In this Bird of a Feather session, we will facilitate a working meeting about governance, collective action, and co-production among agro-ecological knowledge commons.

Our objectives are to:
1. Provide an overview of existing open agriculture and agricultural knowledge commons initiatives, with focus on governance models – based on our professional experiences
2. Facilitate an open conversation about responsible design and co-production, with emphasis on how governance models influence the success of agro-ecological knowledge commons.
3. Gather knowledge to produce a summary report of international case studies (re: governance models and responsible design of agro-ecological knowledge commons)
4. Gauge interest for a new IGAD Working Group on these topics

Invited attendees:

This session is open to anyone (not only members of IGAD). We are especially interested in hearing from people working with existing open access/source projects and data commons initiatives in agriculture. We also welcome those with experience working with open access/source projects and data commons in other sectors.

Context:

There is growing enthusiasm for “Open Agriculture” or increasing the access to useful agricultural data, related to the broader open access or open data movement. This is one of the motivations for the RDA Improving Global Agricultural Data (IGAD) Community of Practice, formerly called the Interest Group on Agricultural Data.

In the “Open Agriculture” movement, farmers, designers, engineers, and activists (not mutually exclusive groups) work together to develop bottom-up alternatives to for-profit proprietary tools. Chris Giotitsas (2019) conceptualizes “Open Source Agriculture” as a new social movement that combines existing movements (e.g., open source software movement, appropriate technology) and principles of collaborative, decentralized development; free access and distribution of knowledge and resources; transparency and openness; and flexible meritocratic hierarchies.
One of the most prominent and well-resourced organizations for open agriculture is the Global Open Data for Agriculture & Nutrition (GODAN). We will prioritize the community-based open agriculture initiatives in our discussion, based on our professional experience. For example, Farm Hack is an international community and platform that launched in 2010; it is a free open-source library of farming tools, knowledge, and “hacks” with Creative Commons licences (Bronson, 2022; Carolan, 2018; Farm Hack, 2018). Other well-known open source agriculture communities in North America include grassroots collectives like the Gathering for Open Agricultural Technology (GOAT) and funded initiatives like the Open Technology Ecosystem for Agricultural Management (OpenTEAM), which foster collaboration on open source, open access technologies, like farmOS and LiteFarm (farmOS, 2023; GOAT, 2024; LiteFarm, n.d.; OpenTEAM, n.d.). Another decentralized international civil society group advocating for open agricultural data at the conferences we attended is the Open Food Network and its national chapters (Open Food Network, n.d.).

The session organizers have direct experience working with or actively governing: GOAT, LiteFarm, and OpenTEAM, as well as other relevant or associated projects. We have also been involved in producing a community-based, open source set of resources for data and digital literacy, the Toolkit for Ethical Data Governance in Agriculture (BC ACARN, 2024). Collectively, we have also published on the design and governance of both open source and other community-based data collection, use, and sharing initiatives in North and Latin America (Bronson, 2018, 2022; Norton et al., 2019; Raturi et al., 2017, 2022; Ruder, 2023; Ruder et al., 2021; Ruder & Wittman, n.d.; Wittman et al., 2020).

We recently connected on our common interests in governing open agriculture and ag data commons through the North American Digital Agriculture Working Group (https://nadawg.org). We are interested in leading a new Working Group for IGAD on these topics and offer an open invitation for others to join.

