Live Earth Farm Newsletter - Week 27, Season 14

Small Leap of Faith for a lot of Potential!
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Orchestrating the logistics of the farm's food web, from soil to the weekly harvests delivered in your shares, is a complex endeavor. With close to 800 members and a growing waiting list, Debbie's task of managing all the myriad pieces of information in order to keep the CSA running smoothly (a lot of it very manual and repetitive at times) has become overwhelming.

Picture a juggler who continuously keeps adding more balls to those already being juggled and flying through the air.

A few months ago, while in the process of searching for potentially better information management tools, we connected with Benzi Ronen and Yossi Pik, two inspired computer software experts, who recently launched a company called Farmigo. Their mission is to help farms like ours use internet based information management tools capable of tackling the challenges inherently associated with running a CSA farm.

Benzi described his company quite clearly in one of his blogs: "Farmigo, my new passion, is a web-based service created for small farms to promote, collaborate, sell and explain their food items online and aims to not only help farms prosper but also to build farming networks and improve communication. We aim to make small farming more sustainable so that many more farms can join the growing trend of farms selling directly to homes thereby becoming more profitable and expanding the number of people eating healthier fresher food. The Internet is a great medium for telling stories about the food we eat and providing transparency to the farmer that works so hard growing what we put in our bodies."

So starting tomorrow, September 30th, you can go on-line and check out the new system by signing up for our unique Winter CSA and also reserve a share for the 2010 season by renewing your membership with a deposit. With the help of Farmigo we hope not only to match the complexity of our operation but enhance and improve it. From a farming point-of view, Farmigo will help to better manage data collected from the field (i.e. track crop rotations, soil management practices, pest and disease problems, as well as crop yield and harvest data) and allow to more easily explain and communicate our farming practices to our members. Farmigo will also help us expand and better network with other farmers and producers like we currently do with TLC, Companion Bakers, and Happy Girl Kitchen.

Although we are all a little nervous about this change, of letting go of the old and familiar tools, we are excited about the upcoming improvements and possibilities. Who knows, maybe this is the beginning, where high-tech is paying attention to developing scale-appropriate systems where future networks of small farms can effectively distribute healthy food to the majority of people in their local communities.

- Tom