UrbanFarmers launches Farm Scout App
Urban Farmers has released an original app that allows everyone with an interest in urban agriculture to discover the feasibility and profitability of developing a rooftop farm in their city. The app, UF Farm Scout, uses geotagging to simply and quickly locate urban rooftops and evaluate them on their potential for use in farming. A user can find a location on the satellite map, mark the outline of their desired farm space, choose a farming method, and even design the farm by choosing from a selection of produce to grow on the farm. The app will then let the user know how much of each product the farm can produce per year and how many people can be fed. The profitability of the farm is calculated by the app in UrbanFarmers dollars, a fictive currency, and is based on real calculations of what a farm of that size could generate. People can share their farms, and connect with others interested in urban agriculture.
The Farm Scout app was ceremoniously launched in front of a small audience at the Impact Hub in Zürich on Tuesday, May 10th.
UrbanFarmers CEO Roman Gaus introduced the event together with Stefan Schöbi, Head of Engagement Migros – a development fund of the Migros Group – that supported UrbanFarmers in the development of the app. Gaus provided the audience with a short summary of the app-creation process; outlining the goals and purposes of the app. According to Gaus, the app was created on the one hand to provide transparency to the public regarding the possibilities of urban farming, and on the other hand it also provides visual data for potential stakeholders. Above all, the app will make the idea and implementation of urban farming more accessible. Stefan Schöbi gave the audience a brief background on Engagement Migros and the aim of pioneering projects the fund is focusing on.
The app was then presented to the audience in a live demo by UrbanFarmers’ director of development Fabian Weinländer. Besides explaining the basic features and the calculation of the data, he offered some insight on how the app may develop in the future. For example how it could be beneficial in real project development. He also suggested that in future the UF dollars mentioned in the app, which are currently simply a symbolic currency, could potentially be transformed into real value for the farm scout who tagged the farm. The UF Dollars could then be exchanged at Urbanfarmers into real value, for example with a farm tour.
Audience members were also treated to a small input from Ruedi Noser, FDP politician and the president of ICT-Switzerland, an association for information, communication and technology. He explained the importance of innovation in the field of digital technology, especially with regard to urban agriculture.
A fun little story about the app was also shared by UrbanFarmers’ head of R&D and co-founder Andreas Graber. As he was tagging farms in the app on a train ride, he discovered an orange dot on the map near his hometown. Apparently “Verein Papierish” had tagged a building of a recently decommissioned paper factory in Cham. Graber took up contact, and after a brief email exchange set a date for a real-life location scout.
Parallel to the launch, UrbanFarmers also recruited some real-life farm scouts: adventurous individuals who feel passionate about the environment. These farm scouts will be spending all their spare time in the next three weeks travelling around Switzerland to the potential farms tagged in the app. Once they find the tagged farms, they will use creative ways to let people nearby know about it.
The 10 recruited scouts were outfitted with farm scout toolkits: a stylish Fjällräven Kanken bag in UrbanFarmer’s signature orange filled with everything they need to spread the word, as well as carry-cases filled with “seedbombs.” These seedbombs are young tomato and strawberry plants that the farm scouts will deposit at the possible future farms – ideally on the roof – as a symbolic start to an urban farm in that location.
The farm scouts left the event loaded with young plants and lots of motivation. Sjanca Oppeliger, age 21, a Camera Arts student from Lucerne, volunteered to be a farm scout because she really wants to bring the idea of urban agriculture to the masses. “I want to make even more people aware of urban farming, and show them that there is still so much more potential. I’m motivated to be part of this community.”
Other volunteer farm scouts, like 32-year-old aspiring mountain guide Paul Eger, see urban farming as a necessity when it comes to sustainable food production in the future. “In my opinion, depending on mass scale farming - induced in chemicals - is an unknown path to disaster.”
For more information:
UrbanFarmers AG
Technoparkstrasse 1
8005 Zürich
Switzerland
mail@urbanfarmers.com
urbanfarmers.com
app.urbanfarmers.com