Source: UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA submitted to
ODF: NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS DATA COOPERATIVE: A STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK FOR INNOVATION
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1029391
Grant No.
2022-77039-38339
Project No.
NEB-31-156
Proposal No.
2022-07247
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
ODF
Project Start Date
Sep 30, 2022
Project End Date
Sep 27, 2024
Grant Year
2022
Project Director
Clarke, J.
Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA
(N/A)
LINCOLN,NE 68583
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
To create innovative, data-driven agricultural production systems, producers will need access to data, simulations, forecasts, and modeling to learn how they can transform their operations towards enhancing sustainability. The National Agricultural Producer Data Cooperative (NAPDC) in partnership with land grant universities, stakeholder organizations, and private-sector representatives will develop a national framework to foster agricultural innovation by addressing critical challenges: Leverage and enhance a public-private cloud-based data repository to demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of digital resources in capturing, storing, and accessing producer and public data; Develop digital tools and resources to enhance interoperability and data access between public and private systems; and Further next steps for framework growth and expansion through diverse participation in NAPDC activities, and communication and dissemination of findings. Expected outcomes include a proof-of-concept data repository that leverages tools widely accepted in the industry to ensure data access, privacy and transparency while enabling on-farm research; digital tools and resources that enable farmer and livestock producer access and use of both private and public data resources; and white papers, peer-reviewed publications, and other products that help define the future of a national data framework. Achieving these goals will require a comprehensive communication plan, robust data trust structure, and plans for framework sustainability. A diverse and experienced PI team, a comprehensive group of partner organizations, a scientific advisory board of national experts will assist the NAPDC in meeting its objectives and ensuring that its activities coordinate and complement existing programs in agricultural data services and stewardship.
Animal Health Component
10%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
20%
Applied
40%
Developmental
40%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
9017410303020%
9037410303080%
Knowledge Area
901 - Program and Project Design, and Statistics; 903 - Communication, Education, and Information Delivery;

Subject Of Investigation
7410 - General technology;

Field Of Science
3030 - Information and communication;
Goals / Objectives
Consistent with the RFA, the overall objective of this project is to develop a national framework to foster agricultural innovation by addressing critical challenges through collaborative pilot projects.These projects will engage agricultural stakeholders across diverse systems and provide knowledge related to interoperability, security, privacy, and governance that is required for such a framework to succeed.1. Leverage and enhance a public-private cloud-based data repository to demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of digital resources in capturing, storing, and accessing producer and public data [data governance; cybersecurity and access control; sustainability and resiliency]2. Develop digital tools and resources to enhance interoperability and data access between public and private systems [data system interoperability; data sharing and access]3. Further next steps for framework growth and expansion through engagement and support of diverse participation in NAPDC activities, and communication and dissemination of findings [education, training, and workforce development; demonstrating value and return on investment]
Project Methods
Objective 1: Leverage and enhance a public-private cloud-based data repositoryThe goal of this project is to provide needed enhancements to the data repository to enable broader use of the repository within the university research and extension systems, including on-farm research results and integration with AgDataCommons. The current repository provides farmers with a secure cloud based system to archive the original files such as those generated by machines during field operations such as as-applied, as-planted, yield data or soil sample information. We will build upon the repository functionality by providing a means to read the various file formats into a common database and structure, while maintaining an unaltered archive of these original files for the farmer. Once the farmer's data is stored in the database they will be able to grant access at a more granular level, sharing only the parameters they select instead of sharing whole files as is common in the industry today. The ADAPT Data Model will be migrated to the framework developed by AgGateway (Score - a tool developed by OAGi and NIST) as the ADAPT Standard has support for important framework components (e.g., Open API (OAS), JSON Schema, and XML schema) and has the information model more or less defined. All this work is being done collaboratively by interested