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Tag: technology
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Permaculture: Geoff Lawton at TEDxAjman
About The Speaker:Geoff Lawton is an internationally – renowned permaculture educator, consultant and practitioner. He emigrated from England to Australia and later studied permaculture with Bill Mollison in Tasmania. He established the Permaculture Research Institute at Tagari Farm in New South Wales, Australia, a 147 acre farmstead previously developed by Mollison. PRI was eventually moved to Zaytuna Farm, in The Channon, where it continues today.
Since 1985, Geoff has designed and implemented permaculture projects in 30 countries for private individuals and groups, communities, governments, aid organizations, & multinational corporations. He has taught the Permaculture Design Certificate course and designed permaculture projects in 30 countries. The Permaculture Research Institute supports the establishments of Permaculture Master Plan sites worldwide as demonstration sites and education centers that network their research information through. www.permacultureglobal.com.
About TEDx:
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
This event was held in Ajman, UAE.
31st of March, 2012 -
Open Source Tools for Permaculturists
Open Source Tools for Permaculturists
January 10, 2017by Gurkan Yeniceri & filed under GeneralIn permaculture world we are bound by the 12 principles. Every decision we make need to fit into principles so that we know the validity of our decisions. Using a computer is one of those decisions and choosing what operating system, as well as the software, can be done sustainably. If you are charging your device with a solar panel, it is even better.
First of all, list the things you do or want to do with your computer. My list is below:
· Updating my blogs
· Writing books
· Editing video and pictures
· Giving presentations
· Mind mapping
· Keeping up with social media
· Designing my projects in 3D
· Keeping my important files safe
· Emails (this was on the list before but since I am using online email, there is no need for an application now)My operating system of choice is Linux particularly Ubuntu these days though I bought a cheap tablet and it came with MS Windows which I am not inclined to tear it and install Ubuntu on it as I don’t want to spend the time. I will just use whatever it came with it to save a bit of a time.
Linux is born as an answer to proprietary licensed operating systems. You can read the history of Linux here. There is copyright and there is copyleft. The idea behind the Linux is to provide an open source, free operating system so that people can have an alternative to paid operating systems. Open Source means its source code is available to browse, contribute etc. so nothing is hidden.
On Linux, upgrades happen without paying whether a new version or a fix. Apps repositories are full of useful productivity tools for free. Open Source applications are so mature that many corporations are actually using them these days. A number of viruses are also significantly lower in Linux world, most not causing a headache.
Linux is the only truly sustainable operating system which is developed by the funs of this ecosystem. It is free, you don’t have to pay for it. This ecosystem run by volunteers and some expenses paid by the donations from the users. The installation is evolved so much that you don’t have to fiddle with settings which you don’t understand. Some Linux versions don’t even require installation, they work from a USB stick image.
I think the most unsustainable operating system is Apple’s cats. It runs on specific hardware, you have to pay for new versions and credit card is required to use simple things.
MS Windows is still requiring you to pay for the license. New versions come with a license fee or worse monthly subscription fees (like Office 360). The viruses and other malware are always a headache. Every new update slows down the machine.
As my new tablet came with MS Windows, I kept it and installed all free, open source software for my needs. Most of these software has either a Linux version available or an equivalent that does the same job. Let’s have a look at these free software options now.
Updating my blogs: I use free blogging sites like WordPress and Blogspot; both of these also provide you with a browser interface to update your blogs. I use Notepad++ or Open Office Writer to keep my rumblings in their infancy stage and once they are ready to publish they go on Blogspot or WordPress. I am also using www.hemingwayapp.com; an online application to grade my writings so that it can be read and understood by my target audience. It tells you sentences that are hard to read, adverb usage, and provides simpler alternatives to your sophisticated words. It’s a sanity check especially for people whose second language is English like me.
Writing books: I am using Sigil, a powerful ePub writer software. Also using Open Office Writer for PDF creations. Sigil supports ePub3 format too. I take text notes with Notepad++ as well.
