Connecting Farms to Eaters

I've discovered local food and connecting producers to consumers came up at the WhereCamp earlier this year. I thought with the growing interest in theorizing about local food and connecting eaters to the people who grow their food, I'd gather up some links here.

You can download a PDF filled with some of my early theorizing (I'm revising my "manifesto" but have not finished, for release at next year's season). It is available as a PDF Farm Foody: A Social Network Connecting Independent Farms to People presenting my rationale for how the social network benefits the family farm and society. My vision of "leveraging the network" as a way of helping small farms compete in a big agriculture economy falls not far from the idea of "How do we create an incentive system stronger than the federal incentive system?" asked by the WhereCampers. You can read about their ideas in a wiki summarizing the discussion.

Food Talk at Wherecamp 2008

When we started brainstorming and developing farmfoody.org two years ago, we understood it had to be easy for farmers to use, not take up a lot of their time, and had to offer utility. I am currently in the middle of a development cycle ready to release what I call a "social feed" and other sites refer variously to as a "wall" (Tom likes to think of it as a "barn wall") enabling and encouraging members of our social network to interact with each other in small, ad hoc social groups.

There are some other sites out there beginning to combine mapping, farms and food. We wish them good luck in their endeavor.