reposted here with permission from Kristy Boyle. Originally published at http://openmaterials.org/2010/03/24/refarm-the-city-open-source-tools-for-urban-farmers/

Refarm the city (aka re:farm) is a collective project started and led by Hernani Dias with the purpose of developing open source software and hardware tools for urban farmers.

In its creators’ words, the project is a cross between a good meal (the crop, the seeds, the friends), hardware (the urban farm, the composter, the electronics, the sensors, the recycled materials), and software (applications that help you build a farm according to your needs, local crops, and gastronomy).

Re:farm seeks to provide people with tools to easily create, manage and visualize their urban farms. Its ultimate goals are to encourage the production and consumption of local goods, using methods that respect the environment, and promote organic agriculture, science, biodiversity, and local gastronomy.

The group has been hard at work for about a year now and, as you can see on their wiki, already has several sensors and boards ready to be reproduced, while other components (such as the software) are in advanced stages of design and development.

The tools being developed by the refarm the city project allow urban farmers to:

:: design a farm according to location, physical conditions, materials available, social network, and local gastronomy.

:: open access to low budget solutions and instructions on how to build, and what materials to use, for different models of urban farms.

:: monitor and control the farm in real time, on the computer (re:farm on the sofa), remotely (re:farm on vacations), and on the wall (re:farm on the wall).

:: visualize the relationship between personal needs and local farming conditions, based on data provided by the user, as well as data about local crops and different sustainable farming methods.

:: visualize the relationship between the current time of the year, local weather, vegetable growth, and farm maintenance.

Tiago Henriques, a member of the re:farm development team, is starting an urban vegetable patch at altLab (our Lisbon hackerspace). It would be great to see other hackerspaces join in 🙂

low budget humidity and water level sensors

watering system

physical interfaces for visualization of water level, humidity, temperature, and light

online data visualization of humidity, temperature, and light

xs farm on wheels (recently built in Buenos Aires during a 2 day re:farm workshop)

xl farm on wheels

re:farm on the wall :: 3 electronic boards and 1 chicken 🙂

the re:farm software helps urban farmers design a farm (according to location, physical conditions, materials available, social network, and local gastronomy), and visualize/control their farms in real time

the scarecrow contains the re:farm on vacations electronic board (watering control, soil temperature, soil humidity, and light information)

More information about refarm the city:

blog :: refarmthecity.org

wiki :: refarmthecity.org/wiki

photos :: refarm on flickr