I’m Ivar Vasara - regenerative farmer and ethical software advocate. My current focus is on stewarding a recently underloved farm into a thriving hub for food sovereignty and solarpunk lab.
I’m still building the site, but https://elphinstone.farm should be up and running to provide some more details about the project soon.
I’ve also been given some grant money from https://float.ag to develop a wiki devoted to “decentralization and why it matters for agritech” which is terribly exciting for me as I feel strongly about the topic and I look forward to engaging with this community as it takes shape.
Until recently my career has been primarily as a software developer - mostly ruby on rails webapps, My nonprofessional technology interests center around dweb and adjacent technologies. That I’ve found a community of good people whose interests and principles have an overlap between food and technology is amazing (my people!!) and I’m looking to continue exploring this space by contributing here.
Hello! Nice to meet this group. I run a small software development business called Orbitist. We are focussed on leveraging emerging technologies to reimagine agriculture end-to-end. My flagship project, Efficient Vineyard, has been in partnership with Cornell Agritech for the last 8 years and focusses on open/accessible spatial data processing tools for farmers. This platform was originally developed for vineyards but we are planning a rebrand to call it Every.Farm in the coming year (the tools aren’t exclusive to vineyards). My long-term goal with the platform is to fuse natural language processing and spatial data to provide decision support to farms of all sizes. We have also started a project called Recipe Route. This is a local food marketplace centered around AI-generated recipes that are based on locally available supply. We are partnering with a food hub in Buffalo, NY called FreshFix to integrate with their inventory and delivery infrastructure to deliver food directly to consumers. My hope is to create a marketplace that will drum up demand based on locally available supply and make cooking more fun for families! Finally, I am a 2nd year PhD student at the Cyber Agricultural Intelligence and Robotics Lab at Cornell Agritech where I focus on precision polyculture. I am curious about ways that new tech can be leveraged to make polyculture farming more accessible to new farmers and existing farms looking to diversify their operations. Oh, and my wife and I operate Gunner Gardens, which is a small agri-tourism farm currently focused on u-cut flowers and yummy baked goods
I look forward to engaging with this group. Cheers!
Hi @julietnpn! You can see most of my projects linked from https://orbitist.com/. I am wrapping up my first study analyzing citizen science observational effort on and off of agricultural lands in the continental US. I am preparing for my second study looking to leverage management zone delineation methods to identify agroecological niches in fallow fields and existing cropping systems with the hope that we might be able to provide polyculture decision support via AI/Natural language (Where should I grow these raspberries? Where should I rip up vines and what should I plant there instead?). I’ve been helping our lab develop an agentic system as well: [2508.19383] Aleks: AI powered Multi Agent System for Autonomous Scientific Discovery via Data-Driven Approaches in Plant Science Thank you for your interest! Any feedback is welcome and I am looking forward to learning about all of your work as well.
Hi, I’m Mitra - based just outside (sub-tropical) Byron Bay in Australia. I’m a serial social entrepreneur mostly in renewables and materials and now focus on supporting innovative social enterprises in SE & S Asia, for example food waste handling with BSF in Indonesia. Natural Innovation.org
I’m lead developer of the open-source Frugal-IoT. The goal is a platform that enables any project to affordably build sensors. The applications I’m most interested in are in regen ag/agroecology and the activities that happen around them.
In the past I co-founded APC.org (digital human rights peak body, in about 60 countries). I was one of the hosts of the first Dweb Summit (the predecessor of the Dweb Camps).
One thread is that I’m interested in technologies that actually solve problems at scale. So for example while I have long been involved in Permaculture, I’ve yet to see it scale - or even for the movement to address its failure to scale. And most of the tech I’ve seen come out of Dweb just doesn’t actually work reliably yet. I want to see technologies that work, not just in the hands of its developers and other geeks, but in the hands of the beneficiaries (e.g. smallholder farmers, in highly resource constrained environments).
I received an Associate degree in Science and worked on a Bachelor’s degree in Science for two years after that.
I hope to graduate this year and start on a Master’s degree.