organizations to define the standard upfront. To make additional data more widely available the ADC will also investigate data currently stored within the AgCORS and Ag Data Commons systems available through the same standardized API's. Initially the team will investigate making information such as historical weather data (Global Historical Climate Network (GHCND)) or potentially Soil Survey Geographic database (SSURGO) soil data available through the system and standardized APIs for growers and researchers.The project must meet challenging data-centric requirements in order to succeed. Data will need to be defined, collected, transported, and transformed while keeping it secure at all times. This project will abide by the Privacy and Security Principles for Farm Data as endorsed by almost 40 agriculture groups and businesses. These principles are consistent with the NIST Cybersecurity and Privacy Frameworksand cover all five privacy risk management areas: Identify, Govern, Control, Communicate, and Protect. The project team for Objective 1 will also investigate leveraging the Open Agriculture Data Alliance (OADA)implementation of OAUTH and OpenID Connect (see below) for authorization and authentication within the guidelines of the privacy and security principals.Input on future functionality and interoperability will be provided by OADA.Objective 2: Develop digital tools and resources to enable data interoperabilityWe propose to develop an extension of the ARS Germplasm Repository to include the ability to upload and query phenotypic/genotypic data with robust data quality checks, and access both Animal-GRIN and the Bovine Genome Database. We will work with Nebraska beef cattle populations (cow-calf, seedstock, feedlot, on farm research) to develop APIs that enable data transfer and sharing among producers, researchers, and the Germplasm Repository, while we host discussions with stakeholders about a livestock data framework. Standards, expectations, and guidelines for uploading and hosting genotypic and phenotypic data (e.g., bioProject, bioSample) will be adapted from the frameworks for the NCBI Sequence Read Archiveand dbGap. We will leverage NCBI tools as much as possible for mapping and genotype-phenotype discovery from such data, including the Phenotype-Genotype Integrator (PheGenI). This objective will be conducted in collaboration with the Open Agriculture Data Alliance (OADA). For the purposes of the NAGP, OATS can provide OADA/Trellis as the framework upon which the necessary APIs can be defined and code built that achieves actual data integration between NAGP and other platforms that interact with livestock data. These extensions will move the NAGP database towards a national system for livestock managed in partnership with ARS, university and industry collaborators to prioritize, facilitate and guide collection and information efforts.In order to enable knowledge exchange and support future expansion of this work to other agricultural species, the postdoctoral scholar will conduct in-person training with Dr. Elsik, lead PI of the BGD, at the University of Missouri. This training will include BovineMine and FAANGMine. In addition, ongoing efforts to seek critical input and feedbacks specific to challenges in data handling and management, and database functionality and interoperability for Virginia livestock and aquaculture producers will be provided by the Center for Advanced Innovation in Agriculturerepresenting land grant universities, nonprofits, and industry partners.Objective 3: Further next steps for framework growth and expansionSeveral activities and aspects of this project are critical to framework growth and expansion. These are outlined below and include: communication plans, data trust structure, and sustainability plan. These complement any next steps outlined in Objectives 1 and 2 above, e.g., expansion to other domestic animal species. The success of a framework also depends on the involvement and cooperation of a diverse range of stakeholder institutionsBoth ADC and AgGateway have a broad member base of experts from within the agricultural industry and academia that will contribute time and effort to the project. ADC will leverage their expansive industry and governmental connections, including USDA, ASABE, AEF (Agriculture-Industry Electronics Foundation), NIST (an agency of the Department of Commerce), OAGi, ISO, Cotton Inc., AEM (Association of Equipment Manufacturers) for input guidance on the project to ensure it is in alignment with overall industry trends and requirements.We have engaged a Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) whose members represent agricultural stakeholder groups and projects related to a national data framework. The SAB consists of stakeholders and scientists drawn from the public and private sectors who bring expertise relevant to project goals. The chair of the SAB will be elected by the members of the SAB. This Advisory Board will meet every 3-6 months; at each meeting the PI team will present project updates and challenges and solicit expert feedback and ideas. The SAB will evaluate progress toward goals and timelines, suggest updates and changes in keeping with relevant technological opportunities as they develop, and will deliver an annual evaluation report to both the project team and to USDA-NIFA program directors. The PI team will have the opportunity to respond to drafts of these reports before they are finalized.

