Existing Apps and Devices
Helpful Apps and Such
- Ipads- can bring it into the field with the Otter case, not so great about data entry, but maybe.
- Apple has a spreadsheet app for the Ipad, that functions better than excel on the ipad.
- AgSquared.com- not free, costs 5 dollars a month (Johnny's is underwriting the first three months for people.)
- Evernote- inventory management
- http://www.producteev.com/ For pushing task lists between apps and devices
- Arduino based robots that are attached to sensors in your greenhouse.
- Mail Chimp- Free for the first 4,000. Tracks who clicks where on your newsletters.
- Rabbit- all the dates of breeding, palpating, etc.
- Planimeter- You walk around the edge of a paddock and it will tell you how big it is.
- Solar Tracker- gives you the position of the sun in the sky, you can track it like a magic wand with your phone. Great for quickie garden specs, for positioning your greenhouse or apple orchard. And for impressing your family as you lay out their victory garden patch.
- Soil Web- Another app. that’s great for farmers doing assessment of land. Back in the 1930's soil conservation boom (inspired by a horrific dustbowl that reached Washington DC) a total survey of our nation's agricultural soils was undertaken. That data lives on as awkward, but publicly available GIS maps online. It is newly available in app form. Super fun party trick to know what soil lies underneath your feet, or underneath the pavement.
- Square- A little chip that fits into your iphone and lets you accept credit card payment anywhere! But it’s costly, it costs about 2.7 percent of the transaction.
- Locavore- Mobile app by the makers of Local Dirt that helps you find farmer's markets and other sources of local food Similar services: Localharvest.com, Food-hub.com
- Growfood.org- Connects people with educational work experiences on farms. With over 2000 farms in 57 countries, there's something for everyone, from making chocolate in Costa Rica to milking cows in Vermont. Similar services: Attra.org
- Ifarmer- Real time inventory control, an iphone app.
- Carrot mob- Mobbing businesses with customers in order to pressure them to source more food locally, or take steps to make their business more sustainable.
Less Helpful Online Tools:
- Farmville- Super popular online game that makes you pay to populate your homestead with chocolate milk cows. Millions of players. Fantasy Facebook for your avatar agriculturalist. The moral tale: buy more shit, grow yucky corn to make money. This is very lame, but at least you know about it now and won’t be a dork. Deranged+highly commercial format for native human impulse for dominion.
Ideas for Using Existing Technologies:
- Using your mobile phone to make videos, instructional videos for your customer to use in for instance breaking down a bushel box.
- Something to use when you don't have cell phone reception, you do work offline, then when you come to the service it synchs up. (Lots of folks don’t have service in the field)
- An accessible visualization of the degradation of the local farm economy.
- The customer needs to be able to see where investment is needed in the food infrastructure. If Slow Money could figure out the right place to invest.
Apps and Devices Farmers Need
- A way to synch excel with google calendar for daily task allocation.
- Where could you get get funding to set up instructional/ training videos for your staff.