The State of Agriculture, Nature and Food: Wageningen’s tour de force in data management

Suppose you are a policy advisor, Member of Parliament or researcher looking for reliable information on the agri-food domain. You might, for example, want to know about ammonia emissions from different livestock farming systems. To meet such needs, sound data management is crucial.

Over the past years, Wageningen University & Research has invested heavily in meeting the growing demand for domain-specific information more quickly and more effectively. At the same time, it has created one central place to manage the available data from different sources: the data warehouse. Knowledge about data, which used to be stored in decentralised silos, can now be found directly alongside the data themselves – a crucial condition for combining different sources. The State of Agriculture, Nature and Food is the latest application built on this foundation. With just a few clicks, users can select relevant datasets and charts, and are directed to other places where related information can be found.

The data warehouse contains information on all aspects of agriculture, food and nature. Some of these data are collected or produced by Wageningen University & Research itself. Others come from external, sometimes public, sources. “Experts in the green domain with knowledge of data management have documented their expertise on these data,” says Mark Dolman, product owner data management at Wageningen Social & Economic Research.

“These metadata make it possible to combine datasets, depending on the indicators a user is looking for. A fact in a data source such as ‘30 tonnes of beet pulp’ only becomes meaningful when you know it refers to dried sugar beet pulp from a specific company in a specific year. Some of this information is included in the source, but often it is not made explicit. Such contextual knowledge is crucial for validating data and drawing the right conclusions. For example, whether pulp is dried or moist, and whether it comes from beets or other crops, makes a huge difference to environmental impact. By recording this information, we can now create the right combinations with other sources and apply meaningful validation rules.”

Because the data are described in a user-friendly way, Dolman explains, you do not need to be an expert to search the data warehouse: “All data can be translated into indicators and figures, just like the ones you find on The State of Agriculture, Nature and Food: from production and consumption figures to nutrient cycles, antibiotic use and greenhouse gas emissions. The website shows exactly which components you can select. Since all data sources are described consistently, users can create tailored products themselves, such as The State of Agriculture, Nature and Food. They can then build on this, for instance by adding new data selections or new calculations.”

This leads to enormous time savings, Dolman stresses: “On average, researchers spend 60% of their time collecting data before they can even start using them. Before you can interpret data, you first have to harmonise, validate, clean and combine them. All these steps have already been carried out in the data warehouse. That is a direct gain for the user. Researchers can spend more time on analysis, which also benefits policymakers and other partners. In addition, studies can always be reproduced.” 

The data warehouse thus improves both access to information and the quality of the information itself. Dolman: “We support users in every aspect of proper data management. Based on valid, harmonised and knowledge-enriched data, users gain quicker and safer insights. In The State of Agriculture, Nature and Food, the focus is on data visualisation, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. The preceding, knowledge-intensive steps are invaluable in themselves. And that applies not only to us as a research institute, but also to our partners and clients.”