PlantwisePlus Blog

Delegates from around the world are convening in Washington D.C. this week at the G8 conference on Open Data for Agriculture. The goal of the conference is to: “Obtain commitment and action from nations and relevant stakeholders to promote policies and invest in projects that open access to publicly funded global agriculturally relevant data streams, making such data readily accessible to users in Africa and world-wide, and ultimately supporting a sustainable increase in food security in developed and developing countries”. Plantwise is exhibiting at the conference, and we are collecting some of the top tweets here on our blog. You can watch the whole conference live on the web here. Join in the discussion on Twitter using #OpenAgData and #Plantwise, and follow us on Facebook for more news.

.@billgates joining #openagdata via video on creating rich data ecosystem critical for ag in developing countries pic.twitter.com/qaaSNRvEN1

— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) April 29, 2013

Bill Gates opens the conference.

ToddPark: It's not our ideas that matter. U can be most successful by opening data & let others do more than we can even imagine #OpenAgData

— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) April 29, 2013

Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer for the White House, emphasises the importance of sharing data with others.

#OpenAgData– @digitalgreenorg speaking about farmers teaching farmers in India via videos (150,000 farmers).

— Siobhan Wilson Green (@siobhangreen) April 29, 2013

Digital Green are getting farmers to share their knowledge with other farmers by creating educational videos.

I think extension services provided by Skype (or similar audioviz service) via MOFA would be a game changer for agric in Ghana. #OpenAgData

— Afua (@aoa4eva) April 29, 2013

An interesting idea to connect with farmers in Ghana via Skype.

This looks fun #seriousgames RT @siobhangreen #OpenAgData http://t.co/gs7RxbPWSm a 3D simulation of farming in Africa.

— NoelDickover (@NoelDickover) April 29, 2013

Learning farming theory through a farm simulation game.

By July, @AfDB_Group's Open #Data for #Africa platform will be available to every country in Africa–Vladmir Eskin at #OpenAgData conference

— Global Food and Ag (@GlobalAgDev) April 29, 2013

African Development Bank (AfDB)’s Open Data Platform allows users to extract data and share customised reports.

Patricio Grassini highlights need to understand yield gaps to #openagdata. Losses to insects weeds and diseases major part of up to 55% gap.

— Trevor Nicholls (@trevornlifesci) April 29, 2013

CABI CEO, Dr Trevor Nicholls, tweets about the Global Yield Gap Atlas project.

The issue isn't just the #data, the issue is how to use and interpret data, and make it more available: @WWF's Jason Clay #OpenAgData

— Global Food and Ag (@GlobalAgDev) April 29, 2013

WWF’s Jason Clay says it is important for data to be accessible and used in the right way.

Derek Yach at #openagdata emphasises need for public private partnerships to make big data useful to smallholders to improve farm profits

— Trevor Nicholls (@trevornlifesci) April 29, 2013

Dr Yach from The Vitality Institute thinks collaboration is key to helping smallholder farmers increase profits.

#openAgData Open and proprietary data coexist. Insights better when multi sources are used. Your farm data + govt data + agribusiness data

— Rich Kottmeyer (@richkottmeyer) April 29, 2013

More thoughts on combining several sources of data to gain better insight.

https://twitter.com/PatriciaNeenan/status/328933143740567552

Patricia Neenan from CABI reports on the unbalanced availability of technology for farmers in Africa.

#openagdata notes potential of cell phones. Not just for info but the power for 2 WAY interaction and to underpin new business models.

— Trevor Nicholls (@trevornlifesci) April 29, 2013

More on mobile.

http://t.co/MVhDd57zik gives tools, APIs, #opendata–FeedtheFuture surveys in Ghana and Bangladesh (via Nat Manning @USAID) #openagdata

— JeanneHolm (@aoa1q) April 29, 2013

Launch of USAID’s open data platform.

#openagdata day one was data rich now it is time to process it…

— Sarah Lawan (@SarahLawan) April 29, 2013

How do you think open data can contribute to a sustainable increase in food security? Comment below or tweet your thoughts using #OpenAgData and #Plantwise.