Optimizing Agricultural Practice - Potential Impact
Supporting Agri-finance - Potential Impact
Facilitating Agri-Value Chains - Potential Impact
Enforcing Policies - Potential Impact
Government Efficiency & Transparency - Potential Impact
Case study
Farmer Use
Use By Other Actors
Readiness
Examples of Implementation
Standards
Cover Image
Policy & Administration
Policy and legislation texts relevant for the agricultural sector
(Phyto) Sanitary regulations
Environmental Regulations
Import/Export Regulations
Animal Health & Welfare Regulations
Subsidy Schemes
Decision making resulting in policies and legislation is the core business of any government. By making these documents available online as structured and computer-searchable text, (third party) ICT services can be developed that will enable a better sharing and implementation of these policies and legislation, thereby contributing to the realisation of their objectives. Having lists of applicable policies and regulations, and extracting any data they contain (such as lists of subsidies) can als
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Conserving the countryside with open data
Farmers can optimise their position with regard to subsidy opportunities, legal restrictions and other policy instruments by having better access to the relevant policy and legislation documents.
By having better access to policy documents and legislation documents: 1) rural advisors can provide better recommendation to farmers, 2) other actors in the value chain, e.g. traders, processors, unions etc., may be able to adapt better to the existing legal framework, e.g. legislation for finance, input usage regulations etc., 3) civil society is better able to track policy developments, 4) internal government collaboration can be improved.
More and more governments provide online policy documents and legislation texts. However, most legal documents are shared as non-searchable PDFs. The usability of these online resources would be improved if they were provided as machine-readable text, including structure and semantic components to allow the development of ICT-driven high-value services.
Reading and applying policy and legislation text requires some prior legal knowledge and skills. To make the data more useable by the intended
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ provides a browsable and searchable repository of all legislation in the UK. Advanced searching is possible using region- and time-specific filters. The data can also be accessed by a machine using a special interface (https://data.gov.uk/dataset/legislation-api)
http://ruimtelijkeplannen.nl is a portal (in Dutch) providing all plans originating from the different levels of government that apply at a specific location by clicking on a map.
http://kenyalaw.org/ Ke
Akoma Ntoso is developed specifically to describe machine-readable parliamentary, legislative and normative documents and it is currently used by different Parliaments around the world including Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Kenya, Hong Kong, European Parliament, Italy, Switzerland, and USA. (http://www.akomantoso.org/, https://wepc2014.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/palmirani.pdf)
Popolo Project - International open government data specifications for government processes. Open data format enhancing gov
Policy & Administration
Lists of organisations, people, or products officially registered, permitted or restricted as a result of legislation.
Many policies lead to a list of items, people or organisations that are permitted, licensed or registered in different ways. By providing these lists as open data they can be easily consulted - increasing the impact, and lowering administrative costs. (Third party) information services can be built to make these lists easily accessible by the intended user groups. Having this data readily available may also be beneficial for internal collaboration between different government organisations.
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By having better access to official documents, such as lists of permitted pesticides and herbicides or the occurrence of diseases, farmers can make more sustainable choices.
Clear land ownership registration leads to better stewardship of the land and therefore more sustainable farming practice.
Access to curated registries prevents misuse and fraud (for example, open access to the list of registered companies from the Chamber of Commerce to assess the legal status of a trader).
By having better access to official documents, such as lists of permitted or restricted crop protection products, red list species, quarantine diseases, etc., rural advisors can provide better recommendations to the farmer resulting in more sustainable farming.
Clear land ownership registration may function as collateral for financial institutes, thereby increasing the access to finance for the farmer.
Clear land ownership registration facilitates agricultural monitoring by government, result
Most governments have up-to-date official data records. However, these files maybe be on paper or in a digitized form that is not yet a standardized form. In many cases the benefits from making the data readily accessible online may outweigh the cost of making the data available and regularly updating these records.
https://www.tinglysning.dk/tinglysning/welcome.xhtml This is Denmark’s open data land registration (in Danish); according to the Open Data Index Denmark is one of only two countries in the world providing fully open land registration data.
http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/label/labelque.htm The Californian Department of Pesticide regulation provides lists of all registered pesticide products as open data.
http://www.rvo.nl/sites/default/files/2015/09/Acrobat-document.pdf. Table of limits for nitrog
Cadasta provides standards for land registration (https://cadasta.org/open-data/)
Policy & Administration
Financial management data of the government
Investment in Research and Education
Agricultural Subsidy Expenditure
Agriculture-related Tax Income
Penalties Given to Agricultural Actors
The availability of open data on government spending in the agricultural sector can lead to more transparency and equity. Feedback from civil society may result in a more targeted or effective spending of the budget.
