Startup Idea: Customizable Farm Planner Software for Small CSA Farmers
I am a small CSA farmer. I started my business as a roadside farm stand but now have expanded it to provide fruits and vegetables for five "shareowners". By 2020 I plan to have thirty shareowners. When I first started my farm I only grew on a 500 square foot plot. However, our current property is six acres and we plan to grow vegetables on an acre. When our plot was so small it was simpler, although time consuming, to plan the vegetable plantings by hand.
Completing this work digitally would save so much time. Unfortunately, the product I would love to have is just not out there. There are programs for home gardeners, not small business owners, that allow you to plan a very basic graphic for a square foot style garden. What I do not like is that I cannot control the in-row and between-row spacing of crops; this is preset and does not reflect the growing method I use. This is not applicable to professional growers.
Specifically, I'm looking for a software that allows me to plan custom biointensive row spacing for custom-length and custom-width rows. I would be willing to pay $50 for a year's subscription to this service. Plotting this information by hand is quite time consuming because it requires precise measuring, ruling, sketching, and more than could be simplified on a software program. I would compare it to an engineer having the choice between designing a conveyor belt either by hand or via CAD; both work, but one is incredibly efficient. Yes. I searched terms like "farm planner", "garden planning software", "biointensive row planner". I solved the problem by working by hand.
Submitter: Victoria - (view contact info)