Category Archives: oa.agriculture

Transformative Agreement Signed between the Microbiology Society and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences | Microbiology Society

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“The Microbiology Society and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences are pleased to announce a transformative agreement starting in 2023. The Publish and Read model will allow affiliated researchers the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to publish an unlimited number of Open Access (OA) articles in hybrid and fully OA titles, as well as having full read access the Society’s journals portfolio. The Microbiology Society are represented in China by the Charlesworth Group….”

Open Food Facts – United States

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“Open Food Facts is a database of food products with ingredients, allergens, nutrition facts and all the tidbits of information we can find on product labels.

Open Food Facts is a non-profit association of volunteers.

15000+ contributors like you have added 1 000 000+ products from 150 countries using our Android,iPhone or Windows Phone app or their camera to scan barcodes and upload pictures of products and their labels….

Data about food is of public interest and has to be open. The complete database is published as open data and can be reused by anyone and for any use. Check-out the cool reuses or make your own!…”

“Open Source” Seeds Loosen Big Ag’s Grip on Farmers – World Sensorium / Conservancy

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“Just like software development has been co-opted by a few global companies like Microsoft and Apple, the international seed development and trade, too, is controlled by a few big giants like Bayer (Monsanto), Corteva (DuPont) and ChemChina (Syngenta). A 2012 Oxfam study found that four companies dominate more than 60 percent of the global trade with grains….

In 2012, Kloppenburg and half a dozen like-minded agriculture experts founded OSSI [Open Source Seed Initiative] as an alternative to the monopolies. OSSI’s aim is the “free flow and exchange of genetic resources, of plant breeding and variety development,” Kloppenburg says. With global warming, disease and changing climatic patterns, “we need novel plant varieties that are capable of responding to the changes. Farm to table is popular, but we really need to talk about seed to table.”…”

Linux Foundation’s ‘AgStack Project’ Plans First Dataset of the World’s Agricultural Field Boundaries – Slashdot

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“The nonprofit Linux Foundation not only pays the salary of Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman. It also runs the AgStack Foundation, which seeks more efficient agriculture through “free, re-usable, open and specialized digital infrastructure for data and applications.”

And this week that Foundation announced a new open source code base for creating and maintaining a global dataset that’s a kind of registry for the boundaries of agricultural fields to enable field-level analytics like carbon tracking, food traceability, and crop production….”

Celebrating an open access knowledge and information repository for CGIAR research | International Livestock Research Institute

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“In late 2009, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) established a digital repository to act as a complete open archive of the information and publications generated through its research. This was driven by ILRI’s aim to have its knowledge travel by making it open access, by publishing it in full, by giving it permanent identifiers, and by providing reliable access through robust open repositories and other communication channels. The goal was to have the information taken off unreliable websites, given permanent identifiers , and made easier to find and share through new digital and web services.

Over time, the repository has evolved from its initial ILRI focus into a collaboration involving seven CGIAR research centers, several CGIAR research programs and platforms and other initiatives and projects. The CGSpace repository is now the largest single collection of CGIAR-associated research outputs (read about CGSpace origins and early developments)….

Last month, the repository added its 100,000th unique item, reaching an important milestone on the route towards making CGIAR knowledge widely accessible….”

Avert Bangladesh’s looming water crisis through open science and better data

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“Access to data is a huge problem. Bangladesh collects a large amount of hydrological data, such as for stream flow, surface and groundwater levels, precipitation, water quality and water consumption. But these data are not readily available: researchers must seek out officials individually to gain access. India’s hydrological data can be similarly hard to obtain, preventing downstream Bangladesh from accurately predicting flows into its rivers….

Publishing hydrological data in an open-access database would be an exciting step. For now, however, the logistics, funding and politics to make on-the-ground data publicly available are likely to remain out of reach.

Fortunately, satellite data can help to fill the gaps. Current Earth-observing satellite missions, such as the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Follow-On, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) network, multiple radar altimeters and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors make data freely available and can provide an overall picture of water availability across the country (this is what we used in many of our analyses). The picture is soon to improve. In December, NASA and CNES, France’s space agency, plan to launch the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission. SWOT will provide unprecedented information on global ocean and inland surface waters at fine spatial resolution, allowing for much more detailed monitoring of water levels than is possible today. The international scientific community has been working hard over the past 15 years to get ready to store, process and use SWOT data….

New open-science initiatives, particularly NASA’s Earth Information System, launched in 2021, can help by supporting the development of customized data-analysis and modelling tools (see go.nature.com/3cffbh9). The data we present here were acquired in this framework. We are currently working on an advanced hydrological model that will be capable of representing climate-change effects and human impacts on Bangladesh’s water availability. We expect that the co-development of such a modelling system with local partners will support decision-making….”

Farmers to see benefit from open-research platform | Farm Progress

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“A lot of agricultural research is going on around the world, but the results aren’t easily available to other researchers. Recently, the Consortium for Precision Crop Nutrition and Agmatix announced the launch of a global platform designed to drive international research collaboration, and expand open access to crop nutrient data for farmers and others related to agriculture….”

Pathways to Opening Access to Agricultural Research Knowledge in India

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Scroll to p. 305. Abstract:  New knowledge is created by analysing and processing data and information. Having access to data and information promotes the generation of science, the communication of science, and the creation and adoption of new knowledge. All Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include agriculture as an integral component, and agriculture should be prosperous and sustainable to achieve any SDG. Besides developing skilled and talented human resources, the Indian Agricultural Research System seeks to offer quality data and information to stakeholders to improve agricultural production, processing, and exports. However, access remains restricted despite the availability of data and information, making it impossible to achieve desired results. The purpose of this paper is to summarise how data, information and knowledge of NARS [e National Agricultural Research System] are available and accessible to various stakeholders during various phases of World Bank-supported projects and how the availability and accessibility to data and information exist in NARS.