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CAP reform with open data
Farmers can use the data to provide feedback to the government about how taxes are spent.
Government resources supporting agriculture can be spent more efficiently, while other organisations can:
1) help to improve budget policies by providing information on food security needs and priorities directly or through connections with citizens, communities and particular sectors;
2) monitor the use of public resources, helping to prevent misuse or corruption;
3) make more strategic decisions in agrifinance and value chain development as a result of knowing knowing in what commodities a
Most governments have clear budget data records and accounting for internal use. Putting these figures online in machine-readable format will be a relatively simple task considering their structured form.
In 2015, 21 governments shared their high-level budget data as open data. Examples are:
Canada http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/hgw-cgf/
USA https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/f
Taiwan http://data.gov.tw/node/gov/resource/6277
Uruguay https://catalogodatos.gub.uy/
The BOOST initiative is a World Bank collaborative effort to facilitate access to budget data and promote effective use for improved decision-making processes, transparency and accountability. Currently deployed in about 40 countries globally. http://wbi.worldbank.org/boost/boost-initiative
The Open Contracting Data Standard provides a common approach to increase transparency in public contracting processes: http://standard.open-contracting.org/latest/en/
The Fiscal Data Package is a simple,
Policy & Administration
Data describing rural development projects, funded by a government. The funding may be from local government or a donor government (aid). The rural development projects aim to support agriculture, economic development and the environment in isolated, sparsely populated areas. This category is dealing with project level data, financial data, but also monitoring and evaluation, project activities. etc.
General information on a rural development project
Rural development project output, outcome and impact
Rural development project baseline and survey data
Rural development project documents
The availability of open data on government-funded rural development can provide more transparency in government spending, and better opportunities to collaborate and balance between different programmes and projects, making these projects more effective in reaching their goals.
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Sharing data – optimizing resources
A one-stop-shop for AID data
Farmers can provide feedback to the government on the implementation of projects and the money spent.
Governments and other donors can better coordinate (international) resources and take other projects into account as they develop their own budgets, making rural development more effective.
Organisations carrying out development projects can use the data to design complementary projects, to find collaborating partners, and to learn from best practices, making rural development more effective.
Private sector organisations, including the financial sector, can use the rural development data to b
A distinction needs to be made between internationally funded rural development programmes (AID programmes) and domestic rural development programmes.
Most donors now publish their international assistance data to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). Several donors also require their implementing partners to publish to IATI as well. The next implementation step is to improve the quality of the data provided, the tools to access the data, and the actual third-party use of the d
Interactive website to explore and visualize the IATI data of all UKAID sponsored projects. https://devtracker.dfid.gov.uk/
Open for Change describes seven ways to reuse IATI data. http://www.openforchange.info/content/7-ways-use-iati-data
D Portal generates interactive graphs on the global IATI database. http://www.d-portal.org/
NGO Aid Map provides a global overview of all food-security projects that agreed to join the project. https://foodsecurity.ngoaidmap.org/
To monitor AID projects and spending the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) Standard is becoming common practice: http://iatistandard.org/
A Guide to IATI data: http://schoolofdata.org/courses/a-guide-to-iati-data/
The Initiative for the IATI agricultural workgroup and the Initiative for Open AgFunding is working on is working on better use and further development of the IATI Standard.
https://www.interaction.org/project/open-ag-funding/overview
Socio-economic
Data describing the cultivated area, the crops grown and yield in the different regions.
Land use data
Cultivated Crops & Livestock
Crop Yield
Biomass
Most governments make estimates of the cultivated area, crops grown and yield in different regions to monitor food security and economic development. These figures have a strategic value for all value-chain actors in better planning and adapting their businesses.
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Agrimatie: Sector data available at a glance while securing privacy
A farmer or their advisor may use the data to plan the crops to be planted next year in relation to the cropping pattern in the region in the previous year(s).
