April 23, 2013

G8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture

Open data is being used by innovators and entrepreneurs around the world to accelerate development.

At last year’s G8 Summit, leaders committed to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition—including an agreement to share relevant agricultural data available from G8 countries with African partners and convene an international conference on Open Data for Agriculture.

Taking place April 29-30 in Washington, DC, this conference brought together innovators, food security experts, data scientists, and policy makers from around the world to discuss the importance of open agricultural data to increased food security.

U.S. and private sector partners announced newly opened and accessible data sets.
Innovators presented solutions that demonstrate the potential impact of sharing data.
G8 and African countries devised action plans to open additional food security data and invest in projects that increase publicly and privately funded global agriculturally relevant data. This data will be accessible to the global public, including users in Africa, and will support a sustainable increase in food security in developed and developing countries.

What is commonly meant by “open data?” Open data is often referred to as the concept that information should be freely available to the public, without restriction or charge for its use by others.

In the food and agricultural realm, open data is an essential piece of finding the answers we’ll need to feed the world.

Data!

Feed the Future Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey

Feed the Future Ghana Baseline Survey

Feed the Future’s Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (related blog post)

Food, Agriculture, and Rural Community on Data.gov

Looking for more?

Visit the event website for more information

Read blog posts on #OpenAgData on USDA.gov

Read USDA and USAID press releases on the event

Read a Feed the Future blog post on open data

Read a White House OSTP blog post summarizing the event