It may seem obvious: if a farm isn’t financially viable, agriculture cannot exist as we know/want it. So, how do we help diversified farms sell more and do it more efficiently. There are many ways to do it, but IMHO a potential high impact area is to understand how we help buyers and farmers transact more efficiently and with more stability.
Some critical user stories:
- I am a new/expanding farmer, what do buyers know that they want to purchase? (Date ranges, quantity per week, price tolerances, etc.)
- I am a local food buyer, what are the farms in my area already planning on growing?
- What could farmers grow, but aren’t, because they don’t know there is anyone willing to purchase it?
There some decent web apps to help farms market, sell, and distribute what’s available this week as well as do some crop planning, but how do we go one step further and solve the complexity of matching aggregate supply with aggregate demand by allow buyers and suppliers to establish recurring/standing orders across future dates in an engaging and meaningful way? Tend.ag is a new, closed source startup that does crop planning and marketing/sales in a neat way. Can we develop better open source functionality and integrations to achieve this?
I’d like to organize a session to do a brief overview of some closed and open source tools. Maybe @mstenta could go over farmOS and @KatJohnson could go over OFN. I could do a quick overview of Local Orbit as well as Tend.ag (I have an account)?
Then we could brainstorm how farmOS, Local Orbit, OFN, etc. can provide value here in the open source world?
Marketing, sales and logistics tools:
- Local Orbit (open source)
- Open Food Network (open source)
- Farm Drop (closed source)
- Farmigo (closed source)
- Local Food Marketplace (closed source)
- Tend.ag (closed source)
Crop planning tools:
- Coming soon to farmOS? (open source)
- Tend.ag (closed source)