Processors, storage facilities and traders need to plan and anticipate the next harvest. By having data on the success of previous harvests or data on the (condition of) the standing crop they can plan better.
Having data on the land use in different regions allows input suppliers to expand or adopt their business strategically.
Information on previous harvest successes allows financial service providers to make better estimates of the risk they take when providing loans or insuring farmers in
Most governments collect information about their agricultural productivity. Traditionally this information is collected by a survey as part of the duties of an extension service, using a paper- based system. Nowadays, satellite information is used to complement traditional modes of data collection. Collecting accurate agricultural productivity data is often challenging. A survey takes a high degree of effort because of the extent of many agricultural areas, and even with good satellite interpret
The US Department of Agriculture provides a crop-specific land cover data layer annually through its statistical service using moderate resolution satellite imagery and extensive agricultural ground truth. All historical crop data layer products are available for use and free for download through CropScape. https://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/CropScape/. The Agency also provides periodical updates on the crop progress and condition through the year in the different states. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Char
Spatial data standards are maintained by the Open GIS Consortium http://www.opengeospatial.org/
In the EU the INSPIRE directive is regulating the exchange of spatial government data in data infrastructures. http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/
A global initiative to improve Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange. https://sdmx.org/
Socio-economic
Data describing the companies and organisations involved in the agricultural value chain and the quality of their activities. For example data on farmers, cooperatives, processors, retailers and input suppliers.
(Food safety) inspection results
Company profiles of groups of value chain actors or organisations
(Food) product data
Most governments collect a lot of information on the individual value-chain actors, e.g. farmers are monitored on a regular basis, provide data on nutrient management to match legal requirements or submit information to get subsidies in order to comply with regulations. Sharing this information will allow value-chain actors to increases their insights, facilitating the functioning of the value chain.
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Agrimatie: Sector data available at a glance while securing privacy
Farmers can use the data to benchmark their farm against the results of others to understand the competitiveness of their farm and see what should be improved.
Input suppliers, processors and traders can forecast their business better and meet local and regional needs by knowing the type of farms, their characteristics and competitiveness in a region.
Other value-chain actors can also benchmark their company against similar companies to understand their competitiveness and see what aspects should be improved.
Financial service providers can use value-chain data to profile new or existing clients before lending or insuring their clients, being better
Many governments collect data from value-chain actors using a census or survey to monitor, evaluate or make new policies. Other governments have extension agents noting farmer characteristics and recommendations to support their advice work and governmental inputs distribution. The quality of this data varies and this also depends on whether the system is paper based or online and digital. When available centrally, digitally and with high quality, it is simple and useful to publish the data. How
Dutch webportal on the agricultural sector. This portal provides insights into the “people, planet and profit” performance of the Dutch agricultural sector. It combines the best available data sources and presents long-term developments on hundreds of indicators on themes like agricultural trade, farm income, environmental impacts, employment and prices. Because of the sensitivity of the raw data, the portal provides interactive charts to navigate, and aggregated data download options. Online th
A global initiative to improve Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange https://sdmx.org/
Global Product Classification (GPC) classifies products by grouping them into categories based on their essential properties as well as their relationships to other products. Including the Global Location Number (GLN) and Global Trade Item Number (GTIN). http://www.gs1.org/gpc
Socio-economic
Data describing national networks for roads, water, ICT, etc., including their condition, maintenance schedules, logistical service providers and timetables
Road network
Mobile Telephone coverage
Road management schedules
Waterways
Internet coverage
Sharing this data helps value-chain actors to better plan their activities. For example, having good knowledge about the national infrastructure is vital in managing transportation and storage of (perishable) food products and having equitable access to markets. Knowledge of ICT infrastructures enables eService providers to develop their market strategies.
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Farmers can make informed decisions on their trading options leading to more equitable markets.
Other value-chain actors can also make more informed decisions on logistics. Accessibility is key information for strategic business development in rural areas; this is especially important for traders, transporters, processors, loan agents etc.
Financial service providers use this information as part of a larger risk assessment of a client to better understand their trading options.
