The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has made more than 11,000 datasets open for anyone to access, use and share, exceeding a self-imposed target set last year.

Defra wants to see businesses building apps with its data – Photo credit: Flickr, justgrimes

In June 2015, environment secretary Liz Truss said that the department and its arm’s-length-bodies would aim to make 8,000 datasets open access.

The aim of the push was to “kick-start a data revolution within Defra”, according to a blogpost by the department’s open data initiative communications manager Stefan Janusz.

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The department wants businesses, charities and others to use the data, with examples including apps that tell people about river levels and flood risk and work to chart changes in food consumption in relation to lifestyle and popular culture.

Now, Defra says it wants to make the data easier to use so it is more widely shared.

“We’ll be iteratively improving what we’ve published based on feedback,” the post states. “We’ll make sure new datasets are published, from parts of Defra group that haven’t been so heavily involved up to now.”