Open Data for Food Security and Growth

29 Sept 2016Martin Parr, GODAN Secretariat & CABI

http://www.godan.info

GODAN advocates that important datasets and data infrastructures in agriculture

and nutrition should be considered global public

goods and made be available to everyone

Supports global efforts to make data relevant to agriculture and nutrition available, accessible, and usable for unrestricted use worldwide

Voluntary association of public and private entities including donors, international organizations and businesses who have agreed to a joint Statement of Purpose

Rapidly growing, currently with over 370 partners from non-governmental, international and private sector organizations and national governments

GODAN…

More than 370 partners

8 Donors in the GODAN steering group

GODAN Secretariat’s Purpose

• Advocacy • Think Tank• Knowledge Networking

Convene – Equip – Empower

FAIR Principles• Data should be Findable• Data should be Accessible• Data should be Interoperable• Data should be Re-usable

In practice means e.g. clear licence, metadata, persistent, provenance, machine readable http://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201618

Bottom Line on Open Data

● Be accessible and curated

● Be available in a machine-readable format

● Have a licence that permits to access, use and share it

Why Open Data?

• A world where knowledge creates power for the many, not the few

• A world where data frees us — to make informed choices about how we live, what we buy and who gets our vote

• A world where information and insights are accessible — and apparent — to everyone

• This is the world we choose

(open knowledge foundation https://okfn.org/)

Why open data in agriculture and nutrition?

• For climate smart agriculture• For efficient pest management• For efficient fertilizer use• For avoiding price crises• For informing consumers on food contamination• ........

Challenges

• “Open data is good only for the big players”

• “Open data will create more data monopolies and divides”

• “This research data is only meaningful in specific context [and only I understand that…]”

GODAN Addresses these Issues

• group on data rights and responsibilities

• group on data infrastructure• group on better technical,

semantic and legal interoperability

“I went through this Responsible Data in Agriculture brochure that’s online and it strikes me how much it applies, in concrete terms, to the data revolution that is part and parcel of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.” Thomas Gass, UN-DESA

https://vimeo.com/177540367

●Organizational change through transparency

●Fostering innovation to benefit everyone

●More efficient and effective decision making

What open data can achieve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNKkMCsQwcI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxY-skVv7Mk