Data on the connectivity of different regions is useful for providers of agricultural advice via telephone or
Most governments have (up to date) infrastructure data available as part of their responsibility for the development and maintenance of the national physical infrastructure. With relatively little effort this can be made available as open data, as nowadays this information is hosted in Geographical Information Systems, such as ArcGIS, QGIS. If available the data can easily be published as open data. While in many countries infrastructure data is not sensitive, in other countries it may be consid
The Rwanda geoportal provides the networks of national and regional class 1 roads.This data can be used to analyse the shortest (or alternative) routes between several points http://rwandageoportal.rnra.rw/layers/geonode%3Aroad_networkl_50k
The municipality of Bonn in Germany provides information on planned roadworks 30 days ahead; this data can be used by transporters to avoid delays. http://www.europeandataportal.eu/data/en/dataset/geplante-strassenbaustellen-30-tage-und-1-jahr-mit-ortsangab
Open Street Map data model http://write.flossmanuals.net/openstreetmap/understanding-the-openstreetmap-data-model/
Spatial data standards are maintained by the Open GIS Consortium http://www.opengeospatial.org/
In the EU the INSPIRE directive is regulating the exchange of spatial government data in data infrastructures. http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/
Socio-economic
Data on the location of markets, market prices, market standards.
Market management and rules
Standards, Grades, Labelling.
Location of markets
Global food prices
Market prices
Lists of Markets and Auctions
Import/export volume
To create open equitable markets, price information should be shared with farmers. By providing open data on markets and market prices, farmers will be better positioned to negotiate at the farm gate, select crops, and select a distribution channel. (Third-party) services can be built to make these lists easily accessible by the intended user groups.
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Bypassing the middle-man.
By knowing about crop price history farmers can make more informed decisions on what to plant.
With improved knowledge of local and national prices a farmer is better able to negotiate at the farm gate.
With Knowledge of local market prices farmers can choose where to sell their crops.
By having better price information:
1) financial services can make better risk estimates about whether farmers can pay back their loans, and can determine the price of a financial product, increasing access to finance.
2) Financial services, value-chain actors, and governments can forecast market developments better.
Global food prices and trade statistics are already collected by the WTO and made available online https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/statis_e.htm. The effort required to publish import and export trade figures is low, because generally this involves large quantities, a few large companies and is already monitored by the government. Local prices of domestic trades are more challenging to obtain. Data collection often involves sending out independent agents to find out what is happening i
The Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) is a marketplace where buyers and sellers come together to trade, assured of quality, quantity, payment, and delivery organised with the support of the Ethiopian government.The key market dissemination channels at ECX are rural-based Market Information Tickers, a mobile phone Short Messaging Service (SMS), an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service, the mass media (TV, radio, newspapers) and a website (www.ecx.com.et).
An example of sharing crop and livest
Global Product Classification (GPC) classifies products by grouping them into categories based on their essential properties as well as their relationships to other products. Including the Global Location Number (GLN) and Global Trade Item Number (GTIN). http://www.gs1.org/gpc
Natural Resources
Earth & Environment
Quantitative data on surface weather variables including forecasts, local observations and historic archives
Short-term Weather Forecast
Real Time Observations
Observations Archives
Climate Zones
Climate Change Predictions
Plant growth is driven by weather variables and therefore agricultural production is directly dependent on weather conditions. Many agricultural activities (e.g. sowing, harvesting, fertilizer application) are dependent on weather conditions for planning and effectiveness. Given this, all agricultural stakeholders are interested in some form of meteorological data. Most governments have a specific department or agency dealing with weather information. By making meteorological information availab
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AGROASEMEX, state-supported micro insurance in Mexico
Saving $3.6m in drought damage with open data
By having timely and accurate weather information, a farmer can plan farming activities better
By having access to weather archives, (local) climatic conditions can be objectively determined, allowing more accurate:
- farm management advice for the farmer; and
- investment risk investigation for financial institutions, resulting in better access to finance for farmers.
By having access to archives of local weather variables, the weather forecast for that particular area can be improved (downscaling).
By having access to near real-time weather observations, insurance companies are enable
Nearly all countries have a network of weather stations for collecting local weather data. However, some countries have a high-density network of automated weather stations, archives of measurements with long time series and local weather models, and radar equipment. Others have limited numbers of weather stations, often managed manually, with data being stored irregularly. Sharing of local weather data is strongly dependent on local policies for data sharing and access. In many countries, local
The government of Australia provides real-time forecasts, warning and observation products and analysis charts, available freely via the web and FTP, together with their historical records:
http://www.bom.gov.au/catalogue/data-feeds.shtmlhttp://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with its Global Forecasting System (GFS) provides the weather forecast globally as open data and is often used as the main source of weather information in countr
Global standards for meteorological and climate data are given by:
● World Meteorological Organisation (https://www.wmo.int/datastat/wmodata_en.html)
● Climate and Forecast conventions (http://cfconventions.org/)
Natural Resources
Earth & Environment
Data describing the elevation of the terrain and its derivatives, such as slope and aspect.
