seed sprout stuff

round one lol

1) Inspired by the word WHALES Whales actually adopt rejected animals such as dolphins as their own. Because of their accepting nature I was inspired to create FFAA a spoof of future farmers of America- failed farmers of America association. I made a postcard that would be sent to failing farmers.

2) Something multiple people can use at once I made FarmBit, a little GPS inventory tracking system where a little bit is attached to anything you want to keep track of. Workers can then use their phones to see what is where and get help ext.

Andrea’s Rapid Prototyping

Post-It word: NERD - This prototype is based off my word nerd. I think that people who wear things like Google Glass look pretty nerdy, hence the creation of a Google Glass for farmers on tractors!

Farmer Simon Says - An app that more than two people could use at once. I was inspired by talking to many farmers who said they have trouble communicating who is doing what. When things come up, they text each other, so the idea is it is streamlined and Farmer Simon can tell people to do things (since he’s the boss-man)!

Post-It idea: App to Track Produce/Product needs of restaurants - This is based on the idea that restaurants could say what ingredients they are searching for, then farmers could place bids on which they would want to supply. 

Mimi’s Rapid Prototyping 

The Sticks & Stoned food truck was drawn from the “hippie van” post-it note. Selling edibles made with weed grown by local farmers, this truck is a great way to bring light to pot farmers and all the hard work they do. 

The Transfarmer was created with inspiration from the post-it note reading “siri on tractors.” It is a mix of a robot and a John Deere tractor. It is very efficient. Good for the farm. 

What type of farm do you own/work on?

We own and operate an 80 acre Vegetable farm. Of the plot, I would say approximately 60 is farm Land. We started as a simple roadside corn stand but are slowly growing into our own farmers market, adding new things each year.

Do you use any technology to aid in your farming processes? If so, what kinds?

To start with the most basic I would say different Tractors based on the task at hand. The work there is the generic stuff you could assume. The more unique tech would have to be the little things. Recently we purchased an "air cannon" which is a propane based noise maker that we place in the corn fields to ward off hungry birds. We also have caged pressure traps (they just trap them, no spikes cutting feet) that we use to relocate raccoons or other critters to a family members farm. For irrigation, we have a pretty generic scheme. A hose runs from the house and is split into different channels. From the split, drip lines are buried in the soil to irrigate the crops that require more water than the average rainfall can supply. There are so many little bits of tech that we use for optimizing our work it would take more than a few pages to explain it properly.

What item or aspect makes running your farm the most difficult on a day-to-day basis?

Every one of us works a full-time job on the side or is attending school full time. We only recently acquired a family friend to help during this time. At best, we only have 2-3 people available. Some days when there is no other option, my father will wake up at 4am, work to supply enough produce until noon, where he will come home on his lunch break and work enough to restock until he gets home from work around 4:30. From there he'll work until around 8pm, sometimes later if needed. To summarize, we've become bigger than we can support with just our immediate family, but hiring outside help can be nerve racking in an agricultural environment ( it's dangerous.)  So right now we split a full-time job for more than 4 people between our free time.

Can you explain every method and tool you use to track inventory?

We pick everything on a day to day basis. our inventory is how much we need for the day. This ties into our problem with full-time jobs. We can't just do the work on an off day because it will lose freshness....... That being said, there is no inventory model other than seeing how much we have and asking yourself if it will be enough to get to the end of the day.

For Straw bales, we have a counter on the baler that  counts the number. There is a notepad in the house that you write the number on. If someone buys straw, you subtract the number they purchased from the count.

Chemical Inventory is much more strict. Due to all of the regulations, we keep clean books including volume applied to each acre, what the chemical was, how much water it was mixed with and where it was applied. Good times.

You have an inventory of actual goods, are there any other supplies or goods you have to keep an inventory of on the farm?

See  the part about chemicals above!

When selling your goods, how do you keep track of everything, including stock, money, etc?

