FARMDATA is web-based database software for entering and reporting crop production records, including seeding, transplanting, harvest, cover crop, compost, fertilization, irrigation, pest scouting, spray activities, packing and distribution records and customer invoicing.
FARMDATA was developed at Dickinson College by Professor Tim Wahls and Dickinson students during the period 2013-2017. It remains in productive use at the Dickinson College Farm, and has also been used by several other organic farms.
In 2020, FARMDATA was used in a Dickinson database course as an example of the application of database principles in a real software product. Later that year, NPFI began providing technical support for FARMDATA to help keep it running productively at the Dickinson Farm and elsewhere. Since 2021, NPFI has begun providing hosting and technical support for FARMDATA at the Spiral Path Farm in Pennsylvania and the Tenmile Farm Foundation in New York.
FARMDATA is also evolving into a completely new HFOSS project called FarmData2, which is based on the popular FarmOS open source platform. The FarmData2 project is an educational initiative led by Dickinson Professor Grant Braught. NPFI is a collaborator this project, which aims to engage a new generation of students in the principles and practice of HFOSS development.
- “Live”version https://npfi.org/farmdata
- “Demo” version: https://farmdata.dickinson.edu/guest.php