A semantic wiki as a platform for data in food systems Ruthie Musker

Agricultural Sustainability Institute, UC DavisSustainable Agroecosystems, ETH Zürich

This platform is a collaborative effort.

• Springer et al. (2015) Sustainable Sourcing of Global Agricultural Raw Materials: Assessing Gaps in Key Impact and Vulnerability Issues and Indicators. PLOS One.

• Huber et al. (2015) Indicators of global sustainable sourcing as a set covering problem: an integrated approach to sustainability. Ecosystem Health and Sustainability 1(2):7.

• Tendall et al. (2015). Food system resilience: defining the concept. Food Security. Accepted – in press.

• Springer et al. (2015). An approach for identifying the issues and metrics that define and measure sustainable development in agricultural supply chains. World Development. In Review

Publications

Presentation Purpose

1)Show our methods of measuring sustainability

1)Show how we want to use and host data (Your data!) or sync with other tools/platforms

•Major gift from Mars, Inc 2011• Additional gift from Kraft Foods, 2014

• Goal: Structured, comprehensive methodology and tools to help stakeholders in the food industry make sustainable decisions along value chains of agricultural raw materials

Background

• Needs to be useful for any commodity in any location

• All data and methods would be open access: precompetitive space, publically-available, scientifically- validated

Background

1) Measuring sustainability in the food system

2) Wiki as a platform for datasets

What are we doing?

What is sustainability?

Corporate Perspective

Global Alliance

PerspectiveLivelihoods Perspective

44 Issues of Sustainable Sourcing2000+ Indicators of Sustainable Sourcing

Human CapitalDiseases Human MortalityLaborLiteracyNutritional StatusPublic HealthReproductive HealthSafety

Physical & Financial CapitalAgricultural SectorEnergy Finance IncomeInputsPhysical Infrastructure

Natural CapitalAir & ClimateBiodiversity Common Pool ResourcesDeforestationEcosystem ServicesLand & SoilOceans & CoastsProtected AreasWastes & PollutionWater

Social & Political CapitalDisastersEducational Resources Food Production Geographical DistributionGovernance Human Rights Institutions MarketsParticipation Population Growth Population StructureProperty Rights Poverty Productivity Public Health Social Structure Sociocultural Systems Technology Trade Policies Women & Wages Women’s Participation

Issues of Sustainability- AGROVOC

Green: IndicatorsRed: Issues

Issue and indicator linkages

Issues

is a (+/-) condition assessment indicator ofis a (+/-) trend monitoring indicator ofis a (+/-) warning signal indicator foris a (+/-) driver/threat indicator ofis a (+/-) key performance indicator for

Indicators

Building an ontology

1) Measuring sustainability in the food system

2) Wiki as a platform for datasets

What are we doing?

Semantic Wiki

• Links agricultural data to food system users

• Can show how users are using indicators and how they are categorizing them (language)

• Exposure to controlled vocabulary in agricultural data

Semantic Wiki – Home page

http://asi.ice.ucdavis.edu/sustsource/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Semantic Wiki - Issue

http://asi.ice.ucdavis.edu/sustsource/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Semantic Wiki - Indicator

http://asi.ice.ucdavis.edu/sustsource/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

• Add in more information about resilience in food systems • Organize by commodity, location, goal,

etc. • Partner finder• Depends on what users want!

Future plans

• How can we visualize all of this information?• How to effectively host datasets on the wiki?• Would it be appropriate for your datasets?• How can we make it more useful?• How can we sync with other tools?

• PLEASE speak to me if you are interested!!!– rmusker@ucdavis.edu

Conclusion

THANK YOU!!