Aspect data
Slope data
Hight points
Digital elevation model
Height and height difference influence many processes relevant for agriculture, such as the flow of water, erosion, temperature, and exposure to wind and sun. Sharing this information helps value-chain actors to better understand the local production environment in different places.
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Farmers can get better farm advice via SMS or mobile apps when the message is adjusted to their location and local topography that may affect temperature, exposure, erosion, rainfall, climate, weather extremes, etc.
Extension officers can gain better insights into local agro-ecological growing conditions (erosion, exposure, temperature), resulting in better advice to the farmers.
Better planning of logistical services taking into account the variations in the terrain.
Better insights into local agro-ecological growing conditions contributes to a more accurate risk assessment for financial service providers
Better insights into local agro-ecological growing conditions, erosion potential and accessibility
Satellite technology provides elevation measurements globally at 30m resolution as open data. This data is applicable for many purposes, but is mainly accessible by experts and not validated in detail for the whole dataset. Many governments make the effort of creating their own data from these sources by improving the data, correcting errors and filling data gaps. In addition, derivative datasets such as drainage and erosion susceptibility maps are being produced . Some governments also create m
At a global scale datasets are available at 30 m resolution as open data: (1) Aster DEM https://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/gdem.asp based on stereo imagery; (2) SRTM DEM 1 arcsecond (NASA, Global, 30m), https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/SRTM1Arc based on radar technology.
CGIAR has refined the SRTM elevation model, filling data gaps and providing an improved dataset at a 90m resolution as open data. http://www.cgiar-csi.org/data/srtm-90m-digital-elevation-database-v4-1
The UK government provides their laser
USGS Digital Elevation Model Standard http://nationalmap.gov/standards/demstds.htmlhttp://www.opengeospatial.org/docs/is
Natural Resources
Earth & Environment
Data describing the state and dynamics of ground and surface water
Location of water sources
Water balance
Flood zones
Historical records on flooding
Real-time water levels
Water quality
Water tables
Water management
Water is a key resource for agriculture. Too much or too little water is a threat to agriculture and can have disastrous outcomes. The right amount of water is essential for harvest success.
Governments possess many different sources of hydrological information. Sharing this information makes it possible to analyze better the potential for agriculture in different regions of the country. This information is mainly usable for planning purposes at a strategic level by different value-chain actor
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Managing water distribution with open data
Strategic adaptation of farming systems to trends in water availability, e.g. discharge of a river becoming more ephemeral or saline.
Water availability and changes to the aquatic system determine the agricultural potential of an area. Based on this kind of information:
- Input suppliers can make better business decisions on what to sell where.
- Financial service providers can make a better risk assessment for their clients or determine their focus areas.
- NGOs can plan their projects in relation to the expected water availability, selecting target areas or intervention activities.
The completeness and accuracy of different datasets within a hydrological system varies. Some countries may have only coarse maps indicating the main river systems, other countries may have detailed information systems on their catchments, including hydrological models that predict water flow in relation to the weather, landcover, soil and topography. This data is generally stored in a digital form in a Geographical information System, such as ArcGIS or QGIS. If available the data can easily be
Check My Flood Risk is designed by the UK government to increase awareness among the public of the likelihood of flooding from rivers, the sea or surface water, and to encourage people living and working in these areas to find out more and take appropriate action. The map shows the Environment Agency's assessment of the likelihood of various types of flooding across England. The information incorporates the presence and effect of all flood defences, predicted flood levels, and ground levels. htt
Internationally the standards for hydrological data are developed and maintained by the open spatial consortium (OSC). http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/waterml. OSC has a dedicated working group on hydrological standards http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/HydrologyDWG/WebHome
The Inspire data model of the European Union is the standard to align and connect all data sources of the different member states of the EU http://external.opengeospatial.org/twiki_public/HydrologyDWG/Feature
Natural Resources
Earth & Environment
Data describing soil characteristics and soil classes.
