Linux Foundation Launches Open Source Agriculture Infrastructure Project (venturebeat.com) 20
"The Linux Foundation has lifted the lid on a new open source digital infrastructure project aimed at the agriculture industry," reports VentureBeat:
The AgStack Foundation, as the new project will be known, is designed to foster collaboration among all key stakeholders in the global agriculture space, spanning private business, governments, and academia.
As with just about every other industry in recent years, there has been a growing digital transformation across the agriculture sector that has ushered in new connected devices for farmers and myriad AI and automated tools to optimize crop growth and circumvent critical obstacles, such as labor shortages. Open source technologies bring the added benefit of data and tools that any party can reuse for free, lowering the barrier to entry and helping keep companies from getting locked into proprietary software operated by a handful of big players...
The AgStack Foundation will be focused on supporting the creation and maintenance of free and sector-specific digital infrastructure for both applications and the associated data. It will lean on existing technologies and agricultural standards; public data and models; and other open source projects, such as Kubernetes, Hyperledger, Open Horizon, Postgres, and Django, according to a statement.
"Current practices in AgTech are involved in building proprietary infrastructure and point-to-point connectivity in order to derive value from applications," AgStack executive director Sumer Johal told VentureBeat. "This is an unnecessarily costly use of human capital. Like an operating system, we aspire to reduce the time and effort required by companies to produce their own proprietary applications and for content consumers to consume this interoperably."
As with just about every other industry in recent years, there has been a growing digital transformation across the agriculture sector that has ushered in new connected devices for farmers and myriad AI and automated tools to optimize crop growth and circumvent critical obstacles, such as labor shortages. Open source technologies bring the added benefit of data and tools that any party can reuse for free, lowering the barrier to entry and helping keep companies from getting locked into proprietary software operated by a handful of big players...
The AgStack Foundation will be focused on supporting the creation and maintenance of free and sector-specific digital infrastructure for both applications and the associated data. It will lean on existing technologies and agricultural standards; public data and models; and other open source projects, such as Kubernetes, Hyperledger, Open Horizon, Postgres, and Django, according to a statement.
"Current practices in AgTech are involved in building proprietary infrastructure and point-to-point connectivity in order to derive value from applications," AgStack executive director Sumer Johal told VentureBeat. "This is an unnecessarily costly use of human capital. Like an operating system, we aspire to reduce the time and effort required by companies to produce their own proprietary applications and for content consumers to consume this interoperably."
Indoor farming (Score:3)
Indoor farming is the future. Stacked plants, gene-modded for efficiency and growing under lights. Probably will have to hire a bunch of consultants from the Emerald Triangle to get it optimal.
Re: Indoor farming (Score:2)
Land isnâ(TM)t free.
Re: (Score:2)
An acre of land in a remote rural area of the USA costs less than a few square feet of your indoor farming space in a big city.
Re: (Score:2)
But the commute to the job that pays for that land will cost a fortune. Maybe if remote working stays prominent then the top 20% of earners have the choice to uproot their families and move to West Bumfuck, OH to eke out a living amongst the mega-size cornfields, but for the bottom 60% that's a non-starter. Most rural areas are already impoverished due to a lack of jobs, and the last thing they need is more competition for the 3 cashier jobs at the Dollar General.
Realistically, small-hold farming is not e
Re: (Score:2)
Indoor farming, or farming on tiny plots, is a nice hobby for those who enjoy it. But it's not the future, unless you mean a future hobby. Subsistence farming is the past.
The person who lives in the 400 sqft apartment doesn't need to move to the rural area, they just need to realize they're not going to feed the nation and that the guy who owns a hundred rural acres and lives out there is always going to dwarf them in agricultural output. If you're urban, you're free to do whatever it is you came to the cit
Re: Indoor farming (Score:2)
Re: Indoor farming (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I found MySql to be the only comparable RDS with the features I wanted, but why is PostgreSQL on your shit list?
In the Northern Ontario Claybelt (Score:3, Insightful)
Tough sell. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure farmers would love open source stuff but there is a serious problem here: hardware. John Deer isn't just closed source hardware, they actively prevent other people from repairing let alone modify their systems. There is also a problem with farmers being a very very small part of the population. The ones that are large enough to actually make their own software are not about to share it because they are big businesses with a financial interest in making it harder for everyone else (thereby keeping prices higher and thus increasing their profit margin). The only ones that might be interested in this are small device manufacturers who again, have a financial interest in being as closed as possible as to ward off competition since it's a niche market.
I certainly hope to be proven wrong but I don't foresee this being successful.
Re: Tough sell. (Score:2)
Seems like a big problem. But whenever a problem exists, there is a need for a solution. It sounds like a big opportunity is in there for someone. Granted they will need to figure out how to crack it, which domains to go at first and how crack that market. Everything has weak or neglected spots in which to grab a toehold.
Re: (Score:3)
If there were a million farmers that were hackers, sure. Alas, there are very few which is why I think there is a low chance of success. Also, non-farmer hackers cannot help because they do not have access the hardware. On top of that the hardware is absurdly expensive. Just too much is working against farmers.
Re: (Score:2)
Without software it is very difficult to modify other brands of hardware to do what they need.
But with standard software available, then 3rd party suppliers can offer mod kits for other brands of tractors and machines, that add the modern features the farmers want. And they understand what mod kits are, they know people who have them on their trucks. They understand what it means to replace an ECM on a Toyota or whatever.
Re: (Score:2)
with standard software available, then 3rd party suppliers can offer mod kits for other brands of tractors and machines
Well... let's all wait for someone to write code for a FOSS tractor ECU and reap the rewards. /s
ECU replacements are model specific and either closed source or nearly unusable. I love FOSS as much as the next guy but this is super niche.
AG IT sucks (Score:2)
I worked for an AG IT company for a time.
Commercial agg IT gear is problematic.
The machinery is commercial in confidence,
The software and hardware might suit a limited range of equipment.
The cost of development doesn't pay off.
Linux has shown the way forward for open source development to work with a very wide range of equipment and applications.