Progress 09/30/22 to 09/27/24

Outputs
Target Audience:The primary audience is domestic agricultural producers and their stakeholders. This includes agricultural extension personnel, agricultural retailers, agricultural industry consortia, agricultural researchers, agricultural commodity boards, and industries in agricultural technology and agricultural data services. Our training activities are designed to enable producers, personnel at land grant institutions, members of agricultural non-profit organizations, industry members in agricultural technology, and USDA-ARS staff. Changes/Problems:1. The biggest delay experienced was right at the start as the technology development partner for the Agricultural Data Coalition had very limited capacity for several months after the project kicked off. They had another project that overran its schedule resulting in a several months delay in starting development work. Despite this delay the team was able to make rapid progress but the scope we hoped to achieve was more complex and difficult than anticipated resulting in the project not fully delivering on all aspects that were originally planned.The scope of work for the project included the following with their estimated level of completion during the project period: Data Management Infrastructure - 100%. This item was taking the early PoC repository and rearchitecting it to be more stable, secure and scalable. Little if any deviation from the plan was experienced on the development of this core functionality Cloud Connect API's - 20%. While the data management infrastructure was completed, it took more effort that originally planned leaving little capacity for implementing API connections to popular OEM clouds.The creation of the research API was not originally planned for, but after discussions with the team at Purdue it was determined to adjust focus to make some of what was planned to be internal capabilities of the repository available to third parties. This led to the creation of the API's allowing the Purdue OATS team to stream IoT4Ag data into their ADC repository. This process is being documented so it can be easily replicated for other institutions with similar needs Standardized ADAPT API - 0%. As mentioned previously, the scope of building the core functionality was underestimated. Building the functionality to translate numerous different file formats into a common data structure then make it available vial an ADAPT Standard compliant API with granular permissioning capabilities exceeded what the team was capable of completing under the project. 2. In Virginia alargenumber of producers are not utilizing the sensor and data technology to its complete potential whichmade it challenging for theteam to get survey responses to an extent that was aimed. To address this, we kept on developing and sharing surveys extensively so that we obtain a diverse picture for the entire state. We conducted more focus group meetings and one-on-one producer interactions and received feedback that it was the first kind of effort the producers have ever participated in. So, we are glad that we got the producers talking. We experienced a limited and delayed responsiveness from some of the domains experts of our study i.e., aquaculture and livestock, due to them transiting to administrative/other roles/interests. This led to a delay in some of our milestone timelines. To resolve this, we were able to identify and establish partnerships with additional experts and entities working in those domains. These experts have agreed to participate in upcoming efforts/activities that support innovation in food production systems. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The 2024 Joint Statistical Meeting in Portland Oregon was the largest meeting of statisticians and data scientists in North America, offering opportunities for stakeholders across academia, industry, and government to exchange ideas and interact with diverse participants across career stages We supported our project manager's attendance at this meeting as a way to expand their professional development and training in data science and to foster connections that may lead to meaningful collaboration across diverse stakeholders in the future (objective 3). The Force11 Meeting at UCLA featuredleaders in open access, open data, and scholarly communication who set agendas in this space. As an attendee, Dr. Calvertlearned the trends in the open access publishing space, which also impacts data sharing standards (FAIR, Persistent Identifiers, etc.). Dr. Calvertpresented on NAPDC as anopportunity to share feedback on metadata schemas, standards, and related projects. At the American Geophysical Union Annual meeting of geoscientists, PhD student Becker presented her first-author paper on gamma-ray method for measuring soil moisture. The team at Virginia Tech conducted domain-dedicated in-person and hybrid meetings, breakout sessions, and expo events. The goal was engaging with diverse groups of producers and stakeholders to (a) identify primary key steps to address challenges identified from objective 1, and (b) disseminate knowledge, trainings, and exposure on technological solutions in agriculture. Decode 6 Podcast 12 March 2024 - Ag Data Coalition joined the podcast for the Harnessing Farm Data: Practical Strategies for Optimizing Efficiency episode to discuss best practices for data collection, storage, sharing, security and other aspects for a grower targeted audience. International Conference on Precision Agriculture, Manhattan KS 21-24 July 2024 - NAPDC/ADC sponsorship of the conference and a booth sharing the mission, goals, and activities of