Money wise...Solid bookkeeping. we count it by hand each day.

When it comes to stock, we just keep checking our stock and if it's running low we grab more from the store room. If the store room is low, we pick more. After years of running things, you develop a sense for how much stock you will need based on the day of the week and weather.

Dori Eder

Gemini Valley Farm, Menomonie, WI

What type of farm do you own/work on?

Our farm is a 9 acre diversified small livestock farm. We raise lamb, geese and ducks on pasture as well as quail for eggs.

Do you use any technology to aid in your farming processes? If so, what kinds?

We're pretty low-tech on the actual production side. Our most important tool is portable electric fencing, which might not sound impressive but it's a fairly recent innovation that has revolutionized grass-based livestock farming.

What item or aspect makes running your farm the most difficult on a day-to-day basis?

Our business happens in the context of nature, which is unpredictable. Increasingly, farmers can no longer rely on historical weather patterns to plan their farm enterprises. Ill timed rains, early or late frosts, hail, excessive heat can all wreak havoc on the best laid plans.

Can you explain every method and tool you use to track inventory?

We do an annual inventory of all that we manage with a pen and paper (we utilize Holistic Management as a system of whole farm planning/management which has fairly proscribed steps involved).

I use Excel spreadsheets to track each type of livestock and to manage customer orders.  I use a field notebook/calendar to keep production notes.  I use Quickbooks to track sales and expenses. You have inventory of actual goods, are there any other supplies or goods you have to keep inventory of on the farm?

For the quail egg business, we keep an inventory of cartons, labels and egg cleaning supplies. We also keep an inventory of promotional materials including product labels, invoice forms, thank you cards, etc.

For livestock at various stages, we also keep track of feed. When we buy feed, we use certified organic feeds which have limited shelf-life, so feed is generally purchased in smaller quantities.  I keep careful track of these purchases because they're our single biggest expense.

When selling your goods, how do you keep track of everything, including stock, money, etc?

The method I used for research this time was called Directed Storytelling. This is a process of rooted in the social science method of narrative inquiry where researchers understand people through the stories they tell. I directed the interviews by asking them to tell a story about their typical farm experience. From there guiding questions revolving around details gave a deeper knowledge and focus into their interests, career hopes and farming opinions.

After a brief introductory background I asked them the question:

Can you tell me about a typical day on the farm?

Stacy

Brief Background

Interested bc friend had a greenhouse about 6 years ago

saw it was easy to eat well

currently works on a farm in hayfield colorado

biodynamic- focus on planting with the moon, when the moon is close to the earth its pushing towards the earth, the time of wanting roots (carrots potatoes onions) pulling away, plant leaves flowers and fruit

first farm in Santa Barbara CA avocado orchard and organic vegetable

trying to learn how to teach

wants her farm to have a lot of aspects, small herds of animals too, mushrooms, bees, vegetables, 3-4 acres

How is she prepping for her own farm

growing at her home, learning from farms, going to school for biology

when she has the money she will know

putting away money and then loan, lots of grants for greenhouses too

southwestern colorado, 3 acres, 1 acre of garden

Is she hesitant?

Yes, not a money making job

but work really hard

wintertime can’t really grow

figures if she becomes a scientist she can do that in the winter and farm in the summer

Can you tell me a typical story of your day on the farm

wake up at 6, eat

30 min drive, has to be there around 8

2 types of days- major harvest or weeding

harvest days

-carts to put bins in

-when harvesting salad put in mesh bags in buckets, later dip and dry

-in the field cover with wet towel to keep fresh

greenhouse- tomatoes, pick and weed everything by hand

weeding days- weed nonstop, hoeing or down on the ground

plant in an order theres always something to harvest

every tuesday salad and every friday need salad , but monday too

keep written inventory on spreadsheet

have map of garden based off headers of irrigation

write how much is pulled and what is going where

issue- hard to calculate everything ex tomatoes are just starting to make money but hard to see how much put in

growth output is calculated

Issues?

