Get Started

 

Farm Hack from farmrun on Vimeo.

Welcome to the Farm Hack community!

By making a free Farm Hack account, you are joining a community of users and organizations to build a collaborative platform for developing and sharing tools of all kinds, in the name of open knowledge sharing and resilient agricultural systems. This page is a jumping off point for a cultural introduction to Farm Hack, and a practical guide to using the site.

Start by making a Farm Hack Profile

Farm Hack Culture: What we are doing // Why we are doing it

Farm Hack is a community of collaborators interested in developing and sharing open-source tools for a resilient agriculture. We exist as a platform for community-based sharing and collaborative research. Individuals and organizations, non-profits and businesses alike are invited to participate.

Read more about our community structure, vision and principles on the Farm Hack Culture page.

Farm Hack Blog

The blog is a collaborative, syndicative platform for sharing any and all news and information relevant to the Farm Hack community. It allows us to discuss not only the tools and collaborations that we are building, but why we are doing it - important cultural conversations that might be left out of the tool library. It draws both on original content and encourages content created by our organizational partners, users, and the wider world. The blog is a curated space for community publication. 

A great way to contribute to the cultural conversation is to submit content to be posted in the blog. Articles, user or tool profiles, stories, organizational profiles, or anything else that seems relevant are all fair game.

Guide to Contributing to the Farm Hack Blog

Contact blog@farmhack.org with questions or ideas.

Getting Started Online

Once you have made your Farm Hack profile, you now have the power to edit content throughout much the Farm Hack site.

Tool Library

This is where users document and share designs for their tools.

Users can:

  • post a new tool 
  • edit or add information to existing tool pages created by other users
  • add comments or ask questions about a tool
  • Read the tool template wiki for more information.

Read more about the Farm Hack Method for documenting tools.

Forum

This is the place for community discussion on topics of all kinds. Once you have a user name, you can participate in any existing discussion, create a new discussion, and search discussion threads for specific information or topics.

Common forum topics:

  • Upcoming farm hack meetups or build events
  • Further discussion about specific tools
  • Where to source tool components
  • Farm-y or tech-y discussions not based on a specific tool
  • Farm Hack culture conversations

Event Calendar

Want to attend a Farm Hack event or meetup? Check out the Event Calendar to see upcoming events, or add your event.

Open Shops

A Farm Hack Open Shop is a space where businesses and organizations invite other users in to see what they have been working on, the events they have hosted or will host, the tools they've worked on, and the conversations they've been involved with.

One day, Open Shops will include a commerce platform. With this toolset, groups or individuals can offer for sale tools or components they've made. Commerce is an important part of the Farm Hack ethos. Regionalized manufacturing makes for resilient economies and tools which are customized to a farmer's particular needs.

You can create an Open Shop for your group here.

The process take six easy steps:

Step one: provide your web site, organization description, and logo.

Step two: Select the user names of folks associated with your organization. The text box will auto complete if they are already a registered Farm Hack user. If they are not yet registered, they will need to set up a profile.

Step three: Select the tools that you want to display on your open shop

Step four: Select the events you have been involved with or are currently working on

Step Five: Save your profile.

Step six: Save the URL and link to it from an external website.

Useful Farm Hack How-To's

Organizing

Farm Hack is a participatory and cumulative project that is as strong as we make it together. Besides documenting tools and other knowledge in the Tool Library and Forum, there are a few other ways to contribute.

Plan a Farm Hack event

Become a Farm Hack community facilitator

Interested in diving into the organizational nuts and bolts of Farm Hack? Knowledgeable about working in Drupal and/or Wordpress? It's a fun, mostly volunteer group.

Join the weekly Organizer's Call at 7 pm EST on Thursdays. It's a Google hangout.

Email info@farmhack.org for more info on becoming an organizer.