data as datasets. The key issue is to identify the needs and create solutions that transform the public or private information into added value services.

Tags: open data, agriculture sector, health sector, Foodie, GODAN, ODI, Plantwise, Google Dengue Trends, Mastodon C, infomediary sector