both organizations. The ADC team had a paper and presentation (Who are the data stewards: Moving data driven agriculture forward) in addition to a sponsor prestation. Additionally, the ADC held their annual meeting during the ICPA conference and reviewed the development process funded by the grant with the board of directors as well as several other people present from land-grant institutions. Workshop on crop water use mapping using ET sensors for precision irrigation. June 25, 2024. Suffolk, VA. (Contact time: ~6 h, Attendees: ~20). Participants were provided background information on the concept of crop water use and its criticality to estimate crop water requirements towards meeting precision irrigation requirements. Scientists from Li-COR biosciences were invited to deliver hands-on installation and deployment training on LI-710 ET sensors as well as data handling and management. Drone school 2024. March 15-April 30, 2024. Suffolk, VA. (Contact time: ~100 h, Attendees: 7). This was a one and half-month of extensive training course delivered to visiting students from African countries, students of Virginia Tech, and Extension agents of Virginia Cooperative extension. This activity noted an international impact where drones and data processing software were provided to the international participants. Abhilash Chandel served as the primary instructor for this course. We delivered basic knowledge of drones, flying and collecting data, conducting data handling, preprocessing and processing to derive crop features and eventually learn and deploy state-of-the-art analyses of Machine Learning for crop trait predictions. Drone data analytics workshop. April 19, 2024. Suffolk, VA. (Contact time: ~8 h, Attendees: 23). For continual and effective transfer of knowledge and skills to the stakeholders, we delivered training on deriving actionable crop insights using emerging technologies (drones, sensors, and analytics). This training was based on the themes of train-the-trainer and train-the-user. The "drone-data analytics workshop" on April 19, 2024, was participated by growers, VCE agents, 4-H agents, faculties, students, and technicians including from underserved organizations. Knowledge and hands-on experience of preprocessing and processing drone imagery to derive informed actions for crop management were disseminated. Participants reported over 80% of knowledge gain and interest in deploying aerial imagery for farming operations. Yefan Nian of Clemon University has participated in the 2023 National Agricultural Marketing Summit in Washington DC. The summit has helped Yefan to learn more about data-sharing issues in the specialty crop sector. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?2024 NAPDC Meeting:The NAPDC hosted a meeting in Lincoln, NE at the beginning of August with 40 attendees. At the meeting, all active subrecipients gave presentations on their ongoing research activities, and invited stakeholders from 8 different institutions (Emili Canada, NC A&T SU, UNL, Nebraska Dept. of Ag; Penn State; Virginia Tech; Portland State; Nave Analytics) gave lightning talks and/or poster presentations. At this meeting we also hosted two working group discussion sessions, where participants worked collaboratively to create living documents that addressed successes, shortcomings, and future goals of the NAPDC. From these discussions, we have physical records that are being used to develop key deliverables, such as an updated strategic plan, resources to share amongst meeting participants (e.g. presentation slides, contact information), and a new communications plan, all of which leverage participant feedback to promote a more inclusive and effective space for collaborative addressing needs and gaps for innovating agriculture. The Decode 6 podcast was the best event for reaching a grower audience and educating them about the value of data sharing, proper data collection and metadata capture. This was in addition to general promotion and awareness about the existence of the ADC repository. ICPA focused on sharing the goal and status of the ADC data repository with the university researcher community. We discussed how a neutral repository could help facilitate data sharing with cooperating growers in nearly any time of research project. TechHub Live focused on industry, most of the audience from the show are ag retail, generally agronomists and other advisors. This served as an opportunity to explain how a neutral data repository could enable their operations and facilitate more efficient and secure data exchange with their grower-customers. In 2024, Virginia Techorganized our inaugural Precision AG Technology Expo where about 50 stakeholders from all possible domains, growers, extension agents, companies, students, technicians, researchers, and government agencies, among other gathered and engaged in live discussions, informative sessions, and demonstrations of some of the latest technologies to support crop production management. The Expo event was a whole day event that also comprised flash talks by the companies as well as panel discussion highlighting barriers of growers against technology adoption and possible solutions The interviews and focus group results from Clemson University and MarketMarker were presented at the 2022 Agricultural Marketing Summit in Pensacola, Florida. The results have provided an excellent, high-level view of the data and information needs of specialty crop producers and for the industry as a whole. In particular, we have identified the following as key issues or barriers for SC producers and the professionals who support them: lack of equitable access to