Aaron Ault, Project Lead at OADA, appeared on the Real Agriculture Agronomy Geeks Podcast

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario - Nov. 3, 2014 - PRLog -- In the Putting Data to Work (http://www.realagriculture.com/2014/09/ontario-agronomy-geeks-ep-12/) episode of the Agronomy Geeks Ontario podcast, Bernard Tobin and Aaron Ault, Project Lead for the Open Ag Data Alliance (OADA), explore why data has yet to fulfill its promise for farmers. Ault explains that the biggest impediment is the lack of “open sourcing” and “interoperability” in agriculture computer technology and programs. “The rest of the computer world builds frameworks that can talk to each other and different company software and technology can all interact,” explains Ault. But that’s not the case in agriculture.

The OADA community is building a set of open API’s for securely using data with the cloud. Anyone can use these API’s in their own cloud systems, and if they pass the same software tests as the open reference implementation, they will be considered technically compliant. The organization founded in America’s Heartland doesn't set for the privacy or sharing policies rather it supports clear understandings with stakeholders and the technical platform to support those agreed practices.

The RealAgriculture.com Agronomy Geeks Podcast is a weekly program alternating between Western Canadian- and Ontario-focused content. Hosted by Lyndsey Smith in the west and Shaun Haney in the east, this podcast covers any and all topics associated with growing the crop — from soil and seed, to equipment, to precision ag and apps.

The OADA API is intended to serve as a specification for all providers that desire to be OADA compliant. This API does not attempt to define or enforce a single industry data standard. The goal of this API is to enable interoperability between the many precision Ag software systems and existing industry data types. By providing an extensible API that focuses on information exchange and facilitates data transformations an open heterogeneous environment that supports many legacy, current, and future data formats can be embraced. More information about OADA can be found at http://openag.io.