GreenStart's mission is to foster a resilient energy and food system for New Hampshire by providing technical education and practical agricultural examples. An educational non-profit organization established in 2006, GreenStart sees food and fuel security as the end-product of a vibrant, sustainable agriculture system in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire has 40% of its land area in agricultural soils, yet farms only 10% and imports 95% of its food and fuel. New Hampshire has no significant petroleum resources. To feed and fuel itself from sustainable natural resources, New Hampshire must improve its soils while also improving production.
To achieve this end, GreenStart facilitates projects that
1) increase soil carbon “banking”
2) decrease energy inputs
3) increase both food and fuel outputs (positive energy and carbon balance)
4) promote “tight” cycling of nutrients
5) provide opensource access to appropriate knowledge, seeds and equipment
There has been some discussion about applying some of this same technology to a scratchbuilt cultivating tractor which could incorporate the arduino based ardu-rover autopilot http://rover.ardupilot.com/ -
Some previous related forum posts for prone harvesters etc. are here http://farmhack.net/forums/check-out-finnish-companys-prone-vehicle
and there was a sketchup started about a universal electric tool carrier platform from the Ithaca Farm Hack which can be found here http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=22b6ea0fa12dac47d8bcb80d2a176be0