data; producers often lack the knowledge and/or time to work with raw datasets; the need for value-added data products; complexity of diversified SC production systems and the need to be "future tellers"; and the need for more and better training of Extension and other service providers to locate, digest, and deliver data in useful formats for producer decision-making. The available data source for the specialty crop industry and analysis of the specialty crop budget tool waspresented at the 2023 Agricultural Marketing Summit in Washington, DC. With many extension services personnel participating in the presentation, the analysis results have helped them learn more about the need for data sources for specialty crop producers to make informed decisions. The results have also helped the audience understand key areas that need to be considered when developing crop enterprise budget tools for specialty crop growers.The data collection tool developed by this project has been shared with multiple research teams who are doing transdisciplinary research work about specialty crops at Clemson University, the University of Florida, and Pennsylvania State University. Research teams tend to provide positive feedback using experiences of the tool. It has improved the efficiency of the data-sharing process among those teams. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1. Leverage and enhance a public-private cloud-based data repository to demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of digital resources in capturing, storing, and accessing producer and public data. NAPDC has partnered with non-profit entities (e.g., Agricultural Data Coalition) that manage cloud-based data repository to further develop the interoperability of the exsiting repository. The non-profit has further demonstrated the ability of these developments to ease data exchange and access for producers and those who producers wish to share data with. This will allow producers to partner with non-public and public groups to add value to their existing datasets. The value of this work cannot be understated. The existing ADC repository was not scalable. It fulfilled its purpose to prove out the idea of an independent data repository, however it was not manageable. It often took weeks just to get a new user setup, it lacked common features like password reset, or basic reporting about use of the system. Through this subaward, the system is now set up to add new users automatically in a matter of minutes. Users can self service things like password resets and two factor authentication is possible to meet the needs of different organizations that require additional security. While not every feature and piece of functionality originally planned for was delivered the repository is well on the way to being able to meet the needs of the various target audiences. For specialty crop producers we identifiedexisting secondary data sources and existing or potential primary data sources that could help illuminate and positively influence key strategic producer decisions. The focus wason data optimization rather than data maximization. 2. Develop digital tools and resources to enhance interoperability and data access between public and private systems Worked with USDA and ESRI to launch a beta version of the soil sampling planning and optimization tool (SSPOT). This tool will be available for public free use in Q4 2024. Dr. Trenton Franz advised Sophia Becker, a PhD student in School of Natural Resources. Sophia published a first author peer-reviewedpaper on gamma-ray sensing of soil moisture. The primary work of the Purude Open AgTechnologiesand Systems Center (OATS) focused on designing API's for moving data between digital platforms and publishing the associated schemas for API usage. The OATS team has been engaged with the NAPDC community, identified fellow ODF grant recipient the Ag Data Coalition as a platform for data movement, identified data sources around which to design API interactions including data in collaboration with the OATS Iot4Ag project, and published initial schemas around soils data in particular which includes engagement with the broader agriculture community. UNL Beef Genomics Database: A database including phenotypic, genomic, and pedigree data was maintained that enabled connectivity among multiple, independent, UNL beef herds. This repository also sent and received data from industry partners. This serves as an example for other Land Grant Institutions and industry. Initial design of an API began to easily deposit whole genoe sequence data in beef cattle into public repositories. Such a tool willenable the research community to easily share data. 3. Further next steps for framework growth and expansion through engagement and support of diverse participation in NAPDC activities, and communication and dissemination of findings The team affiliated with the Center for Advanced Innovation in Agriculture (CAIA) at Virginia Tech worked todevelop producer friendly data framework solutions and use cases. They developedactual data-driven solutions that will be implemented by producers and various groups of stakeholders to inform their production practices for enhanced productivity, profitability, and sustainability. The team affiliated with Clemson Universityengaged specialty crop producers in the MarketMaker network, and the organizations and agencies that support them, in the Southeast and Midwest regions, to understand the influence of information sources more comprehensively in their strategic production and marketing decisions. See below further information about disseemination to communities of interest.