lower parts in the field get lower ph

just kind of work through and harvest what you can

How do they track?

collect how much is being pulled from each row per pound

How do they control irrigation?

irrigation system water is nearby reservoir, fills up their pond that has 2 outlets, pump goes to overhead sprinklers so they can control it

manual control, they turn it on

Is there any distribution issues?

currently shortage of local food, they’re main contributor of salad mix

farmers market is 1/2 of where they make the $ from, full price not whole sale

Anything else?

nice culture

a lot of fun, watch hawks, mountains,

Zach

Had family members who worked on farm, interested in doing a personal one down the road- purely a side thing not for profiting and selling purposes, more hobby and home food, smaller scale, leafy greens, vegetables

does not have a lot of research into it but interested in more classic farming methods

Grew up in an area with a lot of farmers, especially animal ones, the main was cow farmer - Palmer dairy- supplies to most of upstate, most familiar with that

to make money as a farmer you really have to own a big farm

gotta wake up early

machine milked

farmer knew them all by name- Cows were tagged but not branded

other farms he worked on grew beans corn, grown in rotation, roots put nutrients in

palmer guy would take tires, tax breaks

Joe

Medicinal pot for chronic sleeping issues and pain

Barn, different stages of plant life, babies need certain wavelength of light yellow LED, feel it a lot of nutrients and not water for sprouts!

when they’re a foot tall goes into a bigger room with good air circulation and the temp is always 70 with 50% humidity, lights two feet above plants at whole process

mid life (3 ft) move them to bigger pots, once weight makes them fall get a thin cargo net and hangs it so the the leaves grow on top and hold it up

do for 2 months, feeding a little water lots of nutrients

(all time controlled)

5ft tall, move into another bigger room, different light natural light, keep temp same budding phase, (starts flowering bc the new light) cut back on nutrients and “flush” more water for less chemicals when smoked, goes for 3 months

Ready to cut, plant is dead :( can’t really recycle, not efficient

Senior year went to florida and did online high school while playing hockey, went to niagara, dropped out and became electrical, hated it, decided to grow pot- lifelong dream achieved

Dad married daughters best friend, got his medical card, then he got his med card, grew for the two of them, started growing for other people, about 30 plants total 12 flowering, 12 growing, 12 babies

Each plant yields 1-2 pound, grows to 14 ft tall in 100 gallon drums

middle in 50, babies in like 5

super profitable now, dad gave starting money, renting barn

Why not full time?

currently mom isn’t a huge fan, just been doing it for about 2 years, wants to go into full time, interest in going into botany making new strands and stuff

light cycles are timed PERFECTLY same everyday,14 hr light 10 of darkness, also air circulation, buys 5000 ladybugs bc they eat microscopic insects on plants

doesn’t really keep inventory bc its small and manageable, part-time, and partly illegal

Still figuring out how big space heater and cooling systems and dehumidifier needed, lots of nutrients, waters with 6 barrels that get filled with rain water, hoses by hand, big desk where he mixes nutrients in

The first organization method we did for our personas involved categorizing them from conventional to unconventional at the same time as if our product would affect their decisions or habits. From there we explained our placement and had the class put up suggested ideas to look into on notes surrounding our persona for further research. 

Our personas were placed as follows: 

Daisy, early bloomer - Traditional but in the middle of affecting habits and decisions 

Willow, eager sprouter - up on the unconventional scale, and leaning a bit more towards affecting decisions over habits

Holly, savvy grower - on the way down towards traditional leaning ever so slightly towards affecting decisions

Class Notes

Daisy

Holly 

Will - we did not do all 3, just the 2 primary, so we photographed the notes for Thomas and Alex who are other group personas similar to will

I just wanted to go to the Public Market and just have conversations and meet people, but I picked storyboarding for my “research method.” In the context of this project, storyboards provide a visual narrative that can communicate a situation in which technology could be used. 

