In the 21st century, we can be overwhelmed by data, but that abundance is holding back data-driven innovation, as finding and accessing the right data is increasingly difficult. Datasets need to be combined to be of any real use in innovation, and while integration is relatively simple if the data sources are interoperable, they rarely are.
Fellow UK Agri-Tech Centre Agrimetrics is addressing this challenge with the release of Fields of the World (FoW). This is an open-access dataset, created with the support of Microsoft’s AI for Earth initiative. FoW is free to use and consists of field digital twins for 12 crops spanning 11 countries. It includes field boundaries, soil and weather data, and crop cover, covering more than 3,500 fields and over 50,000 hectares, thanks to the provision of crop-field location data from a range of international organisations.
Dr. Matthew Smith, Agrimetrics’s Chief Product Officer explained: “Agrimetrics and Microsoft saw a great opportunity to use the capabilities of the Agrimetrics Data Marketplace to make it easier for innovators to get the data they need by interoperating agricultural field data from different sources. Now, with a single query, weather, location, soil and satellite derived property data can be pulled directly into their workflows, saving time and enabling them to focus more on innovating their solutions.”
Fields of the World is available via API, through Agrimetrics’s Agrifood Data Marketplace. API (Application Programming Interface) providing the most convenient access mechanism for key target users such as analysts, data scientists and developers. The data have been pre-sourced and pre-linked, enabling users to download and use right away. Users can write queries to identify and obtain just the data elements that they need, effectively assembling a single smaller bespoke dataset from a range of much larger datasets.
The dataset has broad applications but will be of most value to users in the early stages of hypothesis testing and product development. Fields of the World will provide the linked data to enable creators to efficiently test their solutions without needing to invest significant time and budget.
Yield forecasting, crop anomaly detection, and optimised water management are promising early use cases. Green finance, commodities, and crop insurers stand to benefit, alongside arable agriculture.
For more information go to Fields of the World.
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