Tag Archives: GODAN

Team of high school and undergraduate NASA interns win the GODAN Local Farming challenge Award 2017

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On behalf of the G7’s Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN), I want to thank all students and mentors who contributed for the NASA Worldwind Europa Challenge 2017.

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In January 2017, GODAN released a call for participants to take part in a Local Farming Challenge, with support from the NASA Europa Challenge. The call aimed to bring together researchers and students to find solutions for local farming in growing cities, using open agriculture and nutrition data. Agriculture must respond to an increasing urban population and changing climate conditions. Optimising local food production to wisely support our nutrition needs is an area where creative solutions are essential to our future.

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We had a range of amazing projects submitted for this challenge . In August 2017, at the final awards ceremony event held in Nokia headquarters in Finland  we announced the winner of the GODAN challenge – AgroSphere which was developed by a team of high school and undergraduate NASA interns

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AgroSphere is an educational web application that visualizes the effects of climate change on agriculture using a large collection of global agriculture and climate data.

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You can see all the amazing projects at http://eurochallenge.como.polimi.it/projects2017

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GODAN Award details at http://www.godan.info/news/agrosphere-wins-2017-godan-nasa-local-farming-challenge

Video recording of the event at https://livestream.com/Coup4/nasa-europa-challenge-2017/videos/162117612

Well done everyone and thank you for sharing your expertise for the benefit of all.

Global Soil Week 2017

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I want to thank the organisers and all participants for the very successful Global Soil Week 2017  in Berlin . The event brought together  representatives from governments, and scientific and civil society organizations to assess some the gaps and synergies in Sustainable Development Goals implementation.

Screen Shot 2017-05-26 at 11.25.14ISRIC, CIAT, GODAN and GIZ coorganised the Institutionalization of Open Data Workshop at the event . The aim of this workshop was to dentify gaps and challenges concerning the access to, the use of and the sharing of data; reflecting on strategies to make this data available and accessible to all: In order to improve the quality of agricultural extension services and to support decision-making concerning SLM implementation at the farm level, access to and availability of data (pedological, agro-ecological, socioeconomic) should be improved and ensured. In many cases, data are not available to agricultural service providers and/or are unavailable to the public. The underlying reasons for the unavailability of data can be manifold, ranging from unclear intellectual property rights to budgetary constraints which prevent making data usable and disseminating them. This working group will concentrate on the methods and mechanisms needed to render data available and accessible to all stakeholders, including local populations.

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All images thanks to GSW 2017

Thanks to Christina Ketter (GIZ) who coordinated the workshop ,  Ben Schaap (GODAN) , Leroy Mwanzia (CGIAR/CIAT) who did lot of  background work for this successful workshop. Thanks to Andries Bosman (ISRIC),for presenting GODAN Soils Working Group and ISRIC , Daniel Jimenez (CGIAR/CIAT ) , country presentations from India, Ethiopia, Columbia and all participants for the productive workshop.

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The links to presentations at:

Introduction to GODAN: Why we would need open data to achieve impacts with regards to SDG 2

https://www.slideshare.net/SuchithAnand/why-we-need-open-data-to-achieve-impacts-with-regards-to-sdg2

Institutional Change from a capacity development perspective: Open data developments for policy making on a global level

https://www.slideshare.net/SuchithAnand/institutional-change-from-a-capacity-development-perspective-open-data-developments-for-policy-making-on-a-global-level

It is good to see that the need for open data was acknowledged in the recommendations of GSW 2017 for the SDG HLPF.  We look forward toworking with you for expanding research ideas for contributing to the successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals .

Invitation to Capacity Development WG

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Currently, nearly 800 million people struggle with debilitating hunger and malnutrition and can be found in every corner of the globe. That’s one in every nine people, with the majority being women and children. The Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) [1] supports the proactive sharing of open data to make information about agriculture and nutrition available, accessible and usable to deal with the urgent challenge of ensuring world food security. A core principle behind GODAN is that a solution to Zero Hunger lies within existing, but often unavailable, agriculture and nutrition data.

