Problem:
LiteFarm purports to focus on sustainability but doesn’t actually provide guidance on sustainable practices.
Context:
Suggestion to improve LiteFarm’s “sustainability” aspect.
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David thinks we have a great opportunity through UBC and other universities for graduate students to incorporate these types of suggestions regionally.
Proposal:
Proposing “Sustainable tool-tips” throughout the app, which could combine tracking of past crops and behaviours with recommended suggestions
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Look at previous crop plans on a particular location and suggest suitable companion plantings. These can discourage pests - e.g. planting tomatoes and corn in the same location season after season can encourage corn earworm that can colonize both. This type of tooltip could reduce the need for pesticide and fungicides.
If a farm has a lot of weeding tasks, we could suggest mulching and link to an article on how to do it and it’s benefits.
For harvesting tasks, could have different harvest techniques to assist. For example, apples are best stored at 30 - 35 F with 90 - 95% relative humidity.
Benefits:
Provides the user with suggestions for how they can possibly move towards more sustainable practices
Feedback from the group:
Duncan Brain: Do you see this as an interim solution on the way to these suggestions becoming more “core” features in the future or is this the end of the road on this?
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Richard Wasswa (Unlicensed): LiteFarm doesn’t fully support farmers right now. For example, the connectivity requirement is a barrier.
Execution:
Lite Farm: If we wanted to implement this we could incorporate a few easy thumbs up / thumbs down “Was this helpful?” to gauge user feedback. We could also do a A/B testing with a user group.