Open Agriculture / Free (as in Freedom) Food

[Daniel Pocock]

If you are not comfortable putting non-free software in your computer,
have you ever thought about the non-free nature of the food you put in
your body?

A group at MIT's Media Lab have started the Open Agriculture (OpenAg)
initiative and there was a TED talk (video[1]) about it in Geneva that
makes it really clear what they are doing and why.

The documentary Food, Inc[2] also helps understand what is at stake.

Has anybody else looked at this or any similar projects already?

A group has been formed[3] in Zurich to try and build one or more of the
food computers collaboratively.  A venue is to be announced shortly.  I
already raised this on the Zurich mailing list, but would anybody else
want to come to Zurich to participate, be part of this remotely or
replicate the idea in their own location?

One challenge for us in Zurich is to try and find an efficient way of
ordering all the parts, the list[4] includes over 100 items from about
various suppliers.  Making up orders would be rather tedious, so
grouping the orders together could help lower the hurdle for people to
get started.

One significant opportunity with this initiative is the outreach to
other groups with environment, sustainability, urban agriculture and
culinary interests.  OpenAg provides a way to developed a shared
philosophy about what free really means and how free software is part of
the solution to social problems like food security.

Regards,

Daniel

1.
https://www.ted.com/talks/caleb_harper_this_computer_will_grow_your_food_in_the_future
2. http://www.takepart.com/foodinc/
3. https://www.meetup.com/openag-zh/events/239207170/
4. https://github.com/OpenAgInitiative/openag_pfc2/tree/master/BOM