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: International Conference on Precision Agriculture, Manhattan KS 21-24 July 2024  NAPDC/ADC sponsorship of the conference and a booth sharing the mission, goals, and activities of both organizations. The ADC team had a paper and presentation (Who are the data stewards: Moving data driven agriculture forward) in addition to a sponsor prestation. Additionally, the ADC held their annual meeting during the ICPA conference and reviewed the development process funded by the grant with the board of directors as well as several other people present from land-grant institutions.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Sophia M. Becker*, Trenton E. Franz, Tanessa C. Morris and Bailey Mullins. Field Testing of Gamma-Spectroscopy Method for Soil Water Content Estimation in an Agricultural Field Sensors 2024, 24(7), 2223; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24072223
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: A. Ault, Y. Zhang, J. Krogmeier, D. Buckmaster. Maximally Interoperable Models: A Heuristic Approach for Evaluating Interoperability. 2024 ASABE Annual International Meeting 2401184.(doi:10.13031/aim.202401184)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Mitra, S., Mehul, B., Posadas, B., Chandel, A., Chappell, M., Parraga, K., White, R., 2023. Farmers user experience related to digital advancements in agriculture. AI in Agriculture Conference, April 17-19, 2023, Orlando, FL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Jennifer Clarke, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Fireside Chat: National Agricultural Producers Data Cooperative (NAPDC): What is it and how can it help you? Ag Tech Connect https://techhublive.com/about/
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Adam Farmer, Chief Technology Officer, Mercer Landmark Ben Craker, Portfolio Manager, AgGateway; President, Ag Data Coalition Bryce Hemme, Digital Product Development Lead, Corteva Agriscience Ann Vande Lune, Agronomy Administrator, Key Cooperative Jennifer Clarke, Professor of Statistics and Food Science and Technology, Director, National Agricultural Producers Data Cooperative, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Panelist: Datas Evolution: A Year of Progress in Standardization and Security Track 1: Data Empowerment in Agriculture: Navigating Ownership, Security, and Standardization. Ag Tech Connect https://techhublive.com/about/
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Scout Calvert. Designing for Trust: An Ag Data Platform Connecting Farmers and Researchers Force11 https://force11.org/force2024/
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Sophia Becker, Trenton Franz, Tanessa Morris, Bailiey Mullins Advancing Non-invasive, Passive Measurement of Root Zone Soil Water Content at the Subfield Scale Using Gamma-ray Spectroscopy American Geophysical Union
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Decode 6 Podcast 12 March 2024  ADC joined the podcast for the Harnessing Farm Data: Practical Strategies for Optimizing Efficiency episode to discuss best practices for data collection, storage, sharing, security and other aspects for a grower targeted audience.


