Open Source Stories: Farming for the future

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A new crop of farmers is rising in some unlikely places. What are the farmers of tomorrow doing with open tools and principles today?

Build your own farm

With our Co.Lab kit and your own seeds, you can use open source tools to make an indoor mini-farm.

Purchase a Co.Lab kit

Cultivating Change

What do you do when healthy food is hard to find? In west Baltimore, high school students are growing it for themselves―and finding their place in the food system.

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The Open Farmer

Dorn Cox knows restoring our environment is too big a job for one person to do alone. Open source agriculture means he doesn’t have to.

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Common Connections

For Melanie Shimano and Charlie Reisinger, open source is a way to empower students far beyond graduation.

Watch their conversation

From the film

Dorn Cox

Research director, Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment

Open source hardware and software manage many tasks at Wolfe’s Neck Center and on Cox’s own farm in Freeport, Maine. Open source philosophy is the foundation of Farm Hack, Gathering for Open Ag Tech (GOAT) and FarmOS, online projects Dorn cofounded to give farmers new ways to share projects and knowledge.

Connect with Farm Hack

Chris Regini

STEAM educator, Half Hollow Hills (N.Y.) Central School District

Regini and his students at West Hollow Middle School are growing food indoors using a hydroponics system built on open source hardware and software. They’re exchanging what they learn with students across the country and around the world.

Explore West Hollow Middle

Chantell Mason

Science and computer science teacher, Steger 6th Grade Center

Tractor, harvester, Raspberry Pi: Mason is showing students in St. Louis, Mo., a new set of high-tech agriculture tools. Her classes have used the Raspberry Pi to build aquaponic gardens that nourish fish and flora at the same time.

Explore Steger 6th Grade Center

Peter Webb and Drew Thomas

Cofounders, MARSfarm

As the CEO and COO, respectively, of the St. Louis startup MARSfarm, Peter Webb and Drew Thomas are trying to raise interest in agriculture and STEM education by exploring ways to grow food on Mars. MARSfarm developed an affordable food computer and shared the plans for it. More than 100 groups have downloaded the kit and built their own.

Explore MARSfarm

Melanie Shimano

Founder, Food Computer Program

In Shimano’s Food Computer Program, high school students at Green Street Academy in west Baltimore have built food computers and taught younger kids at other schools how to do the same. Shimano and her pupils are showing their community a healthier way to eat by sharing what they grow―and what they learn.

Explore the Food Computer Program