Almost every single person so far from my previous interviews and interviews this past weekend has said weather is the most frustrating part of farming. This scenario is a tribute to the struggles of weather. 

Weather is a bitch. 

One farmer I talked to in particular gave me a lot of insight to how the test out a new product. On their farm, they will give the new product a few years to see 1. How well it grows on their land, figure out what the product needs in order to grow properly, experimentation, etc, and  2. How well it sells at market. They currently do not record this information, but they thought it would be very helpful to have records of past information. 

We talked awhile about integrating technology in the form of a database system, and she was very excited by that idea. Having the ability to pin-point records from previous growing seasons and compare them to the current season would help farmers figure out how exactly the plants respond to certain conditions. Technology that could generate visual comparisons in the forms of user-friendly graphs and charts would be amazing; the lady I spoke to isn’t interested in (or good at) math and would love to be shown information than have to calculate anything. 

Important factors that could be recorded automatically would be the weather; including rainfall, humidity, wind, hours of sunlight. All of these affect plant growth. Manually inputted could be the amount of crops harvested, the amount sold, any additional watering, etc. Notes. 

Although the lady told me it is nearly impossible to follow and track trends at market, I still feel a record of sales from market to market could be significant in discovering which market tends to buy the most of their product in general. 

David Rose's Receptivity Gradient

This chart is a tool for appropriately targeting audiences. Users are plotted in “beginning” spots along a scale of 5 steps- not ready to know, ready to know, ready to hold an opinion, ready to act, ready to advocate. By placing target audiences/personas in an initial position, designers can target the true “needs” and “purposes” of their project. The end goal is typically to advance the personas two or three places forward along the scale towards ready to advocate.

The Results

Our 3 personas ended up being placed as follows:

Daisy (early bloomer) ready to know / ready to have an opinion

Daisy has grown up farming and unsure if she wants to follow in her family footsteps. Since she has a lot of experience she is a good position to have an opinion, but also is open to learning more about how to make a sustainable living off of what she sees as a high input, low output career. 

Holly (savvy grower) ready to have an opinion

Holly is very established in her career and is open to improvements, but has a good system and is happy with what she is doing. Because of her open mind, but great knowledge, she is a respectable candidate to offer an opinion on a product.  

Willow (eager sprouter) Ready to act

Will is not very knowledgeable or established in the farm community, but he is open to information and ready to dive in. He just needs the funds and comfort of knowing it will all be sustainable.  

Taking it a Level Up

I met the nicest lady in the entire world yesterday at the market! 

This is Julie, and she works on Glad-To-Know-Ya Farms in Wayne County. She not only talked to me for well over a half hour, but she invited me to visit the farm whenever I’d like, and said her and her family are more than willing to answer questions. We have really similar personalities and instantly clicked. 

She falls under the Early Bloomer persona, but after college, she came back to the farm because she missed it so much. I gained a lot of insight to why younger people want to stay in farming from talking to her; I would love to explore that feeling more by creating a short documentary for the Experiential Narrative project. Her mom, dad, and brother all have different views on farming as well, and it would be incredible to talk to each of them. 

Initially I only stopped to talk to farmers who sold produce, and skipped the stands that had meats and eggs, herbs and plants, jarred goods, etc, but I’m really happy I said hi to Julie. I was going to move on because it looked like they only sold flowers, but I thought that flower farming would bring an interesting perspective to my research and I had no reason to limit it to produce (They apparently not only sell flowers, but also apples, strawberries, and cherries as well!)  

Julie is an excellent example of an educated, millennial farmer who couldn’t be happier with her life as a farmer. She not only enjoys working on the farm, but also loves educating people about farming. She is a great role model for the younger generation. 

I went to the market alone and talked to a lot of strangers. 

I found a Mushroom Man who grew a lot of mushrooms.