Building the foundations for better AMU and AMR data management in Australia’s agribusiness and water sectors
New data resources put Australia’s agribusiness and water sectors in a stronger position to manage AMR risk, respond to emerging threats, and protect food and water safety and security.
SAAFE has built the foundations needed to help Australia’s water industries and agribusinesses better manage data related to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and antimicrobial use (AMU). Over the past 18 months, the digital transformation project – part of the SAAFE Analytics Program – has developed resources that will help SAAFE partners undertaking AMR or AMU projects to review their data governance and maximise the benefits of their research.
The project was led by the University of Queensland in partnership with the Australian Research Data Commons through its Food Security Data Challenges initiative. The involvement of different sectors in this project has allowed insights to be gathered that might be beneficial to other industries.
“Water touches every aspect of life – as well as connects us to each other – so it was extremely important to Water Research Australia that the water sector have a distinct voice in this project,” said Dr Hannah Sassi, Senior Research Manager at Water Research Australia.
In the first part of the project, the research team worked closely with SAAFE partners to develop the SAAFE Data Code, a set of seven principles backed by practical standards. They are designed to support strong data governance for trusted and secure data management.
In parallel, the research team interviewed key stakeholders in several sectors to understand their current data environments. “We gained a broad understanding of who the data custodians are in each sector, what types of AMR and AMU data they're capturing, and how those data flow,” said project lead Professor Ricardo Soares Magalhães from the University of Queensland.
The team then used this information to create large-scale diagrams of the relationships in terms of the data types and usage. “One valuable outcome of this work is that we've been able to identify touchpoints – points where there were things in common with the data landscapes of different sectors,” said Ricardo. “They are really important for building the foundations of data systems that could support multiple users.”
In the last part of the project, the team created a prototype platform to help standardise and enrich partners’ existing AMR and AMU data. “We conducted a business analysis to understand the technical specifications of the systems that house, store and transform data within the participating organisations,” said Ricardo.
The team then built an online platform that SAAFE partners can use to standardise and augment their data. Users can upload data and use shared terminology to describe antimicrobials, microorganisms and genetic information, for example. They can also add insights to their data – such as the rating of a particular antimicrobial by the Australian Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Antimicrobial Resistance or the minimum residue limits for a particular pesticide based on Australian Pesticide and Veterinary Medicine guidelines.
The team plans to develop the platform further in response to consultation with, and feedback from, other SAAFE partners. “We hope that other industries will see how the platform could benefit them, and then we can scale it to other sectors,” said Ricardo.
“Being part of this project provided a valuable space to connect, collaborate and learn from each other,” said Hannah. “We trust that the research team will use their findings to further connect water and other critical sectors together as we collectively work towards AMR mitigation and prevention.”