Organising my ebooks: Calibre is my choice of organiser for all types of eBooks (supports kindle, Mobi, epub, pdf etc.). It can even download the book info and the cover from Amazon or Google and upload your books to various devices.
Editing video: ShotCut is the easiest to use for simple operations.
Editing pictures: GIMP on Linux or Paint.NET for Windows. GIMP is actually very powerful, racing with Photoshop. Paint.NET is slightly better than Paint in Windows.
Giving presentations: Open Office Impress. It is the equivalent of Power Point. I’ve converted my pptx files to Open Office format and fixed some text here and there. There are online applications as well but I am not always online and don’t want to pay a monthly fee for the online apps.
Mind Mapping: I am using FreeMind. This little application written in Java creates beautiful diagrams of mind maps. I’ve also used online browser applications like www.draw.io or www.bubbl.us but I didn’t like the idea of having my creations sitting up on the web.
Crop Rotation: I keep some records of crops in Open Office Calc. This is just like Excel but free.
Keeping up with social media: No need a software other than a browser. I am with FireFox but also use Google Chrome too. Both free and powerful browsers as you might already know. I also sync my bookmarks across my devices with a free Firefox account.
Designing my projects in 3D: SketchUp. There are even libraries for SketchUp for certain plants and trees. I’ve never had an experience with any sort of 3D drawing applications before and after couple of hours on SketchUp, I’ve created a Topbar Beehive model. Also when I was building my aquaponics system, I’ve used many free SketchUp models as an example.
Keeping my important files safe: My files are on Google Drive and also copied to 3 other locations using RSync a free syncing software that runs on command line. It is hard to setup but very easy to use after that, you basically don’t have to do anything, when there is a change on files, it copies the change over to your backup location. Using Google Drive is also like a backup. I edit my Google Drive files offline on my tablet and once I am connected to the internet, my files copied to online Google Drive.
The other aspect of Open Source mentality is the tools to manage your farm that is created for us to use for free. One of these tools is FarmOS. It is an online web application where you can map your entire farm on it (to be installed into a web server) with your assets and manage the events as you like it. I don’t have much experience with it but soon I will install it into my virtual servers to have a deeper look.
If you are a DIY person, a thinker and doer, check out the FarmHACK. You will find the plans of many tools to build yourself.
3D printing is also a good technology if you have access to one of those printers. There are farming tools printed and used here. And who wouldn’t want this 3D sun dial that shows the time in digital format. The 3D models for printing usually available for free on the net with an open source license, you can download and print them.
There is also an electronic circuit developed as an open source circuit board called Arduino. With the attached sensors and a bit of programming, you can control the irrigation, glass house windows, egg incubator, chicken feeder, aquaponics’ oxygen level or control any device according to some other events; the possibilities are endless. Here is a link to an explanatory blog and another one about 5 specific projects related to growing produce with Arduino. All the coding that is required for these projects are available online.
As you see dear reader, technology usage can be sustainable and on top of that, if you are contributing to Wikipedia, you are even creating more abundance right there. Every blog entry you write is an abundance of information too, every share of that blog entry you make gets that information to masses. It’s just never ending.
Please share your favourite free software or the blogs you read about permaculture or farming and/or growing below the comments for everyone to benefit.
https://permaculturenews.org/2017/01/10/open-source-tools-permaculturists/
On – 10 Jan, 2017 By Gurkan Yeniceri
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Pigweed, Crickets, and Squalene: Are Startups Ag Tech’s New Hope?
Editor’s note: This post was contributed by Blake Hurst. Blake is a farmer in northwest Missouri, who grows corn, soybeans, and flowers with his extended family. He and his wife Julie have 3 children and 6 grandchildren. Hurst is also president of the Missouri Farm Bureau. You can follow Blake on Twitter at @HurstBlake.
I spent a couple of days in September listening to the dreams of a bunch of inventors, entrepreneurs, and visionaries, who were making their pitches to investors from around the world. New companies at this year’s InfoAg conference made presentations about gee whiz technologies — companies lacking only money, loads of money, and oh by the way, they’re short on customers as well. We’re in the middle of a tech boom in agriculture, the first one I can remember, and we’re seeing an exciting influx of venture capitalists and geniuses into the farming industry. There may be a few charlatans in the mix as well.
