FAO and GODAN on semantics for food and ag data

>> the GODAN global mapValeria Pesce

Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR)

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN)

IC-FOODS conference, UC Davis, 7-9 November 2016

FAO – classifications in support of statistics and guidelines

• FAOSTAT Commodity List (FCL)

• The Central Product Classification (CPC)

• The Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS)the trade classification most widely used in the world; FAO partner with WCO

• Various classifications supporting the Codex Alimentarius(e.g. Classification of foods and animal feeds, food additives, veterinary drugs maximum residue levels and pesticide maximum residue levels)

• INFOODS standards (food nomenclature, food component identifiers…)

• The International Standard Statistical Classification of Aquatic Animals and Plants (ISSCAAP) and The International Standard Statistical Classification of Fisheries Commodities (ISSCFC)

• ASFIS List of species for fishery statistics purposeswidely used for the exchange of data on capture and aquaculture production between national correspondents and international organizations

FAO – thesauri and ontologies

• AGROVOC thesaurusOver 32,000 terms with relations; 27 languages.Covers all FAO agriculture-related topics: from agronomy to natural resources to forestry and fisheries.LOD, mapped to several other KOS. Part of the Global Agricultural Concept Scheme (GACS) together with NALT and CABT.

• Geopolitical OntologyCountries, territories and geopolitical groups; ontology plus instances.With a UN-view, but linked to several other geo-spatial vocabularies.

Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition initiative (GODAN)

The GODAN initiative was one of the outputs of the G8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture and was announced at the Open Government Partnership Conference in October 2013.

The initiative focuses on building high-level support among governments, policymakers, international organizations and business.

Currently around 400 partners worldwide from national governments, non-governmental, international and private sector organisations

GODAN’s facilitation of work on semantics

Partnership with Research Data Alliance>> RDA Working Group “AgriSemantics”

Goal: gather community-based requirements and use cases for an infrastructure that supports appropriate use of semantics for data interoperability, with special focus on agriculture.(Software, functionalities, semantic assets to enhance data interoperability in agriculture)

DFID GODAN funding stream >> GODAN Action project

>> Global map of data standards for food and agriculture

>> Gap analysis on availability and adoption of standards

Join!

Global map of standards: working together

A global map of existing standards

for the exchange of data in the field of food and agriculture

Global map of data standards: Approach

•Not duplicating, building on what exists

•Collaborative effort

•Broad coverage

•Open data angle

•Designed for gap analysis

Anybody can add or claim a standard

Thesaurus Code listOntology ISO specification Messaging standardTaxonomy

Agronomy Natural resources Fisheries Value chains

All contributors acknowledged

Call to action to partners and experts

Format APIs Mappings License

Challenges (1)

• Not duplicating efforts but not ignoring specificity of audiences

• Existing: VEST catalog of standards and AgroPortal repository of ontologies

>> no merging, keeping the specificity, no centralization

>> synchronization of key metadata, linking to AgroPortal for ontology-specific data and functionalities

VEST VEST / AgroPortal

MAP OF STANDARDSThe VEST had the structure and coverage we needed, so it evolved naturally into the new map

Ontological challenges (1)

Agreeing on metadata model• Alignment of model between VEST and AgroPortal

• Mapping of properties; mapping to known standards (DC, VOID, VOAF, DCAT, SKOS, Ontology Metadata Vocabulary)

Additional metadata for gap analysis- Very specific to our use case, no existing formal standards

- >> we considered existing assessment criteria:

• The assessment process used by the UK Government’s Open Standards Board

• The ODI Open Data Certificates criteria

Under 4 categories:

Fitness to purpose Adoption Usability Openness

Ontological challenges (2)

Categorization!

• By domain: Which domain classification? Attempted oneHow far to go with neighboring disciplines?

• By data type: tentative agreement with GODAN experts on core data types in the food and agriculture area

• By vocabulary type

Map of standards so farVEST / AgroPortal

MAP OF STANDARDS

vest.agrisemantics.org

Number of data standards by domain

Call to action

IfYou are the owner / manager of a standard / vocabulary relevant

for food and agriculture-related dataYou know of any standard / vocabulary relevant for food and

agriculture-related data that is not currently in the map

HELP US improve the maphttp://vest.agrisemantics.org

Add new standards that are not in the map yet “Claim” a standard that is there and improve its description Give us feedback on the metadata and categorizations we use

Useful links

• FAO standards: http://www.fao.org/statistics/standards/en/• INFOODS food standards: http://www.fao.org/infoods/infoods/standards-

guidelines/en/• GODAN: http://godan.info• GODAN Action map of standards: http://vest.agrisemantics.org• AgroPortal: http://agroportal.lirmm.fr• The assessment process used by the UK Government’s Open Standards Board:

Core questions: https://standards.data.gov.uk/core-assessment-questionsEvaluation questions: https://standards.data.gov.uk/evaluating-proposal-what-expect

• The ODI Open Data Certificates criteria at https://certificates.theodi.org/en/(applicable to standards published as open vocabularies)

Thank you

Valeria Pesce

Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR)

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN)

IC-FOODS conference, UC Davis, 7-9 November 2016