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The Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs, CABI, GODAN, CTA and Wageningen UR  partnered to organise the 3rd Workshop on Creating Impacts with Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition[1] . The workshop was hosted at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the Hague earlier this week. I am happy to share the ideas that i  presented for the GODAN  Capacity Development WG [3] at the Hague meeting.

Details at https://www.slideshare.net/SuchithAnand/godan-working-group-on-capacity-development

I would like to welcome all interested to join the GODAN WG on Capacity Development and contribute to education and training on Open Data in food and agricultural sciences. This is open and free to all interested. Join at https://dgroups.org/fao/godan_cd

Best wishes,

Suchith

Dr. Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org/
https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org

GeoForAll – Building and expanding Open Geospatial Science

[1] https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/genius/documents/godan-uon-intro.pdf

[2] http://g4aw.spaceoffice.nl/en/News/Agenda/68/3rd-International-Workshop-Creating-Impact-with-Open-Data-in-Agriculture-and-Nutrition.html

[3] http://www.godan.info/working-groups/capacity-development

OPEN FIELDS

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Today, nearly 800 million people suffer from hunger and malnutrition around the world. For the first time in human history, we have the knowledge and the tools to put an end to it. Open data makes that knowledge available to everyone [1].

At the 2012 G-8 Summit, G-8 leaders committed to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, the next phase of a shared commitment to achieving global food security. As part of this commitment, they agreed to “share relevant agricultural data available from G-8 countries with African partners and convene an international conference on Open Data for Agriculture, to develop options for the establishment of a global platform to make reliable agricultural and related information available to African farmers, researchers and policymakers, taking into account existing agricultural data systems.”

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The GODAN initiative was announced at the Open Government Partnership Conference in October 2013 following 2012 G8 discussions.  Participants made commitments to Open Data for Agriculture at the International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture in Washington D.C. Subsequently the Governments of the United States and United Kingdom partnered to form this global initiative.


I am really happy to get the opportunity to work for the  Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) . I am seconded from the University of Nottingham to GODAN now.  I would like to invite you all to know more about the amazing work that GODAN  is doing  and join us. Some introduction slides that i presented on GODAN  at AgriGIS ThinkTank at Kenya last month are at  https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/genius/documents/godan-uon-intro.pdf


OPEN FIELDS is the second episode of GODAN’s new documentary web series that meets individuals around the world who are on the frontline of how technology and data are reshaping agriculture to combat food insecurity and improve global nutrition. In this episode, viewers meet Eunice, a successful smallholder farmer who lives outside of Mombasa, Kenya. In Kenya, around 80 per cent of people have access to some form of farmable land. Although the soil is rich and fertile for farming, many plots of land stand empty or with failed crops.In the Mombasa region, Haller Foundation (a GODAN partner) have been working with local farmers for 50 years to design organic methods to improve crop production and also provide a solid economic stream for rural families.

Eunice has found success in maximizing her crop yield by using the open-source mobile phone app from the Haller Foundation. With an estimated 83% of Kenya now online, largely through mobile phones, Haller Farmers App has been developed to digitise and release local knowledge on a global scale, to anyone, anywhere. The application is free to use for anyone with a smartphone and internet access. They have also worked with Free Basics and Airtel Kenya to improve rural access for low income families, providing free data to download and use the app.

 


Let us now all work together on our joint mission  to get every government, non­-governmental, international and private sector organization to make agriculture and nutrition data available, accessible and usable so that we acheive the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. So please join the Open Data Revolution to end global hunger and together we can make this possible.

Best wishes,

Suchith

Dr. Suchith Anand

http://www.geoforall.org/

GeoForAll – Building and expanding Open Geospatial Science


[1] https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/10/reflections-from-godan-summit-2016-join-the-open-data-revolution-to-end-global-hunger/

Reflections from GODAN Summit 2016 – Join the Open Data Revolution to end global hunger

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Last month i was very fortunate to be invited to the GODAN 2016 summit .  I am very grateful for getting this amazing opportunity to meet like minded colleagues from across the world and share ideas for the future. GODAN Summit 2016 [1] was the  largest-ever event dedicated to open data and agriculture and  took place on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York (Sep 15-16). The aim is to urge world leaders to open their national datasets on agriculture and nutrition to help bring hunger around the world to an end. Experts from around the world have gathered to discuss opening vital data on agriculture and nutrition to millions who don’t have access. We are convinced that the solution to eliminating hunger lies within existing, but often unavailable, agriculture and nutrition data.

