Agricultural Databases for Decision Support (ADDS): A strategy for developing and disseminating knowledge-based systems

The ADDS (Agricultural. Databases for Decision Support) program provides a vehicle to facilitate nationwide cooperation among the colleges and universities in the land grant system. ADDS leverages the best expertise in the nation to address the needs of the people, regardless of business size or location, and provides this expertise in an easy to use format, and via multiple delivery platforms. A series of national cooperative projects that encompass states, institutions, departments, disciplines, research, teaching and extension have been developed. These projects cut across government agencies, private sector organizations and groups and have resulted in: National Dairy Database Version 3, National Pig Information Database Version 2, National Sheep Database Version 1 with the first versions of the National Beef Database, National Catfish Database and the National Goat Database under development. The information systems technology expertise within the land grant system provides an important resource to the process of efficiently capturing and delivering the resulting ADDS projects for easy access by the novice user. Individual projects are oriented toward commodity/species, clientele, a major issue or discipline. The resources and products of each project are available to all other projects so the knowledge created may be shared and integrated for the end user. Knowledge networking has been described as more than access to information, because it delves into the unknown. It is more than using the rules and inferences of expert systems, because it is about knowledge that is evolving. When farmers or ranchers have technical or management problems, they may not be able to get assistance through regular contacts or resources. They may pose the question to a broader community through a listserver on the Internet or access specific knowledge bases such as those of the ADDS projects.