On Smaller Farms, Including Organic Farms, Technology and Tradition Meet

Photo On the Farmhack.net website, enterprising farmers share tools and innovations. On the Farmhack.net website, enterprising farmers share tools and innovations.Credit I spent yesterday morning at a remarkable meeting of young farmers meshing tradition and technology to sustain healthy soils and produce bountiful crops in a changing economy and climate. They had gathered for a “pre conference” ahead of the seventh Young Farmers Conference hosted by the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in the lower Hudson Valley the rest of this week. A recurring theme was that the best way to sustain America’s smaller farms, both organic and conventional, is through an intensified focus on technology. You can follow the meeting over the next couple of days through the hashtag #YFC14. But I also recommend tracking #FarmHack. This is the Twitter tag for an idea-sharing network of farmer-tinkerers devising everything from a remotely-monitored compost thermometer to an electric-powered rolling platform that one lies on while weeding (organic farms, eschewing herbicides, need other methods). Farmhack is also a website through which farmers are sharing tools and methods with their peers — very much akin to Digital Green‘s use of YouTube in India to connect farmers. Both of these portals, along with the Stone Barns “Virtual Grange,” are not doing anything new. For centuries, farmers have shared ideas and lessons learned at the market or grange hall or seed store. These portals are simply greatly expanding the reach of such knowledge networks. The “knowosphere” has arrived on the farm. Given the aging of America’s farmers, it’s inspiring to see a new generation seeking ways to sustain productive landscapes. I was at the conference to run a panel on “no-till” strategies for limiting plowing and the resulting erosion, water problems and compaction of soils. This is an approach to agriculture that I first wrote about in 1983 in the context of an effective but dangerous herbicide, Paraquat. At the industrial scale, the simplest path to limiting plowing has long been to spray this or another non-persistent weed killer on a field and plant directly into the stubble. Our discussion centered on strategies focused on mechanical means of suppressing weeds or the use of secondary (or “cover”) crops. The panelists were Anu Rangarajan, the director of the new Hudson Valley Farm Hub in Kingston, N.Y., Dorn Cox, a New Hampshire farmer focused on sustaining farming through social and technological innovation, Timothy LaSalle, an expert in soil restoration and health. Rangarajan and Cox, both of whom work with both conventional and organic farmers, stressed that an engineering approach to solving challenges like weed control is increasingly important. Rangarajan mentioned new satellite-navigating robots, for example, that boost efficiency and cut soil loss by dispersing seed for a cover crop between rows of corn plants well before the corn is harvested. This is what one such device, made by Rowbot, looks like: Here’s more on robots down on the farm. But, again, such technology is mainly limited to big operations for now. She and Cox were echoed by Jack Algiere, who manages Stone Barns extensive farm operation. This Saturday, he’s hosting a technology and tools workshop for some of the farmer attendees. There’s plenty of technology being deployed on the country’s big heartland farms, as Quentin Hardy recently reported for The Times. But in a brief hallway chat Algiere told me there is a big gap that needs filling. There’s a substantial market for small-scale versions of sophisticated gear that is already made for industrial-scale farms, but few companies or entrepreneurs are focused there (which is one reason Farm Hack exists). Here’s more on the role of new technology in service of sustainable harvests, from a piece written recently for the Stone Barns website by Jane Black, a Brooklyn-based food writer: Americans love technology. And yet, when it comes to farming, we expect the new generation of farmers to go back in time, shunning the power of satellite GPS, Web-based apps, and robotics. On popular food news sites, there’s a lot more talk about tractor-free no-till farming than there is about how to harness big data to fight climate change or the enormous potential of anaerobic digestion. In the minds of many, technology is inextricably linked with industrial farming; they cannot imagine how it can be used for good. But for farmers–especially small farmers–technology is essential for environmental and financial sustainability. “We’re at the beginning of the greatest transformation of our food system since the Green Revolution: the information revolution,” says Danielle Gould, the founder of Food + Tech Connect, which helps food and agriculture startups create a better future for food. “There is a misconception that technology equals agribusiness. But technology also has the potential to level the playing field for small and mid-sized farms, by making it easier for them to manage operations, better utilize resources and sell their products.” There are some technologies specifically geared for small farmers. Most are Web-based: AgSquared, for example, helps vegetable farmers plan and keep track of plantings, harvests, and yields. Farmeron offers similar services for small livestock farms. What there isn’t is much high-tech equipment for small farms: No small, lightweight tractors or inexpensive cooling systems that could make small farms more competitive. Companies that make wheelchairs and fancy zero-turn lawn mowers have the capabilities, says Stone Barns Four-season Farm Director Jack Algiere. The problem is that small-scale agriculture just isn’t a big enough market for companies to bother with. The result is that farmers are forced to retrofit old lawnmowers and 1950s refrigerators to approximate what they need. Efforts to develop small-scale, affordable technology are growing. In partnership with design engineer Barry Griffin, Stone Barns has identified 34 appropriate-scale tools for small, sustainable farms. The first project is a small electric tractor—the TC-30—that will serve as the “motherboard” frame to which other tools can be attached. Up next: a solar-powered Horse Tractor and compressed-air grain harvester and processor. Farm Hack has a similar aim. Founded in 2010, the online and real-world community of farmers, designers, and engineers has worked to develop and build open-source tools that are affordable, adaptable, and easy to fix. Its successes include ideas as varied as a pedal-powered root washer and an electronic fence that can be controlled by text message. But there is still much work to be done. Small farmers need the attention of university researchers, who for half a century have worked all but exclusively to find ways for big farms to increase yields. Today, those researchers are looking at sustainability—it’s called “precision agriculture” in the trade–but their focus remains laser-focused on industrial farms. [Read the rest here.] In discussion this issue with Rangarajan, I couldn’t help bringing up the remarkable Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute engineering program not far from her Farm Hub operation. As I wrote in 2012, Rensselaer has extensive programs focused on aiding regional business with technological challenges. Imagine if student teams in the school’s Design, Innovation, and Society program spent some time with local farmers. I’m a matchmaker at heart and could see a fruitful exchange developing.