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GODAN (Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition) “supports the proactive sharing of open data to make information about agriculture and nutrition available, accessible and usable to deal with the urgent challenge of ensuring world food security.” This is a mission very dear to my heart and i am pleased to get the opportunity to meet like minded colleagues from across the world and share ideas.

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The summit began with the plenary opening session with welcome by  Andre Laperriere ( Executive Director, GODAN) and then contributions by  excellent speakers  such as   Kerry Kennedy ( President, Kennedy Human Rights),Kate Van Waes, ( ONE Campaign), Willy Bett (Minister of Agriculture, Kenya ) , Judith Rowland, (Global Citizen) and many others which set the direction of the event.

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In addition to the plenary sessions, there were many parallel sessions from precision agriculture to Open Data Sandbox!  I would like to thank all the speakers and the session organisors of each of these sessions who all worked hard to make this event a great success. I was  very impressed with the work done by all the student teams who participated in the GODAN Open Data Hackathon.  Thanks to the session organisors Briony Phillips and Edward Silva .

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I contributed to the research discussion session on Open Research Data . My thanks to Ben Schaap for this excellent organisation of this session which brought together an excellent panel to discuss ideas around Research data . Thanks to Barend Mons (Chair of European Open Science Cloud) Ruth Bastow (Executive Director, Global Plant Council), Imma Subirats Coll (FAO of the United Nations), Rebecca Lawrence (Managing Director, F1000),  Antonio Jesús Sánchez Padial (Head of Biometrics Service, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria), Chris Baker (CEO, IPSNP Computing Inc) and all panel members to contributed to the discussions.

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I focussed on the need to harness both authoritative data with crowd sourced data. I shared some of our experiences in this and welcomed the wider community inputs. Mobile broadband networks, location-based technologies, sensor-web technologies and cloud computing offer the potentials to develop location independent, sustainable living and to provide flexible and low cost information and services networks, linking individuals and communities in a scale that transcends national boundaries. Rapid developments in positioning, broad-band mobile communications, sensor platforms, sensor-web enablement, spatial search and pervasive computing fundamentally change the access to and use of location-based data for agriculture.  However, the necessary multi-disciplinary approach needed to transform raw data and information into useful intelligence and knowledge for scientists is still constrained by disciplinary and organisational silo’s and legacy concepts.  Geospatial interoperability and open source standards-based GIS will help deliver holistic solutions in geospatial technologies in AgriGIS by enabling the ready integration of separate location relevant technologies and lowering costs. The expanding range of open source GIS tools will greatly enhance the use of geospatial technologies in agriculture and facilitates the sharing of information across various stakeholders and collaborative work.

I also participated in the Open Data for Africa session. This was very useful for me to share ideas with colleagues from Africa and invite them to the GODAN’s AgriGIS Workshop and Think Tank meetings [1]to be held at RCMRD, Nairobi, Kenya on  October 27-28, 2016.  Details of how to register for this free workshop and Think Tank at https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/10/agrigis-workshop-and-think-tank-meetings-in-nairobi/

I would like to say my sincere thanks to Andre Laperriere ( Executive Director, GODAN), Martin Parr  and the whole GODAN team  for the many months of efforts that made this possible. I would like to thank and acknowledge the photos of the summit from various colleagues contributed through GODAN Twitter that i have used for this article. Thank you all.

Let us now all work together on our joint mission  to get every government, non­-governmental, international and private sector organization to make agriculture and nutrition data available, accessible and usable so that we achevive the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. So please join the Open Data Revolution to end global hunger and together we can make this possible.

Best wishes,

Suchith

Dr. Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org/

Geo for All – Building and expanding Open Geospatial Science

[1] http://summit.godan.info/
[2] http://www.godan.info/events/agrigis-workshop-and-thinktank