Soil Maps
Soil Samples
Soil Classes
The characteristics of soil data are key to farming practice. The soil quality is influential on the selection of crops, the need for inputs and for management of the land. Many governments collect soil information in order to gain a better understanding of the environmental conditions in different areas of the country or as part of extension activities. However the applicability of soil data from government sources depends on the accuracy and the level of detail of the information. Generally th
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A detailed soil map or soil samples at or near the fields may provide a better understanding of the soil characteristics, resulting in better crop selection, input use and management practice
A detailed soil map or soil samples at or near the fields may provide extension officers with a better understanding of the local conditions, resulting in better advice.
A soil map may be used by mobile advice service providers to better target their advice.
Better understanding of the differences in soil quality in different regions and of related crops, input use and management practice can allow input suppliers to devise better marketing strategies.
Better understanding of the difference
Most governments have collections of soil data and soil maps, but the quantity and quality of the data varies greatly. Performing a nationwide soil survey is costly and creating an accurate soil map is a specialist task. Soil data is nowadays stored in digital form in a Geographical Information System, such as ArcGIS or QGIS. If available the data can easily be published as open data. There are no sensitivities foreseen for their publication.
An example of a government sharing its soil data is the Australian Soil Resource Information System http://www.asris.csiro.au/mapping/viewer.htm, https://www.data.gov.au/
ISRIC, the world soil information institute, manages and shares a collection of 96,000 harmonized soil records from around the world and a global soil data base, SoilGrids, at 250m resolution http://www.isric.org/content/data.
The FAO soil map portal provides an overview of global, regional and national soil maps and data ba
Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Open Data Standard http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/soildataie
EU INSPIRE Soil Data Standard http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/documents/Data_Specifications/INSPIRE_DataSpecification_SO_v3.0.pdf
ISRIC - WoSIS exchange requirements http://www.isric.org/sites/default/files/isric_report_2015_03.pdf#page=46
Agronomy
Agricultural Technology
Data related to crop selection, crop and land management as typically found in extension services or government research institutes.
Data on cultivators, land races and farmer varieties including new releases.
Crop calendars.
Agronomic practice recommendations
Intercropping, Relay Cropping, Rotations
Fertilizer recommendations.
By providing the agronomic data as open data, farm extension recommendations can be shared more widely and updated more efficiently.
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Saving $3.6m in drought damage with open data
Beyond extension services.
When shared in an usable and understandable manner, farmers can use the data to improve their farming practice, resulting in a higher yields and more sustainable systems.
Extension officers in the field can inform farmers using timely and accurate information, including the latest insights from research, leading to higher yields and more sustainable systems.
Input suppliers can plan their business using the latest government recommendations in agriculture.
A strong extension system increases the confidence of financial service providers in the risks they take while lending money or insuring farmers, facilitating financial inclusion.
Knowledge of local varieti
Many governments, especially in low-income countries, establish an extension network to support farming practice. Within those networks a lot of agronomic data exists. However, in most cases this information will not be available in a ready-to-publish format. Collecting the information from paper and digital instruction manuals and/or research documents, and entering it in a structured searchable database will take considerable effort. To reach wider audiences (including illiterate demographics)
The Ethiopian government distributes farm extension data and farm advice by mobile phone free of charge using Short Message Service (SMS) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR). http://www.ata.gov.et/highlighted-deliverables/8028-agricultural-hotline/
Extension information can also be distributed using video. DigitalGreen is a not-for-profit international organisation providing a platform to share video information via the internet, which once downloaded also works offline. http://www.digitalgre
There are many detailed agronomic data standards originating from the science domain. They need expert use and can be found in the VEST/AgroPortal Map of Standards http://vest.agrisemantics.org/
Here we highlight:
- http://cavoc.org/ to describe agricultural activities.
- http://www.cropontology.org/ to describe different crop varieties.
- http://vest.agrisemantics.org/content/plant-environment-ontology to describe the growing conditions of a plant.
- http://vest.agrisemantics.org/content/pluto
Agronomy
Agricultural Technology
Data on the distribution of pest and diseases and their treatment.