The only people conspicuously absent at this event were the farmers who will someday, everybody hopes, pay for all of these ideas. This scene of slide presentations, talks about various kinds of financing, plans for roll outs, and worries about burn rate bears little resemblance to the average farm show, where farmers and salesman discuss the latest new attachment for tractors or the newest high-yielding seed. Yet this event had a lot in common with the typical farm show too, as the owners of these firms making a successful pitch meant the difference between success and failure. It was exciting to think that some of the innovations might someday be explained to farmers inside the big tent at a farm show, with farmers kicking the dirt, and wearing brand new baseball caps, and holding sacks full of well-branded giveaways.
Of course, we’ve had investment booms in agriculture. Some farmers took the ride during the consolidation of the pork industry, and many participated in the ethanol boom that blew through the Midwest like a March tornado. That experience is one most of us will never forget. Some of us won, some of us lost, and some of us managed to do both; it was exhilarating.
We’ve also lived through rapid technological change: the increasing size and complexity of machinery, new chemistry to fight weeds and bugs, and the genetic modification of seeds. But almost all of these innovations were brought to us by large companies. To say that Monsanto, John Deere, and Dow Chemical are large and well-established firms is an understatement.
This is different. Companies at the event ranged in size from miniscule to small, with few of them having any kind of track record. And instead of the traveling road show through small town diners that funded the ethanol industry, these entrepreneurs were looking for funding from well-established and one assumes gimlet-eyed venture capital firms — investors who know their way around Silicon Valley and MIT. This marriage, or at least flirtation, between agriculture and startups is something very new, and it’s exciting to a corn farmer from Tarkio, Missouri, population 1500.
Companies at the investment show could coat your cocoa or citrus with something, I’m not sure what, that will protect the fruit from bugs. We learned about seed inoculants, drone technology, and a process by which tobacco plants produce squalene, which is normally sourced from sharks. Growing tobacco seems much safer than catching sharks, who presumably don’t give up their squalene without a fight, and environmentally more desirable as well. One firm promised that it can produce proteins and oils from CO2 and microbes, which, as a soybean producer, causes me to have mixed emotions. One entrepreneur, with whom I had a spirited conversation over a beer, is farming crickets. A great protein source, he tells me, although he didn’t offer a sample, and I didn’t ask. I did, however, a couple of weeks later, find a brownie shared with me by a guy using chicory to replace wheat for gluten-sensitive customers. I can report that it tasted fine, even after spending a fortnight in my pocket.
For years, venture capital investment in agriculture averaged around a half million dollars per year. Only in 2014 did the total investment in agriculture venture capital exceed the investment budget of Monsanto. In 2015, investments from VC firms in the agriculture field totalled 4.6 billion dollars. That’s a breathtaking increase, and it will be interesting to see if declines in farm prices and profitability will slow the flow of investment capital into agriculture technology startups. Many of the companies entering the field are developing technologies that increase the efficiency of farmers, so it may be that financial pressures in farm country will increase the demand for these technologies.
One thing is for sure. Agriculture must innove. All of us will benefit if a few of the dreams on display at last September’s event come true. Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, stands high atop the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City, Missouri. One company at this event promised to destroy pigweeds by honing in on their genetic code. There is, as I only dimly understand, some problem with the delivery mechanism, but know this for sure: if a company figures out how to target Palmer amaranth and waterhemp, two particularly noxious kinds of pigweed, Missourians will replace Ceres on our capital with that company’s logo.
Pigweed, Crickets, and Squalene: Are Startups Ag Tech’s New Hope? was originally published in The Dirt on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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Who Knows Best When It Comes to Farm Data?
Editor’s note: This post was contributed by Jason Tatge, the CEO of Farmobile, the farm data company. He’s been working one-on-one with farmers for more than 20 years. You can follow him on Twitter at @jasontatge.
