Imagine if consumers and farmers could measure the nutrient density of fresh produce on farms and in stores in seconds. Consumers would demand nutrient-dense produce because they could see it empirically at the point of sale. Farmers would get a premium for more nutritious crops. Higher prices would motivate farmers to develop farming practices that […]
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In case you missed the last post, we are building a reflectometer. The goal is a simple to use, low cost, flexible device for a variety of measurements including tree canopy, soil carbon, and food nutrient density. If you’re curious about the development process, IRNAS produced a great post walking through the steps from understanding the application to […]
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“But wait,” you say, “there are already some out there, and they are pretty well designed and reasonably priced!” Well, yes – there are full spectrometers like the Spectruino ($411), the Open Source Colorometer ($80 + $20 per LED) from IORodeo, and publications from universities describing open colorometer designs (Appropedia and MTU have a good one, but there […]
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Farmers may not know about FOSS, but they know when they’re getting the short end of the stick. There’s lots of talk about big data and tech in agriculture… and it falls into two main camps – there’s the ‘machines replace farmers’ camp, ranging from automated tractors, to automated home gardening, to home food computers. These projects are interesting […]
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People-led research is a sleeping giant, and it might be waking up. At least, people have been working hard at waking it up. There are now collaboration platforms for everything including data collection, analysis, product design and development, image identification… the list goes on and on. Citizen Science projects are booming, and SciStarter is making them easier to find […]
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