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Why are you interested in Farm Hack?

Topic Type: 
Question

Why are you interested, intrigued, excited about Farm Hack? Where would you like to see it go? Share your thoughts, rants, vision, or relevant links here!

Jeff Piestrak's picture

Though by no means does this encompass all the reasons I support Farm Hack, something to help stimulate/provoke thought from this recent article from TechCrunch:

The emerging Internet of Things — essentially, the world of physical devices connected to the network/Internet... is experiencing a burst of activity and creativity...the ultimate prize for many ambitious players in the space is to become THE [emphasis added] software platform upon which all vertical applications ...will be built...Large corporations (GE, IBM, etc.) are very active in the space and are developing their own platforms. Carriers (AT&T, Verizon) have a large opportunity in the area, as well...whether the winning platforms are open or closed will play a huge role in the future of the space...The related area of connectivity (connecting objects to the network/Internet and to one another through all sorts of rules) is also a very significant opportunity.

I see Farm Hack as a potentially important OPEN space or platform that can not only serve as an engine of creativity and innovation, but play a role in helping shape this internet of things in a way that serves the best interests of farmers and people in general, not just large corporations...

dorn's picture

Thanks Jeff for getting this thread started.
I hold the idea of mutually dependent independence as one of my core personal values. Through collaboration we can each have greater capacity to support our selves. There are so many skills and great thinking going on outside of the university and corporate structure, that has yet to organize. I think that almost every farm is already a research farm, testing new ideas and incorporating last year's observations into this years plans - however, most of the research isn't formal, published OR shared, and that there is tremendous potential, through collaboration, to gain from all the observations, successes and failures and to develop tools and research methods that are inexpensive, adaptive,open and easily accessible all. I also think that this type of adaptive, distributed tool and research method development are necessary in order to move from the centralized extractive model of production to a biologically based adaptive and regenerative model. Agriculture has a very special relationship to the stewardship of the environmental commons, so it seems quite right that the knowledge to best manage and improve the most fundamental of natural resources would also be held in the public domain.

I am also excited about Farm Hack because, from its very start, it has collaboratively emerged as a product of its own users- just as a blacksmith forges his own tools.

I see the emerging collaborative platform as being critical for taking the next steps in many of my own future projects and I look forward to helping to create Farm Hack into a way of working that we can all use to document, develop, design and build tools and standards and share our successes and failures. I know that I get more back for every effort that I put in, and that is key to achieving more mutually dependent independence.