Livestock data – is it there and is it FAIR? A systematic review of livestock farming datasets in Australia
- Authors: Bahlo, Christiane , Dahlhaus, Peter
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Computers and Electronics in Agriculture Vol. 188, no. (2021), p.
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- Description: The global adoption of the FAIR principles for scientific data: findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable, has been relatively slow in agriculture, compared to other disciplines. A recent review of the literature showed that the use of precision farming technologies and the development and adoption of open data standards was particularly low in extensive livestock farming. However, a plethora of public datasets exist that have the potential to be used to inform precision farming decision tools. Using extensive livestock farming in Australia as example, we investigate the quantity and quality of datasets available via a systematic dataset review. This systematic review of datasets begins with a search of open data catalogues and querying these to find datasets. Software scripts are developed and used to query the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) of many of the large data catalogues in Australia, while catalogues without public APIs are queried manually via available web portals. Following the systematic search, a combined list of all datasets is collated and tested for FAIRness and other quality metrics. The contribution of this work is the resulting overview of the state of open datasets within the livestock farming domain on the one hand, but also the development of a systematic dataset search strategy, reusable methods and software scripts. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.
Open data and interoperability standards : opportunities for animal welfare in extensive livestock systems
- Authors: Bahlo, Christiane
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: Extensive livestock farming constitutes a sizeable portion of agriculture, not only in relation to land use, but in contribution to feeding a growing human population. In addition to meat, it contributes other economically valuable commodities such as wool, hides and other products. The livestock industries are adopting technologies under the banner of Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) to help meet higher production and efficiency targets as well as help to manage the multiple challenges impacting the industries, such as climate change, environmental concerns, globalisation of markets, increasing rules of governance and societal scrutiny especially in relation to animal welfare. PLF is particularly dependent on the acquisition and management of data and metadata and on the interoperability standards that allow data discovery and federation. A review of interoperability standards and PLF adoption in extensive livestock farming systems identified a lack of domain specific standards and raised questions related to the amount and quality of public data which has potential to inform livestock farming. A systematic review of public datasets, which included an assessment based on the principles that data must be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) was developed. Custom software scripts were used to conduct a dataset search to determine the quantity and quality of domain specific datasets yielded 419 unique Australian datasets directly related to extensive livestock farming. A FAIR assessment of these datasets using a set of non-domain specific, general metrics showed a moderate level of compliance. The results suggest that domain specific FAIR metrics may need to be developed to provide a more accurate data quality assessment, but also that the level of interoperability and reusability is not particularly high which has implications if public data is to be included in decision support tools. To test the usefulness of available public datasets in informing decision support in relation to livestock welfare, a case study was designed and farm animal welfare elements were extracted from Australian welfare standards to guide a dataset search. It was found that with few exceptions, these elements could be supported with public data, although there were gaps in temporal and spatial coverage. The development of a geospatial animal welfare portal including these datasets further explored and confirmed the potential for using public data to enhance livestock welfare.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy