Open Harvest 2016: Boosting Collaboration on Open Data for Food and Agriculture

Open Harvest 2016 was kicking off from 18 to 21 May, in Chania, Crete. This international event has aimed to become a very special meeting and collaboration opportunity for people working on various aspects of open sharing and discovery of information related to agriculture, food and the environment.

Open Harvest event (18-21 May, 2016) provided a relaxed and inspiring working setting, combined with a back-to-the-roots cultural and historical experience. In particular, a select group of 30 people – working on various aspects of open sharing and discovery of information related to agriculture, food and the environment - from around the world, met each other in this international gathering to establish an agreement, defining the process, and start specifying the components for a more than 10-years roadmap for an open, shared, and distributed data infrastructure.

These people are representatives of the most important and prestigious institutions around the world, such as: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the French National Agronomic Institute (INRA), the Alterra Institute of the Wageningen University in the Netherlands, Bioversity International from the CGIAR, the Agricultural Information Management Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), the Indian Statistical Institute, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), the US eXtension network, the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative, CABI, Syngenta, and many others.

While all participants were experiencing state-of-art discussions and presentations, and open workshops, they have identified different links between the future roadmap and the agendas of funding agencies and other public and private donors, in order to present a common and harmonized community position statement.

In the context of strategic discussions, planning, networking and connecting - in order to bring together and align existing efforts and initiatives that build parts of a shared data infrastructure - the afternoon of 19 May was all about big data challenges and use cases.

On the same day, the participants of the Open Harvest 2016 event released a vision statement called the Chania Declaration, which aims to develop a cohesive framework for e-infrastructures for 'agricultural research, extension and development.'

Highlights from the Community

• The open science landscape is shifting. EU Competitiveness Council agrees to make all European scientific articles free by 2020. More info
• Tanzania workshop on Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA), May 24-25 2016. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO of the UN) in conjunction with several partners is organizing a series of training workshops across Asia and Africa focused on access to research in agriculture and fisheries. More info
• AGRIS User registration functionality is now online. This functionality allows AGRIS users to create accounts on the AGRIS platform. More info
• Namibian media picks up on Forum for Open Data and Science in Agriculture with slot on TV news.  The Namibian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast a clip of the opening sessions on TV news. More info
• Highlights from the COAR 2016 Annual Meeting & General Assembly. The COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) 2016 Annual Meeting & General Assembly was hosted by the University of Vienna. More info

Upcoming Conferences, Workshops, Webinars

• Webinar. Open knowledge in agricultural development (OKAD), by Thomas Ingraham (F1000 Research), 28.06.2016 16:00 pm CEST. More info
• Conference. International Library Conference - ISKCOM – 2016. More info

• Conference. 11th Annual Conference on Open Repositories. More info

• Conference. 7th Africa Agriculture Science Week (AASW) and FARA General Assembly. More info

• Conference. European Data Forum (EDF). More info

• Conference. Annual LIBER Conference: Libraries Opening Paths to Knowledge. More info

More events at the AIMS Calendar

An interview with Chenjerai Mabhiza about the Forum on Open Data and Open Science in Agriculture

Read the interview with Chenjerai Mabhiza in the AIMS Interviews section.

The scope of the AIMS Newsletter is to bring under the attention of the AIMS community recent news, events and achievements in the field of agricultural information management. If you have any contribution, suggestion, or need assistance with the newsletter, please contact us at [email protected].  You received this message because you are subscribed to the AIMS Newsletter