Progress 09/30/22 to 09/29/23

Outputs
Target Audience:This project involves researchers, students, businesses, and other organization types (governmental, NGO, etc.) from across the data and agricultural sectors. Individuals from farming and scientific communities as well as integrative disciplines (e.g., engineers, geneticists, extension educators, and information scientists) have engaged with NAPDC activities and content. The NAPDC community includes stakeholder and partner organizations and projects (for a list please visithttps://www.agdatacoop.org/aligned-projects) that have shared NAPDC communications and events since the start of the project. This diverse community continues to grow as measured by website visits and activity attendance. For example, since its launch in January 2022 the NAPDC website has hundreds of unique viewers from across every inhabited continent of the world. Over 100 unique attendees have participated in at least one Webinar this past year with an average of 25 attendees logging in each month for the monthly webinar. To ensure the inclusion of URM audiences, we have shared NAPDC activities with various URM organizations, such as SACNAS and the NAPPN Equity, Inclusivity, and Diversity Committee, particularly with respect to the convening grant opportunity. Changes/Problems:The convening grant subaward process remains verychallenging as the process is lengthyNAPDC has been successful in keeping track of the processes on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) side of the award process but is dependent on "checking in" with the PIs of awarded projects since the process moves into new hands once UNL has fully executed the award to the recipient institution. At that point, the onus is on the convening grant PIs to make sure invoices are being sent and processed in a timely manner, at which point much of the process is difficult to track. It is difficult to make strategic plans for the sustainability of the project when support for each year is uncertain and expectations for the framework are very high. Each convening grant awardee is contributing to the project and is worthy of continued support. However, this limits our ability to engage with new potential awardees and grow the project as needed for a national presence. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?1. Starting August 2023 we will have a graduate student in Computer Science supporting our efforts to develop a framework for livestock genotype sequencing and metadata. 2. The NAPDC Conference included a poster session specifically for students and professional development. 3. The NAPDC Website includes recordings and slides from educational webinars and information about associated training opportunities. 4.Starting August 2023 we have a web services staff member who is providing website management capabiities and attending team meetings to gainprofessional presentation skills How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?This project reaches researchers, students, and companies from across the agricultural sector by leveraging stakeholder and partner organizations (e.g., the Midwest Big Data Hub, AgGateway, MeisterMedia) to distribute information on project activities and events. Since January 2022 the NAPDC website has had over 2,500 unique viewers from across every inhabited continent of the world and the number of visits is growing by over 100% month-to-month. Webinar registrations are also growing and so appear to be meeting a critical need.Since individuals register through the NAPDC website, we can collect information on first-time users and give them the opportunity to opt-in to our listserv. Members of the PI team have presented on NAPDC activities at national conferences including TechHub Live, the Annual ASAS/CSAS/WSAS Conference, the GOAT conference, among others. Twitter [now X](@agdatacoop_ag) is being used for advertising upcoming events and to reach broader audiences who may prefer social media over email for their communications. In this way the project cuts across generational differences in communication preferences. NAPDC includes members who share information on upcoming NAPDC activities with various URM organizations, such as MANNRS and SACNAS, particularly with respect to the convening grant opportunity. Dissemination of convening grant activities is primarily the responsibility of the convening grant teams, but, when appropriate, NAPDC shares these outcomes on the website under the "Convening Awards" page. These outcomes are organized within the funded project description, along with the summary narrative from the proposal and a link to an associated website. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?1. The convening grant award teams will continue to make progress towards their stated goals. These award teams will present at the NAPDC conference inSpring 2024and report their progress and achivements. 2. PIs Spangler and Clarke will work with USMARC and NAGP on a pilotcomputational infrastructure for beef genome sequencing data hosting and sharing. 3. The NAPDC and AgGateway will promote the use and development of ADAPT and Modus frameworks for producer data. 4. Additional convening grants will be awarded in areas of critical need identified at the 2023 conference. 5. The NAPDC will launch a project in collaboration with EMILI Canada and Ag Data Transparent to develop a draftdata governance structure for a national framework.