agINFRA is doing our part to assist in the global movement for Open Agricultural Data by launching a new kind of competition for anyone with agricultural data.The Open AGRIgate competition is simple: Use agINFRA’s tools to open as much data as possible via the FAO’s CIARD RING.

How to participate

To participate, all you need to do is register your datasets through our website opagdata.com when we launch on September 22nd. The competition will run until February 2015 at which point the individual or organization that has registered the best data, judged both in terms of quantity and usability, will win a unique prize.

In addition to agINFRA featuring your work at a specials Research Data Alliance meeting, you will get the chance to work together with our data scientists to build a new service based entirely on your data. To discover more about the competition and how to become involved, just visit our website.

agINFRA and Open Data

agINFRA understands that Open Data has the power to make massive advances in agriculture. When researchers, educators or scientists set out to improve agriculture, one of the most important things they need is reliable access to good quality information. This means not having to ask 50 different institutions for permission to use their data. To get the most out of research we need data that is available today in a really easy-to-use form. Opening data not only makes it easier for new research and ideas to emerge, it makes life better for everyone by improving the way agriculture is done. In fact, opening your data is such an important thing that most of the world’s governments are now backing an initiative called Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition to do just this.