Expanding Access to Data

Expanding Access to Data. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

The G-8 is holding conference to look at how agriculture can share data. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says data is a powerful tool and an important asset for innovation.

VILSACK: We have a history of achieving great things by providing open access to data. For example the release of weather data, fueled production of television channels and websites that returns more than $4-billion dollars every year to the U.S. economy. And the release of GPS technology has led to an estimated $90-billion dollars each year. Data is equally important when it comes to agricultural research. Today, tax-payer funded agricultural research is already a great value. Returning $20 in economic benefits for every dollar invested. By opening up data generated within the government, we can get even more value for the tax-payer dollar. We can enable outside partners to build on our work and make new advancements that help farmers ranchers and rural communities. We’re taking an important step this month to open access to data. In the coming days here in Washington the G-8 group of nations and the World Bank will bring agricultural leaders from around the world together at the first G-8 International Conference on Open Data for agriculture. We’ll offer new ways to share U.S. agricultural information while exploring additional opportunities for the U.S. to work with other nations on agricultural research. Working together with partners across the globe we hope to generate new tools to confront modern challenges in agriculture while helping top build capacity in the developing world.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.