Recommended pesticides
Treatment recommendations
Occurrences and distribution of pest and diseases
Sharing information on pests and diseases with farmers in real time can prevent their further spread, thereby saving crops, and reducing economic losses and environmental damage. However, information on pests and diseases is often considered sensitive because of trade and export impacts.
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Balancing between public and private interests by sharing crop protection data
Farmers may use pesticide only when responding to a real threat during the growing season, saving money and the environment. When a pest or disease does occur, immediate action can prevent severe crop loss and halt the spread of the problem.
Using information on the actual disease pressure, extension officers can give more accurate recommendations.
Input suppliers can anticipate the need for pesticides and other resources.
The accuracy and degree to which pest and disease information is collected by governments varies from country to country. The existing information may need to be complemented by more surveys or other sources, e.g. farmers, extension officers, input suppliers, traders etc. Some governments may consider this data sensitive in relation to trade and export regulations. On the other hand, sharing this information to be acted upon helps solve the problem. The treatment, recognition or biology of pests
DSSTox provides a high-quality public chemistry resource for supporting improved predictive toxicology. https://www.epa.gov/chemical-research/distributed-structure-searchable-toxicity-dsstox-database
Currently, efforts are underway to address the issue of data availability. Recently (November 2016) the MACSUR community has started an effort to collect basic information on crop health and losses, see: https://globalcrophealth.org/ One of the proposed actions is to create an open database on crop
The Darwin Core is body of standards to facilitate the sharing of information about biological diversity by providing a glossary of terms, reference definitions, examples, and commentaries. http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/
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Production Advice Data
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Production Advice Data
Data Category
Agronomy
Agricultural Technology
Short Description
Data related to crop selection, crop and land management as typically found in extension services or government research institutes.
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Datasets
Rationale
By providing the agronomic data as open data, farm extension recommendations can be shared more widely and updated more efficiently.
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Overall Expected Impact
High
Empowering Farmers - Potential Impact
Low
Optimizing Agricultural Practice - Potential Impact
Very High
Supporting Agri-finance - Potential Impact
High
Facilitating Agri-Value Chains - Potential Impact
High
Enforcing Policies - Potential Impact
High
Government Efficiency & Transparency - Potential Impact
Low
Case study
Farmer Use
When shared in an usable and understandable manner, farmers can use the data to improve their farming practice, resulting in a higher yields and more sustainable systems.
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Use By Other Actors
Extension officers in the field can inform farmers using timely and accurate information, including the latest insights from research, leading to higher yields and more sustainable systems.
Input suppliers can plan their business using the latest government recommendations in agriculture.
A strong extension system increases the confidence of financial service providers in the risks they take while lending money or insuring farmers, facilitating financial inclusion.
Knowledge of local varieties, practice and yield expectations helps financial service providers to make better risk estimates.
Government extension information is shared more widely and changes implemented more swiftly, increasing the impact.
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Readiness
Many governments, especially in low-income countries, establish an extension network to support farming practice. Within those networks a lot of agronomic data exists. However, in most cases this information will not be available in a ready-to-publish format. Collecting the information from paper and digital instruction manuals and/or research documents, and entering it in a structured searchable database will take considerable effort. To reach wider audiences (including illiterate demographics), the information needs to be transformed into accessible formats, e.g. voice messaging, as well as in different local languages. A pragmatic approach for this is to start with information that is relatively easy to organise and has high value for farmers, such as information on fertilizer varieties and their specific characteristics, fertilizer recommendations per crop, and soil type. The advantage of having the information structured in a database is that it can be easily updated based on the latest research, while becoming immediately available to farmers or extension officers. In addition, sharing this data in an open format allows third parties to develop their own services, enhancing its spread and extension overall.
Extension information can also be distributed using video. DigitalGreen is a not-for-profit international organisation providing a platform to share video information via the internet, which once downloaded also works offline. http://www.digitalgreen.org/tools/
Internationally sustainable land management best practices are shared in a database by World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT). https://www.wocat.net/
FAO has developed the TECA platform for practical information, agricultural technologies and practices for smallholders. http://teca.fao.org/
Similarly, the Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP) has developed an information sharing system designed to enhance knowledge exchange in support of Capacity Development (CD) for Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) http://tapipedia.org/
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Standards
There are many detailed agronomic data standards originating from the science domain. They need expert use and can be found in the VEST/AgroPortal Map of Standards http://vest.agrisemantics.org/