If you haven’t checked out Data.gov , you are missing out on an opportunity to access a great deal of ag databases, tools and apps. Agriculture information was launched on this site on April 30 and continues to grow.

With over 370 datasets available in the agriculture section of Data.gov, a wide range of information is available including conservation, food and water quality, trade and economics, and technology to name a few.

Some of the features on Data.gov include:

• SoilWeb – Information for this app is provided by the USDA’s Nuatural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) soil survey. It is a GPS based app with real-time access to soil types associated with your current location.
• Toto Agriculture – A smartphone interface that is designed to provide growers with local information about soil, pests and climate. Weather forecasts are shown as current conditions as well as short, medium and long term forecasts.
• iPlant – This research-based community combines the efforts of educators and students to enrich the many aspects of plant sciences using modern biology.
• Quick Stats – A section of the agriculture data is devoted to provide growers with information based on subject area or commodity such as crops and plants.

The Food, Agriculture and Rural “data community” was officially launched at the G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture. According to the USDA blog covering the summit, Secretary of Agricultre Tom Vilsack shared, “Data is quickly becoming one of the most important commodities in agriculture.”

A primary goal of the open source website is to promote data to assist with global food security, poverty, rural development, and local and regional food systems. Since the information is available to everyone, the site is geared towards collaborative efforts by farmers, researchers, analysts and businesses.

To find out more about what other people are saying about the new site, follow #OpenAgData on Twitter, or you can read Secretary Vilsack’s speech from the G-8 International Conference here .