Linux Foundation Launches Open Source Digital Infrastructure Project for Agriculture, Enables Global Collaboration Among Industry, Government and Academia

AgStack Foundation will build and sustain the global data infrastructure for food and agriculture to help scale digital transformation and address climate change, rural engagement and food and water security

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced the launch of the AgStack Foundation, the open source digital infrastructure project for the world’s agriculture ecosystem. AgStack Foundation will improve global agriculture efficiency through the creation, maintenance and enhancement of free, reusable, open and specialized digital infrastructure for data and applications.

Founding members and contributors include leaders from both the technology and agriculture industries, as well as across sectors and geographies. Members and partners include Agralogics, Call for Code, Centricity Global, Digital Green, Farm Foundation, farmOS, HPE, IBM, Mixing Bowl & Better Food Ventures, NIAB, OpenTeam, Our Sci, Produce Marketing Association, Purdue University / OATS & Agricultural Informatics Lab, the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC-ANR) and University of California Santa Barbara SmartFarm Project.

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“The global Agriculture ecosystem desperately needs a digital makeover. There is too much loss of productivity and innovation due to the absence of re-usable tools and data. I’m excited to lead this community of leaders, contributors and members – from across sectors and countries – to help build this common and re-usable resource – AgStack – that will help every stakeholder in global agriculture with free and open digital tools and data,” said Sumer Johal, Executive Director of AgStack.

Thirty-three percent of all food produced is wasted, while nine percent of the people in the world are hungry or undernourished. These societal drivers are compounded with legacy technology systems that are too slow and inefficient and can’t work across the growing and more complex agricultural supply chain. AgStack will use collaboration and open source software to build the 21st century digital infrastructure that will be a catalyst for innovation on new applications, efficiencies and scale.

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AgStack consists of an open repository to create and publish models, free and easy access to public data, interoperable frameworks for cross-project use and topic-specific extensions and toolboxes. It will leverage existing technologies such as agriculture standards (AgGateway, UN-FAO, CAFA, USDA and NASA-AR); public data (Landsat, Sentinel, NOAA and Soilgrids; models (UC-ANR IPM), and open source projects like Hyperledger, Kubernetes, Open Horizon, Postgres, Django and more.

“We’re pleased to provide the forum for AgStack to be built and to grow,” said Mike Dolan, general manager and senior vice president of projects at the Linux Foundation. “It’s clear that by using open source software to standardize the digital infrastructure for agriculture, that AgStack can reduce cost, accelerate integration and enable innovation. It’s amazing to see industries like agriculture use open source principles to innovate.”

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