The power of data over our lives is hard to overestimate. It governs how we understand and interact with the modern world, how it is measured and controlled.
So what is being done to utilise open data for global food security and nutrition?
A side event at CFS44 went a long way to answering this question. It was organised by GODAN (Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition), entitled Open Data for Sustainable Food Security and Nutrition: Understanding best practice in open data policy and data management within agriculture programmes.
When separated, the two words – ‘open’ and ‘data’ seem simple and innocuous, even dull sounding. In stark contrast, when combined to form ‘open data’ the ramifications for food security and nutrition are profound and revolutionary. In this brave new world data can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone.
In the realm of food security and nutrition, open data can mean helping farmers forecast with weather apps and SMS with aWhere, boosting crop yields using a best practice knowledge bank with Plantwise and saving $3.6m in drought damage with a climate-smart tool from CIAT Colombia.
Read the full post on the CFS blog here.
This blogpost covers the CFS44 side event: “Open Data for Sustainable Food Security and Nutrition: Understanding best practice in open data policy and data management within agriculture programmes.”
Blogpost by Teddy Searight, #CFS44 Social Reporter – T.Searight(at)cabi.org
Photo credit: pxhere
This post is part of the live coverage during the 44th Session of the Committee on World Food Security, a social media project supported by GFAR. This post is written by one of our social reporters, and represents the author’s views only.
Learn more about what GFAR and GODAN are doing in the area of open data: Bringing collaboration on open data for food and agriculture forward: enabling GODAN as a Collective Action
blog.gfar.net 