My company, Farmobile, made news when we paid farmers for their data for the very first time last month. It was an exciting moment, driving around to visit farmers in Minnesota and handing out checks for completed electronic field records. It was the first time they saw a concrete, bottom-line ROI from their data.
Up until now, farmers have been giving their data for nothing, sometimes not even realizing they were ceding control and ownership. But as agriculture goes digital as an industry, farmers are beginning to learn that data is one of the most valuable crops they can harvest. Especially in today’s difficult and uncertain economic environment, farmers need to be in control.
But there’s a lot of controversy around this approach. In fact, when we posted our news about paying farmers on LinkedIn, we got this response:
This is skepticism that we get often (though not from farmers themselves). And in some ways we totally get it. This is a net-new way to think about farm data, and it’s going to be uncomfortable at first. But we heartily disagree with the old way of looking at farm data and its value. We thought this warranted a response longer than the word count LinkedIn would allow.
Here goes.
The Tables of Power Must Be Turned
“The farmer is the only man in our economy who has to buy everything he buys at retail — sell everything he sells at wholesale — and pay the freight both ways.” JFK September 22, 1960.
Richard mentioned that the value of being a digitized sector is huge, and he’s not wrong. Just look at the music industry, the financial industry, or even the auto industry. The digital revolution is changing how we all do business.
The big problem that we see in agriculture, however, is that if farmers do not own their own data first, the real value will only be created for companies upstream of the farmer. In this scenario, everyone wins except the farmer. Sure, farmers might get marginally better equipment and prescriptions — and we’re certainly not suggesting that they give up using these services — but by not owning their data, they give up the right to analyze the data, compare prescriptions, and ultimately make their own decisions about what’s best for their farms based on their data and their generational knowledge.
They also lose the right to control a new revenue channel. Farmers take gigantic risks every single year, but they’ve never seen rewards to match. Owning their data helps stave off some of that risk by creating a new revenue source season after season.
https://medium.com/media/1fc84c54a50d3da2c7a5b5911499a968/href
We should also note that while having a density of data definitely results in better quality analysis, none of the analytics companies can collect all of the data a farmer produces. Most farmers we talk to own mixed fleets these days. As you can imagine, equipment manufacturers make it very difficult (if not impossible) to share data with their competitors.
We agree that the lifeblood for the digital-ag economy is high quality information from the farm operation. However, obtaining and standardizing this information is more difficult than most realize. Obtaining this information is a challenge because, although the sensor technology exists, there is a last mile problem. Standardization is a challenge because incentive structures are out of alignment.
Farmers are the only ones with the ability to paint a complete picture of their farms with data collected agnostically.
How Big Ag Fits into the Picture
Richard also mentioned John Deere and Monsanto, so I want to address them here.
Deere makes money from equipment sales and service. Monsanto makes money from seed and trait technology. In each case, market share matters, as does revenue extraction from the farmer. The goal of each is to extract as much marginal revenue without surrendering market share.
Offering up free data provides a window into surrendering farm operations. Not to mention the possibility that one or both of these companies are already directly monetizing the farmers data. It’s difficult for me to understand how this can be a positive approach for farmers.
It’s important to note that our approach doesn’t preclude players like John Deere and Monsanto from acquiring farm data. There’s nothing to stop them from collecting data that they own, and nothing to stop farmers from profiting from the data they own.
But there’s a bigger point to call out — Monsanto and Deere are certainly not the only two big data players in agriculture. Why should Big Ag have a monopoly on all of the farming data in the U.S.? Farmers can capture immediate value now by sharing their data with their agronomist or selling it to a genetics company. Waiting 10 years for one of the big companies to deliver on transformative solutions is a bet many farmers can’t afford to take, especially given the current economic climate.
Not to mention that there’s a major conflict of interest between what the farmers want (lowered costs, more yield) and what equipment manufacturers and genetics companies want (more equipment and seed sales, consistent yield). No matter how you slice it, unless a farmer owns his or her data, he or she will be taken advantage of by companies with greater bargaining power.
