Interest Group on Agricultural Data (IGAD), Pre-Meeting Agenda, Research Data Alliance (RDA)
28th to 29th February 2016, Yayoi Auditorium/Annex, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tokyo, Tokyo (Japan)

Agriculture activity ontology
as a basis of core vocabulary for farm management systems

Hideaki Takeda, Sungmin Joo
National Institute of Informatics (NII)

Daisuke Horyu, Akane Takezaki
National Agriculture and Food Research
Organization (NARO)

Standardization of Agricultural Activities
n Background
Agricultural IT systems are widely adopted to manage and record activities
in the fields efficiently. Interoperability among these systems is needed tointegrate and analyze such records to improve productivity of agriculture.
“Puddling”
代掻きn Issues

No standards are provided fornames of works so that eachsystem vender defines them
independently. It prevents
federation and integration ofthese systems and their data.

“Puddling”“Puddling”

しろかき

代かき

“Puddling Activity”“Rough Puddling”

代掻き作業

荒代(かじり)“Soil crashing”
砕⼟“Rough Puddling”
荒代かき“land lebeling”
均平化

整地“land prepareation”

http://www.toukei.maff.go.jp/dijest/kome/kome05/kome05.html

n Purpose
To provide the standard vocabulary by defining the ontology for agriculturalactivity

Standardization of Agricultural Activities
n Thesaurus
A system to organize words by synonym, narrower/broader, and related
relationship. (ex. AGROVOC)
Search related words efficiently
harvesting- Narrower/broader relationshipis not clearly defined. So
relationship among botherwords are often mixed andmisunderstood.

topping(beets)
balingrelationshipbetweensiblings

gleaningmechanical harvestingmowing...

AGROVOCLessons learnt – What should be consideredn Define hierarchy clearly
Hierarchy is convenient for human to understand and for computers toprocess. But it often be confused by mixing different criteria on relationshipamong concepts/words. It causes difficulty when adding new concepts/words
and when integrating different hierarchies.
Define relationship clearly between upperand lower concepts as basis of classificationn Accept various synonymous words
Names for a single concept may be multiple by region and by crop
Clarify an entry word and their synonyms for eachconcept

Thesaurus and Ontology
n Thesaurus
A system to organize words by synonym, narrower/broader, and relatedrelationship. (ex. AGROVOC)
Search related words efficiently
harvesting- Narrower/broader relationshipis not clearly defined. So
relationship among botherwords are often mixed andmisunderstood.

topping(beets)
balingrelationshipbetweensiblings

gleaningmechanical harvesting
mowin
g...

AGROVOCn Ontology
A system to define relationship among concepts- Hierarchy by generalization/
Representation: ”Harvesting”
specialization relationship!"#$%&'#%()$%*+",-'&.
harvesting- Property inheritance- Separate concept and representation Harvest
Harvest ＋ byMachine[Act]

Inherit !%&/%()$%*+",-'&.

[means]Harvest ＋ manually...
[means]Designing “Agricultural Activity Ontology”
The ontology to provide semantics for agricultural activity namesver 1.10 : published on February 12, 2016. 330 words collected, new words arecollectedver 1.00 : published on November 2, 2015. 301 words collected, defined with
Description Logics, introduction of property
ver 0.94 : published on May 12, 2015. 185 words collected.

http://www.cavoc.org/

http://www.cavoc.org/aao

Designing Agricultural Activity Ontologyn Define activity concepts

Activity for Seeding:activity to sow seeds on fields for seed propagat“Activity forSeeding” isPurpose: seed propagation
Place : fieldTarget : seed
Act : sow

Define activities withproperties and their valuesn Define hierarchy
The hierarchy of activities is organized by property- New properties and their values are added- “purpose”, “act”, “target”, “place”, “means”, “season”, and“crop” in order.
- Property values are specializedDesigning Agricultural Activity Ontology
n Formalization by Description Logics
Agricultural activity
Crop production activity
Hie

Activity for crop growth

rarepospurbychy

Activity for propagation
control
Activity for seedpropagation

Activity for Seed
propagation
Activity for seeding

Activity for seeding

purpose︓crop
production
purpose︓crop growth
purpose︓propagation
control
purpose︓seed
propagation

act : sow
target︓seed
place︓fieldDesigning Agricultural Activity Ontology
n Differentiate concepts by property

Agricultural activity>…>

Activity for seed propagation > Activity for seeding
purpose : seed propagation

Well-drained paddy field < fieldDirect sowing of rice on well-drained paddy field

purpose : seed propagation
place : well-drained paddy fieldtarget : seedact : sow
crop︓rice

purpose : seed propagation
place : fieldtarget : seedact : sow

paddy field < field

Direct seeding in flooded paddy field
purpose : seed propagation
place : paddy fieldtarget : seedact : sow
crop︓riceDesigning Agricultural Activity Ontology
n Management by Protégé

Direct sowing of rice on well-drained paddy fi

Activity for seeding

Direct seeding in flooded paddy field
Seeding on a nursery box

Designing Agricultural Activity Ontology
n Polysemic concepts
l Definition of agriculture activities with multiple purposes or other properties.

