Farmapper Progress 2021-2022
Farmapper Progress 2021-2022
We must control our destiny.
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The Farmapper journey has been to put the landholder and farmer in control of their own data and operation. We’re very proud of what we have accomplished in 5 years of continuous building. This is still just the beginning!
In recent decades, technology has continued to mystify, disorient, and disrupt. The amount of data available via internet, satellite, and databases is continuing to overwhelm users and businesspersons who naturally want to feel the dirt in our hands. How do we harness these tools to benefit all parties in the agricultural landscape? How do we capture the value from our data, on the land we farm? Conglomerates have this data. How do we wrest back control?
In 2021 we have added additional data layer capabilities. Click on a point and pull in the Assessor parcel shape, owner, and description information. Farm Progress knows how powerful easy to use agtech is for folks. Farmapper feature demos were buried, so we aggregated the tutorials into a simple to navigate user guide Wiki. Experimentation is central to our core. We began to use Web3 as a central data layer. Through Blockchain, and using NFT’s as relational databases, we determine management of real assets on the internet is inevitable. With the latest upgrade we enable NFT metadata for easy export and simple ability to mint real property NFTs.
As we’ve cascaded into 2022, data API’s are ubiquitous and more data is incentivized to leave siloed gardens. First to data puddles, to data lakes and whole data oceans will form. We will begin to integrate Blockchain technology and decentralized finance to allow farmers, landlords and advisors to manage their assets in an increasingly automated and permissionless manner. Oracles (off-chain data feeds delivering data on-chain) and data feeds will allow more complex and powerful interactions, risk management, derivatives and insurance.
In a future where farmers own their data, they will be able to teleport value instantly, remove intermediaries such as escrow agents and other middlemen and create new forms of legal agreements that use consensus-generating blockchain technology to ensure efficient resolution of agreements. Buy and sell hay as an NFT, and click a button to release the funds upon delivery. This avoids or reduces fraudulent pyramid schemes such as kiting where the hay broker is broke. Similarly using onchain proof of collateralization would reduce bankruptcy risk of having to rely on intermediaries that hold funds in the middle.
From a simple polygon shape, a Farmapper project becomes so much more. It is layered with data and documents that prove ownership, demonstrate productivity, and due diligence on water, soil, and environment. From the farm shape, we will integrate to allow API calls to data layers, to get robust imagery, overlays, and feeds that are catered to the farm. Through NFTs, we will manage the farm assets and enter into leases, estate planning and financing transactions peer to peer, or peer to cooperative.
The last five years have been challenging for Farmapper in many ways, but as they say in Jurassic Park “Life finds a way.” One of the main lessons I’ve learned is that building features and products isn’t enough, we need to educate and provide value in a world cluttered with conflicts and marketing. So, sadly, you’ll be receiving more marketing from Farmapper.
Do farmers want their tractor manufacturer to know more about their farm than they do? Do they want to have to subscribe to know what their historical inputs are? The time is now to build the data ownership of the commons, or the tragedy of data owned and meted out and licensed by the few will clearly be the future.
Who We Are
As we embark on this next chapter, we come to core values. Farmapper will be a coordination tool to allow agriculture to stand stronger together. We will ride hard for the brand, and we will allow coordination in data, in finance, and as a community to put all of agriculture on the map.
I’m proud of Farmapper, and I’m excited about what comes next as agriculture meets the Web3 internet of value. It is a future that we will need to own together. If this is the future you want to see, help us coordinate, help us free data and share information to the common good. The future is going to be beyond anything we can imagine.