Discussion with Greg Austic - Jul 20

Owned by Lite Farm
Last updated: Mar 28, 2024
2 min read

 

I framed our desire to integrate / re-build models in LiteFarm to generate GHG emissions estimates.

CFT

Planting based (not field based).

Greg mentioned that they had the same issue with CFT. They are using a group API key. As Our-Sci they don’t have a CFT key. Instead groups have to get the key, document it in Our-Sci, and then request it.

As an individual user, you can’t get an API key. You can get credentials. Free access to individual farms. Paid access for enterprises. If we can get the right information to create a user account, we might be able to automatically doing that.

CFT CEO is very non-profit minded, but the board is from larger organizations that are more for-profit. Some mixed messages on this front.

 

CometFarm

Contact @ CSU is Kevin Brown.

Field based (not planting based).

Greg wasn’t 100% sure about the following:

Some sort of an agreement where SoilMetrics bought certain rights of the software from CSU. They have a more professional API. Indigo then bought SoilMetrics. USDA then got mad because they had paid for CSU to build it. Still two services out there. They are more in sync at this point. SoilMetrics connects to Indigo’s carbon markets, CSU does not.

Two services:

  1. Work with CSU (Colorado State) and use their publicly available API - though it’s quite messy

    1. Often down

    2. Poorly documented

  2. SoilMetrics API

Nori did some work to make the inputs actually match the way farmers would record data.

Tricky part here is you can feed in any amount of information and it will give you feedback. No confidence score right now - though this may be changing. For example, Nori figured out what is important and prioritize that in their UI.

Big issue is blank vs. N/A.

Switchboard

V1 in place. Schema + standards for tillage and grazing and such.

Goal:

  • Create a query for both CometFarm and CFT so it doesn’t need to be duplicated

API based? Not currently, but this is Greg’s goal. Kevin at Comet is on the hook to do this. Goal here is you send the entity as it’s understood in FarmOS and the API would return the query for CFT or Comet.

Next steps:

  • Talk to David McMahon* about LF / CFT use cases, Greg can make an intro

  • Talk to Kevin Brown about LF / Comet use cases, Greg can make an intro

  • Greg will share us documentation on Switchboard

  • Greg will loop us in with upcoming CFT and Comet discussions