U.S. Department of Agriculture

NIEM is community-driven. As new communities join NIEM, they bring with them innovative ideas and fresh perspectives—which contributes to the advancement of the program. This is the story of how streamlining crop reporting created an entirely new way of engaging with NIEM.

While developing their Acreage Crop Reporting and Streamlining Initiative solution, USDA ran into a problem. They found that business users had difficulty understanding NIEM. To make it easier to understand the data that needed to be shared, USDA decided to create a business glossary. Their data standards work was open and on GitHub—which allowed for others in the NIEM community to see what they were doing and realize a greater potential use of it. Fast forward a few months and the simplified search and discovery found in the Movement tool is powered by a business glossary similar to USDA’s—making NIEM model content accessible to technical and business users alike.

Listening to users concerns, recognizing innovation and accomplishments, and advancing as a Program and as a community—here lies the true Power of NIEM.