New committee formed to establish the standardisation of data in agrifood systems
Data within agri-food systems impacts everything from managing production and supply chains, to proving provenance, and reporting on indirect emissions that occur along the value chain. Future international standardisation has the potential to affect market entry requirements for NZ businesses.
ISO has begun developing international standards to support global value-growth from the start and use of data across agriculture and food systems. This marks an important milestone in the development of the agrifood sector as an important global marketplace for data-driven solutions and value creation.
The establishment of ISO technical committee TC 347 will shape and draft the content of future standards, and New Zealand is an active member contributing to this work with 25 other countries. Standards are crucial for enhancing quality, safety, efficiency, and innovation across sectors, particularly as sectors mature and markets become global in nature.
A new TC 347 New Zealand mirror committee comprising 14 New Zealand representatives - leaders from across the agriculture, food, agritech, retail and distribution sectors – are championing local needs and aim to capture the voice of New Zealand. They will ensure subsequent standards recognise, acknowledge, and support the Aotearoa New Zealand context so our industries remain competitive, efficient and compliant.
New Zealand’s involvement is crucial with agriculture being the largest sector of the tradable economy contributing over 5% or $12 billion of the national GDP. It is therefore imperative that any international standards developed work for our industries.
The committee want to hear from all agridata users
Mark Begbie, mirror committee communications lead says, ‘The TC 347 mirror committee wants to hear from those across the broad sector. We want to ensure we adequately represent the breadth and diversity of needs across our whole agrifood sector including growers, supply chain partners, technology providers, regulators, and consumers. We will also aim to inform the sector on the direction and potential impacts of the standardisation process. This ensures we arrive at a solution that is fit for purpose in Aotearoa New Zealand and that our sector is prepared for any change.’
The mirror committee is exploring setting up ‘sector groups’ focused on specific parts of the agri-food system and wants to hear from organisations keen to be involved and to help shape the future of our industry. This is a vast sector including industries across the supply chain from seeds, agrichemicals, farmers, animal management, processors and slaughterhouses to retail, warehousing, environmental regulators and councils.
The focus is on agrifood systems and the work is less about standardising the mechanisms for data capture and more about sharing data and understanding what data is captured and used. The project includes interoperability challenges such as, but not limited to:
- uniform terminology, semantic resources (such as controlled vocabularies and ontologies) and semantic infrastructure, henceforth collectively referred to as "agrisemantics";
- procedures and technologies that enable the effective use of data to address the complexity and diversity of challenges within agrifood systems;
- sustainability models, metrics and data in agrifood systems;
- livestock activities data management;
- greenhouse, controlled environment, and urban farming.
The scope also includes data-related concerns in value chains involving animal feed, energy, fibre and other specialty crops, as well as integrated pest management and enabling traceability of food ingredients of agricultural and non-agricultural origin.
Can you share your data needs?
Committee convenor Kenneth Irons and communications lead Mark Begbie are keen to hear from anyone working in agrifood systems – across the whole value chain – to understand what your data use cases are, identify consistencies and interoperability opportunities and ensure all needs and potential needs are factored in early in the standards development process. ‘Since this is in the early stages it’s important we make sure the standard works for all those who may use or be impacted by it,’ says Mark. ‘Understanding the needs of as many relevant industries as possible means we can make sure the standard doesn’t leave anyone out, and that it works for the betterment of a significant sector within New Zealand.’
Please get in touch via:
Kenneth Irons, Head of Delegation and MC convenor, kenneth.irons@agsorted.com
Mark Begbie, Communications Lead, mark@theaccelerationfoundry.com
For more information on ISO’s TC 347, please visit https://www.iso.org/committee/9983782.html(external link).