The Linux Foundation has just launched an open source digital infrastructure project specifically designed to tackle the challenges of the global agriculture sector.
The AgStack Foundation looks to promote collaboration among all key stakeholders in the global agriculture ecosystem, including private business, governments, and academia.
It also hopes to build free and open digital infrastructure for data and applications tailored to enhance the efficiency of agriculture across the world.
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“The global Agriculture ecosystem desperately needs a digital makeover. There is too much loss of productivity and innovation due to the absence of re-usable tools and data…. AgStack will help every stakeholder in global agriculture with free and open digital tools and data,” said Sumer Johal, Executive Director of AgStack.
Open Source ethos
Speaking to VentureBeat, Johal notes that AgStack wants to bring the ethos of open source and collaboration to the use of technology in agriculture (AgTech) that currently involves building proprietary infrastructure and point-to-point connectivity.
AgStack counts some of the leading companies from tech, agriculture and academia as founding members.
By pooling in all their resources, AgStack will enable members to create and publish models, and give them free and easy access to public data, while promoting the use of interoperable frameworks for cross-project use.
In practice, AgStack hopes to leverage existing agriculture standards, such as AgGateway, UN-FAO, and others, together with public data sets including Landsat, Sentinel, NOAA and Soilgrids, through open source projects like Hyperledger, Kubernetes.
“Just like an operating system, we feel there will be a whole universe of applications that can be built and consumed using AgStack. From pest prediction and crop nutrition to harvest management and improved supply-chain collaboration, the possibilities are endless,” Johal said.
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Via VentureBeat
