Agriculture encyclopedia

Blizzard

Member
Hello everyone,

I started to work at an encyclopedia dedicated to agriculture some one year ago. I am focused on country statistics since the very beginning. So, at this moment, the encyclopedia contains various tables with production by product, by country, and by year, like for example this table: http://agriculture.wikia.com/wiki/Wheat_production_in_the_United_Kingdom

I am very much for transparency and I think that the governments who claim to be transparent should have already done most of such work. Also the various foundations/associations who claim to fight for more transparency should be trying to gather all kind of such statistics (not only about agriculture), in order to help the citizen to understand how their countries are going from any point of view. There are various statistics institutes but the citizen need a Wikipedia-style encyclopedia where to easily access the data.
Sadly, my conclusion is that most of the anti-corruption and pro-transparency foundations are not interested of such things because they are founded by corporations — in countries where corporate welfare prevails.

Once the citizen has the knowledge, they can better involve into the decision making, pressuring their politicians to take certain decisions. For example, an informed citizen can notice the fact that the trade deficit of the country is high, and relate that with the unemployment, and then they can ask their politicians to stop importing some goods and to start producing inside the country, therefore reducing deficit and in the same time reducing unemployment. Maybe it's a good idea or maybe not - in any case, such availability of data would encourage the citizen to actually ask questions and think for themselves.

To me, transparency doesn't only mean knowing where each political party get their money from - to me, transparency means making all the relevant data available to the public, in order to encourage a participatory democracy.

I have also started on my own an encyclopedia dedicated to any relevant statistics for every country: http://countrystats.wikia.com - containing tables like http://countrystats.wikia.com/wiki/Public_debt_of_Spain

Anyways, my intention is to let other people know that such an encyclopedia exists and to invite anyone who would like to participate to do so.

Thanks for reading this
 

Blizzard

Member
Sure, my pleasure.
I live in Barcelona, Spain. I do not work and I haven't work in agriculture. I work in the tourism industry. I can tell more about myself if that's necessary.
One year ago I was looking at the link you pointed to - for starting the page http://agriculture.wikia.com/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_Kingdom
So I knew that link.

However, sometimes the National Institutes of Statistics move the links to other locations, after years some documents are not available anymore, and the way the data is presented there is not the most user friendly possible. Also it is far from complete. For example in the archives at this moment there is no available data before 2011 - http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/*/defra.gov.uk/statistics

The kind of tables like "Wheat production in the United Kingdom" are just the beginning. I collected the data for those tables from FAO but I think it's not enough to have just the production, cultivated area and yields. Those tables should also contain data like the amount of wheat exported and imported. Also it should contain the list of top 5 or top 10 export destinations and import sources, for each product, for each year. I could not find such at the in the National Institutes of Statistics, would be very nice to find a way to find them. However, practice makes perfect and it's better to start with something until I can find ways to get more data.

Example: Chapter 7 - crops (XLS file) doesn't go back before 1989 while the FAO statistics go back since 1961. I can find the amounts of wheat exported and imported, even the amount used for animal feed and this is fantastic. Unfortunately, for other countries, such data are not available (exports, imports, animal feed), and one must dig harder in order to find such data. Also, even the UK statistics doesn't contain the top 5 imports/exports sources and destinations. When explaining the relations between UK and country X, the politicians bring into discussion the trade relations, and the details of the trade should be very well documented, so the citizen can actually verify the claims of the politicians. Example: "we can't put sanctions on Russia because if we do so, we can't export our apples there anymore, and we export gigtons of apples in Russia ". Well, the citizen should be able to check that data.

Now, comparing with the UK statistics, the national statistics of Ireland look like a joke. For example Annual Report 2010 (PDF) - cant find the amount of wheat exported, imported, and used for animal food. Not even the amount produced is clear. I'm quite sure that not even Canada or Australia have such data available. Every country can have a very particular way to chose what kind of data they find relevant and how to present it. For the international reader, it's puzzling to try to navigate in a tangle-jungle of links and documents and to try to find the data they are looking for in pages filled with all kind of other things that makes no sense for them. And when it's a language you can't even read.. you can't make much sense of the data presented on those countries' statistics websites. That's why it's very good to have a single encyclopedia for agriculture, where all the data is presented in an unified way, making it actually possible or at least much easier for the user to digest it. Something like FAO - but having much more data than FAO - and a much more user friendly way to present it. FAO contains only the very basic data.

I am trying to find such data for every country in the world but I started with English-speaking countries since it's the most international language.

Yes, I have no experience in farming, but I think I can, and in fact I have to struggle a little bit for having more transparency and better and easier access to information. And since the food is the most important commodity, having transparency about agriculture - is vital, in my view. If I can't do it so good as a farmer can do it, I can still do something that makes a difference. Just like Wikipedia - anyone can improve such an encyclopedia, including me. And anyone else is welcomed.
 
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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,293
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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