References

BC ACARN. (2024). Ethical Data Governance in Agriculture: Toolkit. BC Agricultural Climate Adaptation Research Network. https://www.bcacarn.ca/projects-2/ethical-data-governance/
Bronson, K. (2018). Smart Farming: Including Rights Holders for Responsible Agricultural Innovation. Technology Innovation Management Review, 8(2). https://doi.org/http://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/1135
Bronson, K. (2022). The Immaculate Conception of Data: Agribusiness, Activists, and Their Shared Politics of the Future. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Carolan, M. (2018). ‘Smart’ Farming Techniques as Political Ontology: Access, Sovereignty and the Performance of Neoliberal and Not-So-Neoliberal Worlds. Sociologia Ruralis, 58(4), 745–764. https://doi.org/10.1111/soru.12202
Farm Hack. (2018). Farm Hack. http://farmhack.org/tools
farmOS. (2023). farmOS. https://farmos.org/
Giotitsas, C. (2019). Open Source Agriculture: Grassroots Technology in the Digital Era. In Open Source Agriculture: Grassroots Technology in the Digital Era. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29341-3
GOAT. (2024). GOAT. Gathering for Open Agricultural Technology. https://goatech.org
LiteFarm. (n.d.). LiteFarm: About Us. LiteFarm. Retrieved January 20, 2022, from https://www.litefarm.org/community
Norton, J., Penzenstadler, B., & Tomlinson, B. (2019). Implications of grassroots sustainable agriculture community values on the design of information systems. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 3(CSCW). https://doi.org/10.1145/3359136
Open Food Network. (n.d.). Open Food Network: Canada. Retrieved June 26, 2024, from https://openfoodnetwork.ca
OpenTEAM. (n.d.). Open Technology Ecosystem for Agricultural Management. Retrieved September 19, 2023, from https://openteam.community
Raturi, A., Norton, J., Tomlinson, B., Blevis, E., & Dombrowski, L. (2017). Designing sustainable food systems #foodCHI. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – Proceedings, Part F127655, 609–616. https://doi.org/10.1145/3027063.3027075
Raturi, A., Thompson, J. J., Ackroyd, V., Chase, C. A., Davis, B. W., Myers, R., Poncet, A., Ramos-Giraldo, P., Reberg-Horton, C., Rejesus, R., Robertson, A., Ruark, M. D., Seehaver-Eagen, S., & Mirsky, S. (2022). Cultivating trust in technology-mediated sustainable agricultural research. Agronomy Journal, 114(5), 2669–2680. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.20974
Ruder, S.-L. (2023). Agricultural Data Governance, Data Justice, and the Politics of Novel Agri-Food Technologies in Canada (Issue December) [University of British Columbia]. https://doi.org/https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0438037
Ruder, S.-L., & Wittman, H. (under review). Growing Digital Agriculture from the Grassroots: Data Justice and Data Governance for Farm-Level Digital Agricultural Technology. [under review].
Ruder, S.-L., Wittman, H., & Cussen, K. (2021, May 28). Sowing Seeds for Just and Sustainable Food Futures: A Tool for Alternative Digital Agriculture Economies. Pathways for Inclusive and Sustainable Recoveries: CANSEE 2021.
Wittman, H., James, D., & Mehrabi, Z. (2020). Advancing food sovereignty through farmer-driven digital agroecology. International Journal of Agriculture and Natural Resources, 47(3), 235–248. https://doi.org/10.7764/ijanr.v47i3.2299

Time: 90 minutes
Format: Hybrid

1. Introduction to the session and presenters; icebreaker activity; co-producing session rules and expectations [10 minutes]
2. Brief presentations from organizers, governance insights from the agro-ecological knowledge commons projects in which we take part. [15-20 minutes]
3. Knowledge exchange [30 minutes]
4. “How might we…?” Exercise [20 minutes]
5. Closing reflections and survey [5 minutes]

Description of meeting activities:

1.1. Icebreaker activity: We will present the question: “When have you most recently interacted with open agriculture or agricultural data commons?” We ask participants to reflect quietly on their own for ~1 minute. Then, they will introduce themselves and share their answers with the 2 or 3 people seated closest to them. We will ask a few people to share their responses with the full group

1.2. Co-producing session rules and expectations: To ensure that the BoF session is engaging and interactive, we will explicitly ask participants to be involved in setting the conditions or rules of engagement. We will present a few examples to get the conversation started, then ask others to propose others. We will write the principles on a slide (projected in the room and shared online) for all to see.

2. Brief presentation: Summary of highlighted projects here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12gAbw_ibTccZSVeNeMX4jixakGJCioV-EjnDOrAwplk/edit?usp=sharing

3. Knowledge exchange: We want to learn from those who attend the session! We will ask for people to volunteer to lead small groups based on an initiative with which they have interacted (re: governing open agriculture and agricultural data commons). We will help to organize everyone into smaller discussion groups. Each group in the room will receive large chart paper and markers; each group online will have a shared virtual whiteboard. Each group will (try to) answer the following questions about their initiative:
What is it?
What is open?
Where does it “live”?
Who is it for? Who are the expected end users? Who benefits?
What is the relationship to community?
Who makes the big decisions? What is the decision-making process? Consensus?
Does it cost money to use? How is it funded?
Who owns it?

4. “How might we…?” Exercise [continuing in same small groups, then report back]: i) Each group in the room will receive large chart paper and markets; each group online will have a shared virtual whiteboard. ii) Framing the problem: Start with a problem or concern (re: open agriculture and agricultural data commons). Make sure your problem is specific. You might need to ask yourself “why?” or “what is causing this?” a few times to get down the root. iii) Writing your question: Rephrase the problem into a question. A helpful “how might we” question will describe a positive or desired outcome. The question should be broad enough that there are many possible solutions, while also being specific enough to stay connected to the original problem. (Example: How might we ________ [action] for _________ [person, group, or organization] so that ______ [outcome]?). iv) Brainstorming responses: Challenge yourself and your team to be creative! Set aside judgment of what you could or should do; enjoy the freedom of what might be possible. v) Report back to the full group.

5. Survey: We will share a link to a survey to ask those who attend in person and online: i) Do you have any additional examples of governing open agriculture or agricultural data commons? ii) Would you be interested in joining a new IGAD working group on this topic? iii) Would you be interested in co-authoring the report we produce based on the session? iv) How else do you envision working together or connecting in the future?

Summary of highlighted projects here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12gAbw_ibTccZSVeNeMX4jixakGJCioV-EjnDOrAwplk/edit?usp=sharing|https://youtu.be/wBeRxwSLuRY|https://youtu.be/b8veOOboQZM|https://www.litefarm.org/community|https://openfoodnetwork.ca|https://goatech.org