AgGateway and how it fits into the standards landscape

Abstract:

Contemporary farming requires increasing amounts of data exchange among a myriad hardware and software products. Growers and other stakeholders need these products to interoperate, but implementation of data exchange standards has been inconsistent across the industry, especially among software companies.

AgGateway is an industry consortium dedicated to promoting the implementation of standards in digital agriculture. It provides a collaborative environment where the industry can discuss interoperability pain points, identify standards that can address those pain points, and then engage the corresponding standards organizations to collaborate on implementation and/or enhancements.

This paper reviews a set of standards relevant to agricultural field operations and supply chain data exchange, created by organizations such as AEF, AgXML, ASABE, ISO, OAGI, and W3C. It then describes the relevance of these standards to AgGateway’s interoperability projects, such as ADAPT, CART, PAIL, PICS, and SPADE, which cover a wide range of processes. The discussed processes involve  field operations, such as planting, crop nutrition, crop protection, irrigation, harvest, and post-harvest; and also supply-chain operations pertaining to crop inputs, such as seed, crop protection and fertilizers.

Mega presentation for reference/reuse

Paper authors/focus areas (as best as I remember the discussion)

Introduction (Shannon Haringx (Unlicensed))

Contemporary farming requires increasing amounts of data exchange among a myriad hardware and software products.  With many farms maintaining mixed fleets of machinery, enabling this equipment and the supporting software to communicate in the same language has become a necessity.  Growers and other stakeholders need these products to interoperate, but implementation of data exchange standards has been inconsistent across the industry, especially among software companies.  Farm Management software must be able to receive and derive insights from data arriving in multiple formats, with a variety of vocabularies and proprietary meanings.  The interoperability requires an agreed set of development standards to which manufacturers and software providers can be expected to adhere to achieve this end.

AgGateway is an industry consortium dedicated to promoting the implementation of standards in digital agriculture. It provides a collaborative environment where the industry can discuss interoperability pain points, identify standards that can address those pain points, and then engage the corresponding standards organizations to collaborate on implementation and/or enhancements.  AgGateway membership spans representation from the entire agricultural value chain, taking into account the data needs before, on, and after the farm.  With significant representation from equipment manufacturers and software providers, AgGateway is ideally situated to address the issue at hand.

(Briefly introduce AgGateway projects: ADAPT, CART, PAIL, PICS, and SPADE) The Precision Ag Council (PAC) of AgGateway has undertaken several standards projects, which cover a wide range of processes. The discussed processes involve field operations, such as planting, crop nutrition, crop protection, irrigation, harvest, and post-harvest; and also supply-chain operations pertaining to crop inputs, such as seed, crop protection and fertilizers.  One of the PAC's longest running projects is the Standardization of Precision Ag Data Exchange (SPADE).  This project defines standards for a variety of field operations as well as the core documents supporting them.  A sister project focused on irrigation is underway, known as Precision Ag Irrigation Leadership (PAIL).  From the standards defined under SPADE and PAIL developed an initiative to implement these standards in a tangible way.  This implementation initiative is called the Agricultural Data and Programming Toolkit (ADAPT).  ADAPT consists of an open-source common object model for field operations, as well as a data format conversion framework based on open-source or proprietary format-specific plug-ins.  The Remote Sensing Working Group under the PAC is defining a narrowly-scoped work effort, PICS, with the goal of establishing a minimum set of required data that images should contain in order for farm management software to be able to consume them.  Additionally CART - not sure what to say here as this overlaps with Traceability.

(Briefly introduce other players: ISO (TC23SC 19 and SC18), ASABE, AEF, AgXML, OAGi and W3C) - Andres, can you write this part?  I am really not familiar enough with any of them to give an introduction.

The goal of this paper is to convey the value in adopting AgGateway input to existing standards and proposals for new standards to be developed based on the needs and pain points identified by its wide range of agricultural industry members. This paper reviews a set of standards relevant to agricultural field operations and supply chain data exchange, created by organizations such as AEF, AgXML, ASABE, ISO, OAGI, and W3C.  It then describes the relevance of these standards to AgGateway’s interoperability projects, such as ADAPT, CART, PAIL, PICS, and SPADE.

Ben Craker (Unlicensed) - ADAPT bringing everything together & Telematics

    First pass at my section, has a couple open questions/comments and I didn't know as much about OAGi and WC3 so need a little guidance on how to work them in. Not entirely sure if I am on target for what I was suppose to have in this part so open to fully rewriting if needed.

Also I was trying to create a new picture for the core documents or to show how all this stuff is connected. Not happy with results so far but wanted to share what I came up with to hopefully spark a better idea.

R. Andres Ferreyra (Unlicensed) - PAIL stuff?

Todd Howatt - ASABE interactions

ASABE Committees are aligned

• Vertically – single product, unique expertise
• Horizontally – multiple products, common requirements

Types of Committee activity

• Administration of ASABE activity
• Technical expertise in a topic (Technical Committee)
• Standards development and maintenance (Technical Committee)

Committee membership

• Clear ownership (non-voting members forums and contribution to discussion)
• Joint committee responsibility (if an ISO has no clear mirror)
• Contribution (Representative)
• Information sharing (Liaison)

Joe Tevis - AEF/ISO11783 interactions 

There are still some TBD to complete but here is a draft...

Joe Tevis I started writing this in my big picture section and realized it was probably redundant so pulled it out but thought you might want the picture

Jim Wilson - OAGi interactions?