Agricultural Collaborative Research Outcomes System (AgCROS): A network of networks connecting food security, the environment, and human health

Abstract

N ational and international openaccess agricultural research databases are needed to help solve problems at watershed, regional, and national scales, and to connect productivity, soil health, and environmental quality to food quantity and quality. There are some established, openaccess agricultural research networks with extensive research data in the United States, but there is a major need to improve connections between those networks and the emerging data in order to address complex questions. Improving the connections and flow of information among agricultural research networks will enhance the scientific community's ability to simultaneously increase crop yield, sustainability of natural resources, and environmental quality, as well as food, feed, and forage quality, and thus human and animal health. Establishing a network of agricultural databases is crucial for facilitating information flow among different research disciplines. Doing so will also enhance multidisciplinary research opportunities and help build transdisciplinary teams that can provide answers to complex, whole-system research questions and thus solve some of the globe's greatest challenges. GLOBAL CHALLENGES The ever-growing human population is facing one of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century: to ensure the sustainability of agricultural and natural systems. Both are under the pressure of a changing climate and the increase in extreme events that accompanies it. A statement by the United Nations (UN) Secretary General about a special climate change report recently released by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warns the global community that climate change is occurring at a faster rate than humanity is addressing it and that environmental consequences, including more extreme weather and sea level rise, will continue impacting humanity in the years to come (United Nations 2018).

Remote sensing for agricultural applications: A meta-review

“…ground measurements networks, national statistics, historical time series…) so that crops can be better monitored and characterized. Such approaches are very promising as they are increasingly easy to implement thanks to the promotion of open source data and codes, as well as the development of ground measurement networks and stable observatory infrastructures that provide long-term records (Fegraus et al, 2012;Delgado et al, 2018;Molénat et al, 2018).…”

The USDA‐ARS Experimental Watershed Network: Evolution, Lessons Learned, Societal Benefits, and Moving Forward

“…To address the goals of LTAR, a wider set of data types than those typically associated with experimental watersheds will need to be achieved (e.g., productivity, economic, social, biodiversity, and nutrition data, among others). This and federal open data requirements have elevated data archive and access needs to an agency‐level archival system called AgCROS (Agricultural Collaborative Research Outcomes System; Delgado et al, 2018).…”

The Partnerships for Data Innovations (PDI): Facilitating data stewardship and catalyzing research engagement in the digital age

“…The PDI's Digital Research Workbench is built largely upon the Agricultural Collaborative Research Outcomes System (AgCROS; Delgado et al, 2018Delgado et al, , 2019. The AgCROS "network of networks" (https://agcros-usdaars.opendata.…”