High level food related ontology schema

[ddooley]

To explain the interrelationship of our food ontologies to ourselves and other stakeholders, and the public, I've started a diagram that takes a process modelling approach to illustrate the transformation from wild and domesticated food sources into consumed food. Many iterations and refinements are to be expected - AND I WILL REFRESH THIS DIAGRAM TO REFLECT THE UPDATES. This represents a plan to evolve towards, so a number of terms do not yet exist in respective ontologies. Feedback encouraged! By the way, only a few animals and one plant bean are provided, as examples.

The diagram is done in diagrams.net (drawio) and I'll post it in the repo. First iterations were done with help of Pier Buttigieg, Ramona Walls, and the CNDO crew, Liliana Andrez Hernandez, Graham King, and the Planteome folks, and a group call. Happy to add feeback people to the credits if it leads to changes.

[ddooley]

Echoing Magalie's feedback from https://github.com/FoodOntology/joint-food-ontology-wg/issues/11:

I would be interested in contributing to the food transformation process and nutritional implications, but the whole picture needs some further explanations.

One general comment/question is : how are the food manufacturing process and the agronomic food production process related to each other? are they both part of a higher-level process model ?

and also, I do not really catch the meaning of "planned food-to-food transformation process" nor the difference with food production process (which is an agronomic process)

This needs some further explanations but building the big schema is challenging and exciting!

[ddooley]

First, it was clarified to me that agricultural production process has agronomic production as a subclass as the latter deals just with plant and soil science.

• Whether agricultural production also covers post-harvest food processing is a more difficult question? I took a peek at https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/agricultural-production , where most definitions seem to limit the scope of agricultural production up to the production of raw commodities. Is that accurate?

• Pier noted "planned food-to-food transformation process" which differs from say removing parts of food during the production process for other target uses, such as fish for fertilizer, etc. But I suspect we could make planned food-to-food transformation process a subclass of food production process which allows for non-food outputs.

[maweber-bia]

First, it was clarified to me that agricultural production process has agronomic production as a subclass as the latter deals just with plant and soil science.

* Whether agricultural production also covers post-harvest food processing is a more difficult question?  I took a peek at https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/agricultural-production , where most definitions seem to limit the scope of agricultural production up to the production of raw commodities.  Is that accurate?

I would say yes!

* Pier noted "planned food-to-food transformation process" which differs from say removing parts of food during the production process for other target uses, such as fish for fertilizer, etc. But I suspect we could make planned food-to-food transformation process a subclass of food production process which allows for non-food outputs.

I quite agree with distinguishing food production process from other target uses of raw (agricultural) materials, but I was wondering about the "temporality" and the fact that during a food transformation process, many coproducts or byproducts may be produced along with the "main" desirable product, and these byproducts can, in turn, be processed and valued (and so they are not waste).

Another issue is the purpose/ of the "secondary selection process" you have put in red ??

[ddooley]

About "secondary selection process" I was casting about for a term in which food has been harvested, but its still onsite on the farm, and items are simply selected for market, or returned back to the farm for onsite composting/turning over. Graham mentioned that upwards of 30% of Australian carrots never make it off the farm there, if memory serves. Its a decision about "Food grade" food, or even more spurious, like whether more money can be made off corn in subsidized ethanol production, etc.

[maweber-bia]

Thanks, I know quite understand the purpose. In a sense, it is the same story for food transformation process at industrial (or even home) scale. It is a general trend to be more careful about reducing waste and spoilage to get better sustainability and food security.

[maweber-bia]

And now, one last question (at this time): what about "natural" destruction and "planned" food destruction processes? In your mind, are they part of the food transformation process ? or another kind of process (is_a relation)?

[ddooley]

Natural destruction is like decay, bananas getting over ripe, food rotting. Planned food destruction would be a food transformation, intentional. Pier added that as a thought experiment I think, but I think it covers "waste" disposal rather than reuse, that occurs further in the industrial food processing chain. E.g. spent wheat grain from beer brewing. Diversion of such things back into to the food stream is starting to happen.

[maweber-bia]

ok! thanks

[ddooley]

Instead of "secondary selection process", how about something like "food-grade selection process"? Do we have an agronomy opinion on this? Whereas the harvesting process is indiscriminate about the condition of the food being harvested, a preliminary food-grade selection process makes the first post-harvest call about food or alternate use. A food grading process would follow.

[maweber-bia]

This sounds good! Operations such as sizing and sorting out are actually the first steps when the food raw materials enter the food transformation process. The food grading process will either occur on the farm or at the time of delivery to the food processing plant.