Ag Data Available From Federal Government Helps Increase Food Security, Nutrition

Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack this week at the G-8 Open Data For Agriculture Conference meeting in Washington, D.C. announced the launch of a new "virtual community" to allow for easier access to publicly funded data.

Vilsack said a group of actions, including the release of new data, will give farmers and ranchers, scientists, policy makers and other members of the public easy access to publicly funded data to help increase food security and nutrition. 

Vilsack said "The virtual Food, Agriculture, and Rural data community launched (April 30) on Data.gov -- the U.S. Government's data sharing website -- to catalog America's publicly available agricultural data and increase the ability of the public to find, download, and use datasets that are generated and held by the Federal Government."

"The data community features a collection of more than 300 newly cataloged datasets, databases, and raw data sources related to food, agriculture, and rural issues from agencies across the U.S. Government. In addition to the data catalog, the virtual community shares a number of applications, maps and tools designed to help farmers, scientists and policymakers improve global food security and nutrition."

Go to http://www.data.gov/food/community/food   and click on G8 Open Data for Agriculture for more information.