Activity for puddling
purpose : soil crushing
purpose : water retention
purpose : land leveling[disjunction form]
Activity for water
control

Activity for water
retention

Activity for landleveling
Activity for
preparation of field

Activity for soil
crushing

Polysemicrelationshi
pActivity forpuddling

Subsoil breaking

Soil crushing by
harrows[conjunction formDesigning Agricultural Activity Ontology
n Management by Protégé - Polysemic concepts

Activity for water retention
Activity for land leveling
Activity for puddling

Activity for soil crushingDesigning Agricultural Activity Ontologyn Agriculture Activity Ontology
l ver 1.10 : published on February 12, 2016.
330 words collected
作物生産作業(2016/02/12)

作物生育作業
繁殖制御作業
栄養成長制御作業
生殖成長制御作業
環境制御作業
土壌制御作業
気候制御作業
水分制御作業
生物制御作業
化学成分制御作業
収穫後作業
収穫作業
収穫物集約作業
調製作業
熟成作業
計量作業
鮮度保持作業

crop production activity
activity for propagation
activity in the vegetative growth stage
activity in the reproductive growth stage
activity for environment control
activity for soil control
activity for climate control
activity for water control
activity for biotic control
activity for chemical control
post production activity
activity for harvesting
activity for processing

activity for extending shelf-life

包装作業

activity for wrapping

機資材準備作業
清掃運搬

indirect activity
activity for preparing materials
activity for cleaning
activity for transport

作物生産支援作業

収納作業
モニタリング
施設機材管理作業
営農管理作業
経営管理作業
情報収集
会計管理
労働管理
マーケティング
計画策定
評価作業
資材購入

activity for monitoring
activity for maintaining farm equipment
administrative activity
activity for business administration
activity for collecting information
activity for account management
activity for labor management
activity for marketing
activity for planning
activity for evaluation
activity for material purchaseApplying Agricultural Activity Ontology
n URI
Give a unique URI for each concept
http://cavoc.org/aao/ns/1/!"[Japanese hiragana]

Activity for seed propagation
Seeding on a nursery box
Direct seeding in flooded paddy field
Direct sowing of rice on well-drained paddy field[act] sow[target] seedApplying Agricultural Activity Ontology
n Vocabulary Generation
Vocabulary is generated by processing the ontology. Vocabulary consists ofterms, (non-terminological) concepts and properties.
- Terms: Names of activities used by farmers, researchers, and so on.
- (Non-terminological) concepts: Concepts used to classify terms.
- Properties: Concepts used to define activity concepts.
Applying organic matter
Plowing green manure[act] mix
[target] green manure[act] apply[target] organic matter

Applying Agricultural Activity Ontology
n Generation of human-readable definition for terms and concepts
Plowing green manure“Plowing green manure is Applying organic mat
mixed with green man[act] mix
[target] green manure

Concept list

Word listProperty list
A green manure is a fertilizer“Activity for suppression of pest animals with control of wild animals as
purpose,with chemical means
as means”

Definition of a concept is generated with properties and its
hierarchy

Applying Agricultural Activity Ontology
n Reasoning by Ontology
l Infer the most feasible upper concept for
the given constraints for a new words Biotic control？

purpose(0,1)

Example of「Making a scarecrow」
control ofpest animals

suppressionof pest
animals

suppressionof pest
animals
Purpose(0,1)

PhysicalmeansMeans(0,1)?

Making ascarecrowʻact(0,1)build

Physicalmeanstarget(0,1)

scarecrow

Activity forbiotic control

purpose(0,1)

Activity forsuppression ofpest animals
purpose(0,1)

means(0,1)

Activity forsuppression of pest
animals by physicalmeans

Activity forsuppression of pest
animals by chemical
means
means
(0,1)

Chemical
means

[1]
Applying Agricultural Activity
Ontology[1] Seiji Koide, Theory and Implementation of Object Oriented Semantic Web Language,
PhD Thesis, Graduate University for Advance Studies, 2011n Reasoning by Ontology
l Infer the most feasible upper concept for
the given constraints for a new words Biotic control

Activity forbiotic control
purpose(0,1)

control ofpest animals

suppressionof pest
animals

Inference with
SWCLOS

purpose(0,1)

purpose
(0,1)
means
(0,1)

[1]
Physical
物理的⼿段
means

Activity forsuppression ofpest animals

Activity forsuppression of pest
animals by physicalmeans

Activity forsuppression of pest
animals by chemical
means
means
(0,1)

means
(0,1)

Chemicalmeans
Making ameans
(0,1)

かかし作り
scarecrowact(0,1)

buildtarget(0,1)

scarecrowFuture workn Addition and verification of new words
Survey more documents and domains to collect words. By adding these words,properties and their values will be verified and extended if necessary.
n Generation of crop-specific ontologies
AAO can generate crop-specific ontologies by specifying values of “crop”
property. In order to complete these ontologies, concepts and properties may
be added. Crop ontology should be provided too.
AAO for Race
Activity for
harvesting

Activity for ricereaping

Activity for reaping

Activity for rice reaping
by combine
Activity for rice reaping
by binder

When crop property
is “Race”,rice

Activity for rice reaping
by handforage and manure crop

Agriculture Activity Ontology (AAO)
Activity for
harvesting

Activity for reaping

Activity for wrap silage
Activity for digging

Activity for rice ricereaping

Activity for rice reaping riceby combine

forage and manure crop

Activity for rice reaping rice
by binderroot vegetable

Activity for rice reaping riceby hand

When crop property is “forage and manurecrop”

AAO for forage and manure cro
Activity for
harvesting

Activity for wrap silage

root vegetable

AAO for Root Vegetables
Activity for
harvesting

When crop property is “rootvegetable”

Activity for digging

Summary•--

We proposed the ontology for agriculture activity and the vocabulary
based on it in order to increase interoperability among agriculture
management systems.
The ontology provides clear definition for concepts and hierarchy
among concepts, separation between names and concepts, andfunctions to define complex concepts.
The ontology is defined with Description Logics so that logical inference
is provided.
Future work includes addition and verification of new words, generationof crop-specific ontologies.
We will further apply our approach to crop, fertilizer, and agriculturalchemicals to extend the vocabulary.
Common Agricultural VOCabulary

http://cavoc.org/
Agriculture Activity Ontology (AAO) ver 1.10

http://cavoc.org/aao/