Documentación
A few months ago we published a compilation of the main reports, studies, success stories and courses published by the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN). This body seeks the proactive sharing of freely accessible data to make information on agriculture and nutrition available, accessible and usable.
To achieve this goal, GODAN has different teams that work in a coordinated manner for a common goal. One of them is the Capacity Development Work Group, focused on promoting open data knowledge (ongoing initiatives, innovations and good practices), as well as the development of new capacities. All of them to guarantee a more effective accessibility, use, engagement and understanding of open data.
In 2017, this group launched Godan webinar services, in order to offer a series of webinars organized in collaboration with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation (CTA). The videos, which last between 40 minutes and one hour, help to delve into different concepts: they explain how an open data initiative on agriculture should work, or how to tell stories with data to raise organizations and citizens’ awareness. Some of the organizations that have participated in the preparation of the contents are the Open Data Institute (ODI), Wageningen UR or The Land Portal Foundation, among others.
Here are some of the resources that can be found in Godan webinar services:
| Title | Content |
|---|---|
| Publishing open data from an organisational point of view | This webinar tries to answer a series of basic questions: Why is it necessary to publish open data? What benefit can publishing open data bring to the organization? Why are licenses important? How to start with publishing open data? |
| The Agriculture Open Data Package (AgPack) | In 2016, 4 agencies (GODAN, ODI, Open Data Charter and OD4D) developed the Agricultural Open Data Package (AgPack), which included 14 categories of datasets whose opening could have an important impact for the agricultural sector. This webinar shows detailed examples and use cases of governments that have achieved success in this area. |
| Effective data communication using data visualisations | Visualizations can help reveal, in a simple way, agriculture and nutrition trends to support decision making. This webinar explains the process of creating a good infographic, demonstrate some visualization software and reflects on how infographics are being applied for open data for agriculture and nutrition. |
| The Gender and Open Data Intersection | This webinar provides an analysis of open data from a gender perspective: from the current state of the question, to the challenges to overcome. The webinar ends with a series of recommendations to pave the way forward. |
| Agricultural Development: Role of Open Data in Ending Poverty | Open data can help end extreme poverty, end hunger and reduce inequalities. This webinar seeks to boost the capacity of states to openly share data and statistics for decision making. |
| Facilitating Standards and Impact Webinar | This webinar addresses the standards and impact evaluations of open data, with a special focus on weather data. Among other topics, the speakers analyse the trends and major gaps in the availability and use of weather data standards, followed by recommendations on how to make existing data standards more usable or how to develop services that facilitate the use of standards. All this through examples and success stories. |
| Farmers rights on data and ownership issues | Data ownership and privacy are two of the challenges of smart agriculture. This webinar tries to inform farmers about their rights from a legal perspective. |
| Unlocking the Potential of Blockchain for Agriculture | This webinar provides an overview of blockchain and analyzes its impact on agriculture, through examples and success stories in specific areas. The webinar also explains what capabilities people need to work with this technology. |
| Measuring the impact of open data initiatives in agriculture & nutrition | This webinar explains the methodology that GODAN uses to measure the impact of an open data initiative. Its evaluation framework focus on earlier stage assessment, as this offers better options to design new and, monitor and steer ongoing initiatives. |
In addition to these more general webinars, Godan webinar services also offers specific resources, where different initiatives tell their experience when publishing or reusing open data on agriculture and nutrition. An example is the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), which shows some of the projects in which it is involved in one of the videos.
In short, whether you are a public body that wants to start or consolidate an open data initiatives on agriculture, or a reuser looking for examples and success stories to inspire you, Godan webinar services can provide resources and information of interest.
Noticia
The progressive rise in food prices has raised serious concerns about food and nutrition security across the world, concept referring to the supply of food, and individuals' access to it. Though a coordinated response is urgently needed at international and regional levels, the decision of each country is critical for responding to the crisis and developing politics and specific action plans to the local needs. In this context, the International Food Policy Research Institute, through its “World Food Crisis” project, tries to improve and guarantee the quality and harmlessness of food in developing countries while it increases resilience of their food system against futures crises.
Within this initiative, an open data portal -Food Security Portal- has been created to provide comprehensive and detailed information country-by-country on food policy developments. This site contains over 40 indicators related to food security, commodity prices, economics, and human well-being from public, authoritative data sources like the World Bank, the FAO, UNICEF, and others.
In order to make the data contained on the site as useful as possible, the information is available to be freely downloaded through the Data API to re-use and share it without any restriction. The Food Security Portal team collects data by visiting other websites, scraping PDF files, and copying and pasting out of flat text files to facilitate easier sharing and use of the information.
Moreover, the portal contains a specific section with several materials to strengthen the ability of policymakers, food policy experts, and researchers to respond quickly to dynamic developments in the world food system. In this way, it is possible to access the latest research findings, policy tools to assess impact, and even knowledge about key concepts related to food security. Thanks to this information, it is expected that strengthen national capacity to respond effectively and adequately to food challenges such as poverty reduction, agricultural growth, and economic development.
Through this initiative, IFPRI seeks not only to increase food security in developing countries, but to improve the adaptation of global systems to the financial and food crises. Thus, the project brings together international, regional, and country-level data, news, and research aimed at meeting countries' immediate and long-term food security needs. The Food Security Portal is designed to pool information and ensure data quality and access, while it provides resources to the international community to keep working on poverty eradication and desnutrition in the world.
Noticia
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.