Data-Driven Agronomy

Community of Practice

 

Welcome!

Data-driven agronomy refers to an approach or a set of approaches using digital technology to source, analyze and translate data into timely, practical and context-specific information to help farmers make the best choices for their farms.

As a community of practice we aim to collectively strengthen the innovation of technology and big data to tackle an array of agricultural challenges – including the closing of yield gaps – to reduce hunger and poverty and transform global agriculture.

The data-driven agronomy CoP, led by CIAT, builds capacity among farmers, researchers, rural advisory service providers and CGIAR strategic partners. This space can be used as a discussion area, share and request relevant information and contribute towards building the community as a whole.

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Joining Forces
The Data-Driven Agronomy Community of Practice (CoP) consists of over 280 members, a diverse group from the CGIAR centers, research institutes, academic centers, NGOs, public and private sectors. Together we utilize our specific strengths to collectively push big data technologies to the next level. As a community we have the ability to catalyze advances in data-driven agronomy to support (small-holder) farmers, technicians, researchers and the industry.

Sharing Knowledge
Each year the CoP will be addressing a specific topic together and all members are invited to share their opinions and expertise. This topic will be divided into main questions that will be addressed by the CoP through working groups, a discussion forum and through opinion pieces in our newsletters. The Topic for 2018 is: Showcasing proven solutions.

Joint Ventures
Multi-stakeholder initiatives: cross-institutions working groups within our CoP that lead the effort to achieve products, reports, publications.

Get in touch

CoP Lead

Daniel Jimenez | Email
Alliance Bioversity – CIAT in Cali, Colombia.

CoP Coordinator

David Guereña | Email
Alliance Bioversity – CIAT

CoP Administrator

Berta Ortiz | Email
Alliance Bioversity – CIAT

Engage with the Community

i

BE INFORMED

Tune in to the latest CoP updates by subscribing to our newsletter.

w

ENGAGE

Interact with community members through our LinkedIn Group.

CONTRIBUTE

Share your expertise in our working groups.

Working Groups

A Global baseline for data-driven agronomy interventions

Establishing a global picture of where smallholder farmers are and their patterns of mobile technology access and availability, relative to non-farming populations, is critical for guiding successful data-driven agronomy interventions. These essential baselines include:

  • the number of farmers who own mobile phones,
  • the number of farmers who have access to the internet,
  • the spatial coverage of mobile technologies in farmlands, and
  • relative costs of engaging in digital technology for different farming populations across the planet

This baseline information would be of great use for the CoP, the CGIAR’s Big Data in Agriculture Platform and external partners. Our goal is to gain a first estimate of these numbers.

Benchmarking data-driven agronomy services

Although the market for data-driven agronomy services is flourishing, it remains difficult for clients/users to compare these services and to evaluate how reliable and valuable they are.

In other sectors, there is a set of standards the industry has to oblige to, such as electric cars with NEDC or EPA ratings or the mandatory energy performance certificate for buildings in Europe.

The purpose of this joint venture is to explore the opportunities for setting standards for benchmarking and evaluating the services in order to develop standardized protocols that can then be used by organizations to demonstrate the efficiency of their services.

 

Enabling global discoverability of granular data on yield and management practices

Data-driven initiatives are often limited by low availability of granular data on yield and management practices, even though a lot of this type of data exists already. Over the years it became clear that the value of data lies in what you make of it. 

Therefore, we expect that more and more organizations might be willing to share their data in order to speed up the use of it.

We aim to develop the required infrastructure and guidelines to enable organizations to share their data while addressing the following challenges:

  1. Ensure all data shared follows the required the standards of good practices in terms of ontologies, metadata, etc..
  2. Make data discoverable without having to centralize this, and
  3. Preserve anonymity while allowing in-depth analysis.

 

Interested in contributing to our working groups?

Please select the topic(s) of interest

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Community News

Webinar - Analytics: How collective data can be turned into actionable data driven agronomy insights

Webinar – Analytics: How collective data can be turned into actionable data driven agronomy insights

This webinar by the Data-Driven Community of Practice explores how to move from collective digital information to data-driven agronomy insights, ...
Webinar - Trade-offs and synergies between different extension delivery models

Webinar – Trade-offs and synergies between different extension delivery models

This webinar by the Data-Driven Community of Practice explores novel and classic delivery models as digital and participatory research methods ...
Webinar – Adaptative extension: addressing the diversity of smallholder farmers

Webinar – Adaptative extension: addressing the diversity of smallholder farmers

The Data-Driven Agronomy Community of Practice webinar on digital extension programs and how to provide tailored information to farmers and ...
Designing mobile phone solutions for agricultural extension: Perspectives matter!

Designing mobile phone solutions for agricultural extension: Perspectives matter!

Creating successful digital tools for agricultural advisory requires designers to step into farmers’ shoes. And extension agents’ shoes. And their ...
Webinar - Innovations in ODK: Improving Data Collection for Agriculture and Scaling to the Global Community

Webinar – Innovations in ODK: Improving Data Collection for Agriculture and Scaling to the Global Community

The Data-Driven Agronomy & Geospatial Data Communities of Practice webinar presented exciting innovations in the open data platform to help data ...
2020 Convention session - Big data to scale: A reality check

2020 Convention session – Big data to scale: A reality check

This session on big data to scale aired live at the 2020 virtual CGIAR Convention on Big Data in Agriculture ...
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Resources

Documents

  • Issue Brief – January 2019 (PDF) – Overcoming Challenges to Digital Agribusiness Start-Ups in Developing Countries
  • 2018 Work Plan – Detailed description of expected outcomes and deliverables for 2018
  • 2019 Work Plan – Detailed description of expected outcomes and deliverables for 2019
  • 2020 Work Plan – Detailed description of expected outcomes and deliverables for 2020
  • 2021 Work Plan – Detailed description of expected outcomes and deliverables for 2021

Newsletter

  • February 2019 – Tackling key challenges in agribusinesses
  • January 2019 – Happy New Year from the COP!
  • December 2018 – Infographic: Data-Driven Agronomy Community of Practice 2018 Review
  • November 2018 – Origin of Asymmetry: A webinar on the need for standards in data-driven services for agriculture
  • September 2018 – How do we validate the power of Data-driven Agronomy tools? 
  • June 2018 – Welcome to the Data-Driven Agronomy Community! 

Webinars & Presentations

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