Ajit Maru,Senior Knowledge Officer at Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN, OiC, SRO at Global Forum on Agricultural Research presented where the international agricutural open access movement is heading towards.

1. Opening Data, Information
and Knowledge for
Agricultural Development
Ajit Maru
GFAR Secretariat, Rome

2. Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR)
http:/www.egfar.org

3. Agenda
• India’s Agricultural Development Challenges
• India’s choices for agricultural information
and knowledge services
• Challenges of Agricultural Information and
Knowledge Management in India
• The Global Movement in Open Agricultural
Data, Information and Knowledge
• Benefits of Open Data and Information
• CIARD and GODAN
• CIARD Sevices
• ICAR and CIARD

4. India’s Agricultural Development Challenges
Adequately feed its population
Safe, nutritious, quality food
Produce Industrial Feedstock
For Agro-Industries
Generate Employment
especially for Educated
Youth in Rural Areas
Diminishing Access to
Natural Resources and
Rising Energy and Fossil Fuel Costs

5. India’s Agricultural Development Challenges
India to meet these challenges needs to make its agriculture more knowledge intensive and
India to meet these challenges needs to make its
Adequately feed its population
Safe, nutritious, quality food
Produce Industrial Feedstock
agriculture more knowledge intensive and knowledge
based.
For Agro-Industries
It has to recognize that information and knowledge are
now critical inputs for entire agri-food chains that can
leverage the use of other farm inputs and for participating
Generate Employment
especially for Educated
Youth in Rural Areas
in competitive markets for agricultural products.
Diminishing Access to
Natural Resources and
Rising Energy and Fossil Fuel Costs

6. India’s choices for agricultural information and knowledge
services
Proprietary Systems
Offering commercial
Information and Knowledge
Services
“Open” Systems
Enabling a variety of P-P-C
Partnership based
Information and Knowledge
Services
Options In Between

7. India’s choices for agricultural information and
knowledge services
• For various reasons, India cannot afford purely
proprietary and for profit information and
knowledge services.
• India has to opt for systems that are a
continuation of the current trajectory of
“open” information and knowledge systems.

8. Challenges of Agricultural Information and Knowledge
Management in India
• India already has many of the fundamental
requirements for “Open” Information Systems such as
policies and infrastructure.
• India agricultural information systems face challenges
in:
– Generating useful, relevant, timely, trustworthy content
for its agricultural systems that are smallholder based
– Integration of Information and Information Systems
– Security of Information Systems
– Property rights for data and information
– Enabling effective use of data and information in the entire
agri-food chain and especially in farming communities

9. Challenges of Agricultural Information and Knowledge
Management in India
• India faces critical challenges for content in:
– Availability,
– Accessibility
– Applicability
– Affordability
– Appropriation of information content by user
communities

10. The Global Movement in Open Agricultural
Data, Information and Knowledge
• Growing Global movement for “Open
Governments” which includes India
• Open availability and access to government and
publicly funded programs data and information is
a basic tenet of the open government model
• Open availability and access enables rapid
innovation and development and creates huge
potential for knowledge services that can
generate employment and livelihoods

11. The Global Movement in Open Agricultural
Data, Information and Knowledge
Major International Actors in Agricultural
Development, World Bank, UNO including FAO,
CGIAR and GFAR follow open data and
information policies and open data models for
their data and information management

12. Benefits of Open Data and Information
• New information and knowledge to be generated
• Localize globally available information and knowledge and enable it to be
used more effectively
• Increase efficiency and effectiveness of research and its outputs and
innovation in time, cost, quality and human effort
• Reduce reinvention and repetition of research efforts
• Allow greater inclusiveness and participation in research and innovation
• Bring cross-disciplinary and specialized skills to agricultural research and
for innovation
• Reduce “market failure” or inability to use research outputs effectively
and/or efficiently
• Create new research directions and avenues
• Bring greater equity in using agricultural knowledge across and among
communities

13. Benefits of Open Data and Information
IMD
Weather and Climate
ISRO
Geo-spatial
GPS
NRSA
Ground and Surface Water
Vegetation
Soil
NSS
Population
Demography
Census
Economic
Environmental Agencies
Air Quality
Water Quality
Land Pollution
ICAR/Agricultural Ministries
And departments/ SAUs
Plant Genetics
Fertilizer
Water consumption
Irrigation
Land use
Agronomic Practices
Diseases and Pests
Crop Yields
Soil Data
Documents
Trade and
Commerce
Ministry
Markets
National, State, District
Taluk, Block, Farm, Field
Plot level data
and information
Biotic Properties
Interactions
Farming Conditions
Management of Agri-food
Chains in India

14. CIARD and GODAN
• CIARD Movement advocates, build capacities, facilitates sharing, exchange
of information and collaboration in development of information systems
as also provides a platform to discuss information flows related to
agricultural research, innovation and development.
• Major international actors in agricultural development including the FAO,
GFAR, CGIAR, CTA, CABI, DFID, MAE of France, CIRAD along with several
others have evolved CIARD as a global movement.
• Recently a high level advocacy platform the Global Open Data for
Agricultural and Nutrition (GODAN) has been initiated by USA and Great
Britain through the G8 and G20 group of countries.
• Many of the CIARD actors are also members of GODAN.

15. CIARD SERVICES
• Checklists and Good Practices
• Pathways
• CIARD RING
• AIMS
• agINFRA
• AgriVIVO
• Agrifeeds

16. CIARD RING
• The CIARD Routemap to Information Nodes and
Gateways (RING) is a global directory of web-based
services that will give access to any kind of information
sources pertaining to agricultural research for
development (ARD).
• The RING aims to provide an infrastructure to improve
the accessibility of the outputs of agricultural research
and of information relevant to ARD management.
• There are more than 490 Institutional members
providing more than 1000 information services and
290 data sets of the CIARD.RING.

17. ICAR and CIARD
• The ICAR has officially permitted its Institutions
and Programs to be part of the CIARD movement
• At the Institution level, the partnership with
CIARD is not well demonstrated. It is below par
compared to other major national and
International agricultural research and
development systems
• India can both benefit and contribute to the
CIARD movement
• The global community waits eagerly in
anticipation for India to be a leader in this area.

18. Thank You
ajit.maru@fao.org