The Value of Data Today
Respectfully, Richard is dead wrong on this one. Google and Facebook data was also “dirt cheap” 10 years ago, but now it drives 85% of every ad dollar spent online. I will concede that the value of agronomic data is just being priced. But even at its initial offering, the figures are compelling enough for farmers to get off the sidelines and into the game. I live and breathe this every day.
https://medium.com/media/cd894fd774686ae13c91956538f7ff98/href
Data vs. Data analysis
One point I do agree with Richard on is the fact that data in a vacuum is just that; analysis is key.
But I believe a free market with hundreds of thousands of data analysts is more powerful than a data duopoly. Also, left unchecked, how would the farmer ever know what a company like Monsanto and John Deere are prescribing is actually better? Without agnostic bodies for benchmarking and full transparency, farmers will continue to be manipulated and taken advantage of. That’s why it is critical for them to own and share their data deliberately, not blindly.
Especially in an environment where the economics around farming are tightening, one of the best things farmers can do to protect themselves in the long-run is to invest in a data strategy.
Who Knows Best When It Comes to Farm Data? was originally published in The Dirt on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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Homemade Agriculture Equipment inventions #4 – Homemade Farm tool 2017
NN Channel
Homemade farm and garden category offers many different ideas and solutions for creating homebuilt tools to tackle a wide variety of tasks around the farm and garden. Our builds include ideas for various different kinds of farm machines, tractor accessories, planting and harvesting tools, and many more.
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Renewable Energy – The Precise Facts to Know
In a simple word, renewable energy comes from natural cycles and systems, turning the ever-present energy around us into functional forms. Renewable (alternative) energy is mostly cleaner than energy from nonrenewable options such as natural gas, petroleum, and coal. But right now in the U. S. over many of these of our energy still comes from nonrenewable resources.
Such as the name says, green energy can be refilled continuously. Its sources include radiant energy like sun, thermal energy like geothermal, chemical processes like biomass, gravitational energy like hydropower, and motion energy like wind.
A few of the key sources of power include:
Solar
Solar electricity is able to one day solve much of the energy needs, but that day is still very remote. Still, solar technology has become more efficient and cost-effective every year, and it is the fastest-growing kind of renewable energy.
Wind
Wind power is one of the greenest technologies, and also one of the most abounding and cost-competitive energy resources, rendering it a viable option to the non-renewable powers that harm our health and threaten the environment. Yet wind power is unreliable as a frequent source of electricity, impacts great tracts of land, and it is unavailable where wind is intermittent.
Hydro
Harnessing the kinetic power of moving normal water to generate electricity is the major source of renewable power in the USA and worldwide. Hydropower can be a sustainable and nonpolluting power source that can help decrease our dependence on fossil fuels and minimize the threat of global warming, but is limited to areas with large and regular drinking water supplies.
Bio-fuels
Ethanol is the product of crops full of sugar or starch, while biodiesel is the product of crops with high essential oil content. Both are natural carbon fuel, and both provide practical powers which may have not yet reached their full probable. Scientists continue refining food stocks to obtain higher efficiencies.
Geothermal
Heat from the earth, or geothermal energy, is cost effective, reliable, and clean, but is mostly limited to areas near tectonic plate limits. Some progress has recently been made recently in broadening the range of geothermal resources, but geothermal electric power remains a limited solution to our energy needs.
Ocean
Another form of kinetic power technology, the ocean’s frequent motion by way of dunes, tides, and currents is an effective and clean energy resource. Like other hydro power, though, its geographic range is limited.
Renewable Energy and Environment/Climate Change –
There is general arrangement among the world’s major economies that it is essential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2050. And with energy-related Carbon Dioxide accounting for 61 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions today, the energy sector must be at the heart of change.
Europe is committed to a 30 percent reduction by the year 2020 and a 60 to 80 percent decline by 2050, under stipulation that additional developing nations also obligate. To accomplish the things, it will require a huge sum of USD 22 trillion in global energy investments over the next 25 to 30 years.
http://greenhoper.net/info/renewable-energy-the-precise-facts-to-know/
On – 10 Feb, 2017 By greenhoper