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Inaugural NAPDC Conference (https://www.agdatacoop.org/conference??)On May 10-12, 2023, the NAPDC held its inaugural all hands meeting at the Nebraska Innovation Campus, Lincoln NE. This event involved presentations, posters, and working group sessions on different aspects of the framework. We had over 80 attendees from multiple states and presentations from all convening grant award teams. A white paper summarizing the event and key takeaways is in preparation with expected publication by October 1, 2023. Website- Visitors to the project's website (https://www.agdatacoop.org/) can learn about the project's goals, read the project summary, join the mailing list, and register for NAPDC webinars. They can also obtain information on awarded convening grants (previously how to apply), our governance structure, and gain access to NAPDC-related resources such as our data management plan, code of conduct, and publications. The website hosts recordings and slides (when relevant) of NAPDC events enabling asynchronous viewing Webinar series:Recordings available athttps://www.agdatacoop.org/webinars/.Location data are not available for registrants.Each webinar is announced in advance on the NAPDC website and via Twitter, and has a stated summary, format, and objective. Webinars are included in Other Products. Survey:NAPDC has prepared and delivered a survey in Summer 2023 (post-conference) seeking community perspectives on the current state of data infrastructure and needs for agricultural producers. This survey was being prepared with professional guidance from the UNL Social Behavioral Sciences Research Consortium. The survey was be announced via the NAPDC listserv and social media and will be available through the NAPDC website. We collected responses from over 50 participants and are currently preparing a report of our findings. Convening Grants:Our convening grant awardees continued progress towards their stated aims. Included in their progress reports are the following highlights: "Data collection, sharing, and use at the farm level" with AgGatewayaims to investigate data sharing and use in several common use cases at the farm level to determine if it is done securely and with what approvals. They are preparing a community survey with MeisterMedia and Ag Data Transparent to assess the needs of the producer community regarding data access and services. "Enabling Cyberinfrastructure for the NAPDC: the OATS Data Frameworks" aims to provide exposure for the NAPDC to diverse communities, access and education to enable the use of Trellis and OADA frameworks, and input on questions of national scope for an agricultural producers data framework. The team identified Ag Data Coalition as destination platform for data, receivedsecured access to platform,identified IoT data from Purdue experiments associated with the multi-university IoT4Ag project for API interaction with ADC, andidentified soils-related data and platform for API interaction with ADC. They are working with ADC to define architecture and data logistics for integration, and investigating underlying data models for API desig "Building a Synergistic Data Framework for Cropping, Livestock, and Aquaculture Producers of Virginia":On the field crops front, we are developing a generalizable aerial spectral imagery database for detecting crop diseases through AI and ML. We will be developing generalizable data processing protocols and guidelines for those to be implemented on open-source cloud platforms. Providing secure end-user accessibility will be the final goal for this test case. Constraints on policy, implementation, accessibility, and data protection will be noted for future implementations.On the livestock domain side, the developed ketosis sensor will be rigorously validated for improvement of dairy cattle health, data integrity, transmission, and user-accessibility. Additional wireless data transmission mode of LoRaWAN (Long Range Wireless Area Network) communication protocol will be deployed to the wireless sensor nodes for data transmission rate up to 27 kbits/s, and communication range up to 16 km (= 10 miles) within the line-of-sight.On the aquaculture domain side, the developed edge-computer enabled fish imaging sensor will be deployed at dedicated experimental sites where images will be collected to estimate fish biomass and study patterns of their movement to identify stresses. The data and decision dispensation capabilities to the end user will be further tested and improved for free and uninterrupted access. Co-PI Spangler and PI Clarke are working with the NAGP and researchers at USMARC to develop a web-based platform for uploading livestock genotyping data to NCBI and sharing such data with collaborators. We are exploring frameworks for metadata and hosting in collaboration with faculty at the University of Kentucky. 2024 Conference. We are preparing for an NAPDCconference eventtobe held in Spring 2024 in collaboration with our convening grant awardees. The goal of this conference will be tobring representatives from across the NAPDC community (i.e., convening grant PIs, stakeholder organization representatives, USDA NIFA representatives, and other thought leaders) to discuss progress towards a national `open' data framework for agricultural producers, solve associated challenges,and identify yet unexplored synergies with other national organizations and initiatives. The outcomes of this conference will be written into a concept paper and shared with USDA NIFA and published in a peer-reviewed journal for the community to reference.

Publications

  • Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: https://www.agdatacoop.org/
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2023 Citation: Invited presentation at TechHub Live event in Des Moines, IA, July 2023 to discuss NAPDC project and goals with digital agriculture community