I am interested in AI and the IoT used in agriculture. I am interested in getting soil sensors that are wireless and compatible with farm management software.
I post pins about agriculture on my Pinterest board https://pin.it/2hqtm9ZQX . I do experiments with small quantities of soil in containers and soil sensors.
"Hi everyone, I’m Jacob, a dairy farmer from the Netherlands. I’d like to introduce CowCatcherAI, an open-source project we launched to detect cows in heat using computer vision.
Since starting in March 2025, we’ve grown into a dedicated group of farmers working on a professional, community-driven approach. Our detection model is built on the Ultralytics YOLO framework; it’s already performing well, though we are constantly refining it. Currently, CowCatcherAI is running on roughly 20 farms across Europe.
Hi I’m David Thomas from Open Food Network. We develop open source tools for local food marketplaces and agrifood short supply chains. I live in Canada (Ottawa) but do a lot of work with colleagues and partners in US, EU, and Australia.
I totally thought I’d joined this forum already, if I’m honest … but Greg told me he couldn’t find me when he tried ping me the other day, so I’ve created an account. Good to be here!
Some of you may remember me from GOAT 2024 at Paicines Ranch
Thanks David! I was also surprised that you weren’t already on here, but I double checked the users and your name wasn’t on the list. so glad you joined as a contributor.. its much more fun than being a lurker!
Idea (that I don’t have time for but wish someone did)…
We should do a short-run of webinars again. OpenTEAM used to do that, but we have new community members (just met some more today) and I would love to have a chance for people to show and tell.
Especially ahead of the conference… a little pre-conference ‘get to know each other’ so everyone is more productive and knows each other?
What do folks think about that? Mostly… is someone willing to do some organizing for that and likes it enough to make it happen?
I am Judy. I live on a small organic mountain farm on the southwestern border of Pennsylvania.
My background is in electrical engineering and software development. I began in consulting and later moved into teaching and building custom systems. I have authored and delivered courses in software engineering, full stack development, version control, and ethical AI. Today I work with family owned businesses and nonprofits, helping them replace expensive SaaS platforms with sustainable, open source solutions that they actually control.
I grew up on a farm, left for the city, and returned after a cancer diagnosis reshaped our priorities. My husband and I now grow our own organic vegetables, keep bees and hens, and are building Afterburner Farm as a place for knowledge exchange, regenerative practice, and community resilience.
I am particularly interested in open source technology for farmers, practical digital sovereignty, and decentralized communications that avoid proprietary lock in. I am currently exploring Meshtastic and preparing for my ham radio license as part of expanding resilient infrastructure skills.
I am here to learn, contribute, and collaborate with others building open systems that strengthen local food networks and communities.
I’m Bruce Dawson of Loudon, NH, USA. I’ve been involved in Open Source for quite a while (at least the 1990’s). Did a few things for FarmHack, Drupal, etc.
My wife and myself have decided to retire; she’s getting into Ag Training (mostly animal), and I thought I’d try with where I left off in Ag before.
Note that we’re both from the “Tech” world. I’m a software nerd, and my wife is a social media genius.
I am interested in a local group of “Tech Aggies” and would be willing to host a meeting or something at our farm in Loudon, NH. Our farm is mostly animals, which (for us) precluded plants (because that’s what animals like to eat - usually before we can).
Hello, I’m Harlan Hentges in Oklahoma, BS AgEcon, OkState 1987, J.D./M.P.Aff. I’m in search of a local food supply chain coordination system. I’m specifically interested in the beef supply chain which covers 2 1/2 to 3 years from conception to consumption.
I’m Julia Dakin, founder of the Local Seeds Coalition, building a community-governed seed labeling system for regional and cultural seed markets in North America.
The short version of why this work exists: most seed in commercial catalogs gives buyers no way to know where it was actually grown or who stewarded it. Consolidation in the seed industry has made sourcing increasingly opaque, and most seeds in our food system (yes, including local Organic food) was sourced on the international commodity seed market with production controlled by the Big 4 Chemical Companies.
Combined with an awareness campaign, we’re building two labeling tracks: a regional seed labeling system, a pilot icon and directory that identifies regionally adapted seed/where it was grown. The second is a cultural seed attribution framework that centers data sovereignty and fair recognition for knowledge holders.
