On April 23 and 24, BLE (the federal agency for agriculture and food) organized a workshop on linked open data in agriculture. More than 70 practitioners from federal agencies, agencies of the "Laender"  and research institutions came together to discuss opportunities and challenges of linked open data.

Dr. Eiden, the president of BLE opened the workshop (see attached Begruessungsrede-LOD down below) and underlined the necessity to make agricultural data better accessible, especially also to countries in Africa. He put the BLE workshop in a context with initiatives like the  Research Data Alliance (RDA)  and the G8 workshop on Linked Open Data in Agriculture, which will take place on April 29 and 30 in Washington, D.C.

On the first day participants reported about their work on data repositories. Alle presentations will soon be available from the BLE website.

On the second day, four working groups discussed about which data should be open and how this could be achieved. 

The clossing session finished in defining some practical steps to  bring open data forward. It was asked for and planned to put 3 important datasets in the next months as LOD on the web. Two federal registers  ("Pflanzenschutzzulassungsliste", "Sortenliste")  and the genetic diversity data from BLE itself.  All participants saw this as a good step forward and they asked BLE to go on in having a coordinating and inspiring role in pushing forward linked open data in German agriculture.