Its great to see an FAO overview and review of digital technology and agricultural information systems. We're obviously in a time of rapid information systems change with all the excitement, trepidation and transitional expense that involves!
Should some food composition database data collection schemes like INFOODS be encouraged to revisit a much more federated / central repository internet-based vision to support data integration especially as many food items are gaining global and cross-cultural exposure?
About: "the lack of political will and hesitancy to share sensitive information prevents the collection of data such as moderate food insecurity" - I find it helpful to emphasize the distinction between vocabulary standards and sharable or private data. A proprietary knowledge layer may exist on top of the vocabulary layer, but this does not preclude companies and agencies from using a generic data specification language throughout their own operations and those of partners, to facilitate easier data sharing when the need arises (via regulatory compliance, aquisition, public health emergency, etc.).
Somewhere between "4.1.1. Producing and collecting data" and "4.1.2. Transforming data into information" could exist a paragraph on standardized vocabulary, including open source SKOS vocabularies and OWL ontologies that are able to straddle domains of interest, such as units of measurement (https://units-of-measurement.org/), taxonomy, chemistry, farming practice etc. . The concept of "nanopublications" and "micromodels" mentioned as ways of stating observations and low-level data models which are more easily agreed upon and can therefore evolve into explicit or defacto data standards.
If one considers that what data is about is entirely conveyed by language, then it becomes an essential piece of a FAIR future vision to have a common open source language that describes datasets down to the field level in order to support the automated determination of comparable information, and its analysis. This is the problem that ontology technology lends itself to by providing global term identifiers and machine readable framework for categorizing terms (and by proxy, datasets) as materials, processes, qualities, roles, capabilities, etc. This also helps overcome "4.4.4. Insufficient capacity and inequities" as the open source data specification language attracts a common set of freely available tools and training materials, thus reducing hidden costs mentioned below too.
One hidden cost in the general "digital technology" revolution that arises especially in "4.4.7. Interoperability of data" is the existence of so many (data) language variations that require translators (technologists) one must hire for building mappings between systems, mappings that are often not elegantly designed to avoid rapid obsolescence. The other hidden cost is the slow pace of harmonizing existing vocabularies or curating new terms in them. Another key challenge an agency must confront is whether it should take on curation of multiple domains of vocabulary, or should plan to delegate vocabulary domains out to a more distributed curation governance context. Cost reduction occurs only after further consolidation, as well as domain vocabulary completion are reached.
Under Table 2 b) "Semantic Web", you might like to refer to the international open source vocabulary community building around OBO Foundry to supply diet (ONS, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12263-018-0601-y), nutrition (CDNO, cdno.info, paper in review, previous reference https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/csc2.20092), nutritional study (ONE, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6628051/), food composition (FCD, https://wikifcd.wiki.opencura.com, paper under review), food product (FOODON, foodon.org), chemistry (CHEBI), agricultural (AGRO), and environmental vocabulary (ENVO) terms, factors and micromodels, among others. The joint discussion group activity can be found in: https://github.com/FoodOntology/joint-food-ontology-wg/ and here is a slideshow that highlights activity in the last few years: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lh6ndpo-QGU920Gzvqzr04L1DVe3frf…, with a paper under review.
As an aside, this needs edit: "In these cases, strengthening regional collaborations and the establishment of reference. In such cases, strengthening regional collaborations and the establishment of laboratories”
Thanks for opportunity to comment, and I appreciate reading other's feedback too.
Mr. Damion Dooley