Opening Up Food Data: How Open Data Standards Can Support the Growth of Thriving Local Food Systems

Presented by Open Food Network Canada and the Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, this webinar featured open source technologists and sustainable food systems researchers discussing the role that data consortia and open data standards can play in driving the transition to more equitable, sustainable, and efficient local food systems.

Farmers and community food enterprises are currently being encouraged to experiment with digital tools that promise to automate time-consuming tasks such as production monitoring, land and inventory management, and direct-to-consumer sales. Yet the potential of these tools is often compromised by the effects of ‘data siloing.’ Due to a lack of common data standards, users are often forced to make connections manually, inputting the same data across multiple different platforms. This results in mounting data management workloads and spiralling software subscription costs.

The webinar featured food systems scholars Sarah Rotz and Irena Knezevic, along with Rachel Arnould and Clémentine Triballeau of Open Food Network France. Arnould and Triballeau discussed their work leading the Data Food Consortium (DFC)—a multi-stakeholder initiative that brings tech platforms together to spearhead a new future for foodtech, one based on the premise that cooperation between foodtech providers can play a key role in supporting farmer livelihoods and catalyzing the growth of thriving local food systems.

Infographic credit: Kaitlyn Ranft