Openness matters to us when people can’t see where seeds come from they default to the cheapest/race to the bottom economics and most seed growers now can’t make a living in this country. We’re also wrestling with practical questions a lot of people here have probably faced: how to structure a directory, how to map sourcing when the underlying data has real gaps, and how to keep a standard transparent.
What I’d love to get out of GOAT: connections with people working on agricultural data standards, directory and mapping infrastructure, and anyone who has built a label or certification from the ground up. Happy to share what we’re learning about coalition governance and community-paced standard-setting.
Looking forward to learning more and including Seeds in the GOAT reportoire.
Hi, I’m Lynn Foster, a retired software developer / analyst. Been working (with others) on an economic ontology called Valueflows (VF) for some years now. I’m a big fan of open source, and building commons of software infrastructure for economic experiments that are more fair and sustainable.
I ended up here because I am working with a group called GrowGood creating operational farm software which uses VF and a sensor ontology called SOSA. They are very interested in building food networks, and facilitating interops with other food software, like OFN for food hubs or FarmOS for farm-to-farm, and also non-food software like open hardware for farms, or marketplaces for non-food farm items. OFN mentioned that GOAT is doing (or planning to do?) some work on coordinating/mapping standards for interops in food. I do know about DFC (Data Food Consortium) because we did some data mapping together some years ago. And now I’m discovering other interesting standards work here, like CFC (Common Farm Convention) and BDfD (Better Deal for Data).
Anyhow, I’m interested in seeing if VF and GrowGood can fit in and be useful here. I’d love to help with figuring out how the various standards can fit together to provide the best interops to create more seamless food / ag networks and ecosystems.
Hi, am Dairo Opeyemi, a graduate of computer science from Lagos State University, Lagos, Nigeria.
I presently working in the same University as Principal Data Processing Officer.
Aside that, am also a farmer, am into poultry, vegetable and cassava farming. In my small poultry, I rear ducks and chickens, and I have been able to conduct some researches on both birds and gather some information.
Some of which are: “can duck hatch chicken’s eggs’“.
“Can chicken harsh duck’s eggs’“
“How immune are their babies compare to those hatch with incubator “ ECT.
Am also into research on “productivity of different cassava species and how to improve them for a sustainable agriculture for the future.
Am interested in GOAT because it about improving agriculture for future.
Am a young researcher who is ready and open to collaboration with anyone interested.
Hello everyone, my name is Paul Rogé. I am an agroecologist with an interest in applying open ag tech to both agricultural production and on-farm research. I serve as the director of research, education, and grantmaking at the Hudson Valley Farm Hub in Hurley, New York, a 1600-acre organic non-profit farm that produces primarily grains and vegetables. We are also establishing agroforestry systems and do a fair amount of on-farm ecological conservation. Some of our researcher collaborators use technology in interesting ways (e.g., acoustic monitoring of bumble bees). Our team has started to sort out our data management, more generally. We have a long way to go! I look forward to meeting more of you and learning together.
Hello everyone! My name is Steve Ksinga, and I’m from Kenya. My background is in software engineering and I’m deeply interested in sustainable agriculture, currently finding ways to integrate affordable computing to the farm. I do small scale farming and I’m working in resource constrained context to find ways to scale(and replicate), as currently in my area food security is not a guarantee. It is in this context where one of the primary inputs is water, hence the birth of my open source water ochestration/management platform, comprising of hardware and software components.
I’m currenty working with IDEMS international where we work on research-based community-owned solutions around the world, spanning from Agriculture, Climate, Education, Helath, among others.
My personal motivation is to empower and grow innovation in resource-contrained contexts, mainly around sustainability. In the spirit of empowerment, I have another open source POS/accounting platform for SME’s(including farmers), currently targeting the Kenyan geo (taxation laws vary from country to country)
I’ve worked across multiple industries spanning from startups, indie-dev, FAANG and currently in Community Interest company. I’m open to collaboration and contributions to projects with a similar ethos and or interests.
