Linux Foundation's 'AgStack Project' Plans First Dataset of the World's Agricultural Field Boundaries (linuxfoundation.org) 19
The nonprofit Linux Foundation not only pays the salary of Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman. It also runs the AgStack Foundation, which seeks more efficient agriculture through "free, re-usable, open and specialized digital infrastructure for data and applications."
And this week that Foundation announced a new open source code base for creating and maintaining a global dataset that's a kind of registry for the boundaries of agricultural fields to enable field-level analytics like carbon tracking, food traceability, and crop production. AgStack's Asset Registry dataset, the first of its kind in the world, is built and continuously updated using data from satellites and actual field registrations that contain information on boundaries, not ownership, which will then train machine learning models to ascertain more boundaries. Precise knowledge of field boundaries can help farmers, agricultural companies, and the public sector to monitor and manage crop production, study management practices (crop rotations, cover cropping, tillage, irrigation), determinants of productivity, pest and disease spread, and species diversity. By sharing reusable agricultural data, new insights can also be gleaned for global food security research and innovation.
Crop field boundaries are the fundamental unit of addressing such datasets.... By leveraging computer science and artificial intelligence, members will create, curate, and maintain global field boundaries as an open source digital public good available for anyone to use. The project has the potential to unlock the next revolution of digital agri-services in public and private sectors, especially for smallholder farmers.... "We think that a public field boundary dataset can help turbocharge a lot of smart people and businesses focused on improving agriculture and food security around the world," said Professor David Lobell at The Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University, who hosted the original research as the Gloria and Richard Kushel Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University and the Benjamin Page Professor of Earth System Science. "We're excited to help bring this dataset to life."
All code will be contributed under an open source license and will be governed by the AgStack community within the Linux Foundation, using open source and permissively licensed tools and processes.
It's using code funded in part by the NASA Harvest Consortium.
And this week that Foundation announced a new open source code base for creating and maintaining a global dataset that's a kind of registry for the boundaries of agricultural fields to enable field-level analytics like carbon tracking, food traceability, and crop production. AgStack's Asset Registry dataset, the first of its kind in the world, is built and continuously updated using data from satellites and actual field registrations that contain information on boundaries, not ownership, which will then train machine learning models to ascertain more boundaries. Precise knowledge of field boundaries can help farmers, agricultural companies, and the public sector to monitor and manage crop production, study management practices (crop rotations, cover cropping, tillage, irrigation), determinants of productivity, pest and disease spread, and species diversity. By sharing reusable agricultural data, new insights can also be gleaned for global food security research and innovation.
Crop field boundaries are the fundamental unit of addressing such datasets.... By leveraging computer science and artificial intelligence, members will create, curate, and maintain global field boundaries as an open source digital public good available for anyone to use. The project has the potential to unlock the next revolution of digital agri-services in public and private sectors, especially for smallholder farmers.... "We think that a public field boundary dataset can help turbocharge a lot of smart people and businesses focused on improving agriculture and food security around the world," said Professor David Lobell at The Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University, who hosted the original research as the Gloria and Richard Kushel Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University and the Benjamin Page Professor of Earth System Science. "We're excited to help bring this dataset to life."
All code will be contributed under an open source license and will be governed by the AgStack community within the Linux Foundation, using open source and permissively licensed tools and processes.
It's using code funded in part by the NASA Harvest Consortium.
Definition (Score:2)
"According to the United Nations' Committee on World Food Security, food security is defined as meaning that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life."
I suppose that could work, if people are taught to prefer and produce such food. It's the nature of the teaching that becomes the important question.
So , this is kind of crossing the streams for me (Score:3)
As someone who works in "AgTech" (agriculture tech, yeah a marketing person probably came up with that term. farmings become as beset with these as IT is) this is pretty interesting. Farm boundry stuff actually is a huge part of the analytics I do at work. Often we have these huge geospatial datasets, but farmers will go "Well thats fine, but what about my farm?" and so often it comes down to cutting chunks out of prebaked GeoTIFFs with farm boundaries. However thats at a very granular level, and having a global dataset like this would allow a lot of the types of analysis we do at the farm level and start looking at the bigger picture and zooming it out and going "Ok, we know how to analyze one farm. What happens when we zoom that out and analyze a thousand farms".
Not sure why its a Linux Foundation thing. But I guess its all about Food production, and food is kinda important.
Re: So , this is kind of crossing the streams for (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's nice. But what if individual producers consider their selection of crops to be a business trade secret?
Re: (Score:2)
Mostly everyone.
You might see a farmer has planted potatoes. But you do not see easily which kind.
Animal agriculture takes 70% of farmland (Score:3)
I do hope they address the issue of animal agriculture. Pasture and growing food for animals takes up about 70% of agricultural land worldwide.
It would be much better to move to a plant based diet and rewild this 70% of land. It would restore carbon stores and wildlife.
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This is a technological problem. We will never, and I mean never, shame people to make such large changes to their food choices.
The good news is that both plant based substitutes and cultured meat is making rapid advances every year, eventually we will have products that are both as good tasting and also cheaper.
These products don't have to replace everything either. Your ribeye or whole fry bird don't need to be replaced but imagine if we could just swap out fast food ground beef and pink slime nuggets,
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That would be a huge step for human health. Morbidly obese people, I'm guessing, don't read food ingredients-lists.
"Meat Mush" is a product of the '100%-meat recovery' drive. It's obtained by doing things like wire-brushing the last bits off of bones, and through the use of ammonia to process and retrieve it. Getting that smell out is expensive, and leaves you with "meat," but not very hea
Re: (Score:2)
move to a plant based diet and rewild this 70% of land
We're going to need that 70% removed from bio diverse grazing land and cultivated as mono cultures to replace all that protein you'll need.
Re: Animal agriculture takes 70% of farmland (Score:1)
No animals waste 90+ % of the food they're fed so only 10% of the land is needed.
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No animals waste 90+ % of the food they're fed so only 10% of the land is needed.
That is nonsense.
Re: (Score:2)
And what has your post to do with a software project?
Re: Animal agriculture takes 70% of farmland (Score:2)
Basic reading comprehension.
It's software to map agricultural land use.
NFT farmland! (Score:2)