Brill Publishes New Open Access Series with Support from Max Planck Institute

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Academic publisher Brill is proud to announce the addition of the series Agriculture and the Making of Sciences 1100-1700: Texts, Practices, and Transcultural Transmission of Knowledge in Asia (AMOS) to its publishing portfolio in Asian Studies. All volumes in this series will be published in Open Access with financial support from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG).

Developing culturally appropriate food literacy resources for Aboriginal children with Foodbank WA’s Superhero Foods® – Tartaglia – – Health Promotion Journal of Australia – Wiley Online Library

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On an Australian program to develop OER on aboriginal foods. 

“Key enablers to the success of the resource included: free online access, the highly engaging nature of the resources and adaptability to be implemented across a number of Aboriginal language groups in WA. Ensuring visual representation of healthy choices was fundamental to reinforcing nutrition messaging. Superhero Foods resources are a positive and important inclusion in the health promotion toolbox for Aboriginal children.”

Gold open access—A new era for the Journal of Dairy Science – Journal of Dairy Science

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“An ongoing goal of ours has been strengthening the reputation and reach of the Journal of Dairy Science, and a priority has been to provide worldwide and rapid access to journal content to drive impact. We know that supporting innovative content stokes reader interest and sets new platforms for scientific discovery. As such, this move to gold open access has many advantages. First, each author’s work will have increased exposure by enabling access to all readers. Additionally, by publishing in JDS under gold open access, authors can comply with the requirements of many funding agencies and will be in alignment with the Plan S initiative of cOAlition S (https://www.coalition-s.org/) for open access science publishing. The open access model also supports our many partners of public institutions who can now avoid “double paying” to publish and to read JDS content. Gold open access will enhance access to JDS content for dairy scientists and dairy industry professionals in developing countries. JDS remains committed to supporting and participating in AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture), a program of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. As with any change, we recognize that this move will bring about some challenges. For example, research-intensive institutions will likely carry greater burdens in supporting publication activities. Open access also brings greater complexity to the ADSA and Fass staff as they work to manage and project workflows and finances under the new model. The ADSA Board of Directors will utilize the superfund to provide a discount for ADSA members to publish in JDS. This superfund member discount will reduce the $1920 APC (the “list price”) to $1600, a savings of $320 per article. Our members represent a global community of dairy scientists; by belonging to ADSA, members enjoy many benefits in addition to reduced APCs, including lower ADSA Annual Meeting and Discover Conference registration fees and access to the online symposium library; members also receive deeply discounted rates to S-PAC among other benefits (https://www.adsa.org/Membership/Benefits-of-Membership). Perhaps most importantly, being a member of ADSA presents numerous opportunities to get involved in the association, acquire leadership skills, and contribute to this scientific and professional community.

As you can imagine, the switch from a hybrid journal to an open access journal requires a high degree of communication and coordination. The following sections describe how this change will happen and what you can expect to see over the next few months….”

Access to Seeds Index 2021 dataset for Western and Central Africa | World Benchmarking Alliance

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“On 21 September 2021, we launched the third Access to Seeds Index with a focus on companies in Western and Central Africa. The index assesses seed companies on their efforts to make quality seeds accessible to smallholder farmers.

These companies are assessed using the 2021 Access to Seeds Index, which includes 32 across six measurement areas.

The datasheet contains information on the scores of each of these companies. Scores for each company are publicly available at the indicator level for all stakeholders. Individual company results are presented in company scorecards and detailed assessments….”

India’s NARS should accelerate Open Access | AIMS

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“Though the modern information and communications technologies (ICTs) are being used for dissemination of information/technologies to farmers, the same are not being used to the full extent by the NARS institutions for data and information sharing among the researchers and with the world. The institutions under NARS are not showing much importance for sharing the research articles with other stake holders freely. This is because of absence of a policy on sharing and moreover publication of research articles are seen as individual’s job. It is proposed that, National Agricultural Data Centre would be established for web hosting and housing data & information sharing products in NARS.

By that time, it is necessary to formulate a structured policy guidelines on information, data sharing & management that are to be implemented at all levels in NARS system and the standards should be created and enforced at all levels for data collection, analysis and data sharing. An Open Access policy similar to Council of Industrial and Scientific Research (CSIR) and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics should be adopted by the ICAR and system of accountability and reward for data sharing should also be institutionalised and for accelerate open access movement in NARS’ agriculture research for development.”

PubAg

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“PubAg Basics

PubAg is the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Agricultural Library’s (NAL) search system for agricultural information. It is available for free on the Internet at: https://pubag.nal.usda.gov/. PubAg is part of the AGRICOLA family of products.
PubAg contains full-text articles relevant to the agricultural sciences, along with citations to peer-reviewed journal articles with links to publisher sites and elsewhere for full-text access.
PubAg’s citations have been enriched through subject analysis and application of terms from NALT (NAL’s Agricultural Thesaurus).
PubAg searching is accomplished by entering your terms in the search box and clicking the Search button. Search suggestions are provided to assist searching.
When multiple terms are entered with no connector, they will be combined in the search with an implicit “AND”.
Using the drop-down menu you can narrow your search of PubAg to terms in the following fields: Title, Author, Subject, or Journal. The default setting is to search “All Fields.”…”