Internet Farmer

I am excited to announce a big change at Internet Farmer.  As of today, the company goes from me, Jeremy Bloom, the Internet Farmer, to an official partnership. The new addition is Matt Hokanson (aka Hoke), a friend,  excellent programmer, and, in general, good guy.

Over the past couple of years we’ve been developing a software business called BuyingClubSoftware.com.  Originally an independent venture, we’ve decided to bring it under the umbrella of Internet farmer.

After working on my own for the last 20 years, contracting my programming work out along the way, having Matt as the go-to-guy for Internet Farmer is going to be great.

You can learn more about Matt at his website, h0ke.com.

The following is a basic demonstration of a local-food-oriented shopping system for online ordering followed by in-person pickup.  An add-on module is available if you manage multiple pickup locations.

The design may be different on your shopping cart, but these functions are basically the same.

First we setup your products and categories and producers through simple forms like this in the shopping cart manager

If you have added our Multi-Location module,
you’ll setup all of your pickup locations

When you are open for shopping, people easily
browse the site and add products to their cart as they go.

As they shop, things are added to their shopping cart

While the customer goes through the checkout process,
they are asked for a pickup location (if you use that module)

After confirming their order, a shopper gets an email receipt

After the order is closed, you can easily
view and edit customer’s orders if you need to

Print paper receipts for customers or you use
them as part of your order distribution process

With a special add-on for Zen Cart from Apsona, you can access all the information you need for operations.  Pick sheets, order sheets, and the ability to import/export of all your data (customers,products, etc)

A couple days ago, a new client of the Internet Farmer made news for the work we are doing together.  Yay for them, and yay for us!

Enjoy…

http://www.pressherald.com/news/group-grows-winter-business-with-online-farmers-market_2010-12-27.html

If you are interested in our system that does this, please see our E-Commerce service page.

After getting their recent newsletter I found MOFGA to be doing a weekly radio show up in Blue Hill, ME.  You can hear it online if you are not in the listening area.

For me, this is very exciting to hear people I see at the big events, and who organize many of the events I go to where I have learned about food and farm.  I’m so happy to see them moving in to new ways of activism and communication.

Enjoy!

http://archives.weru.org/common-ground-radio

Meridith Goad, food writer for the Portland Press Herald, wrote an article on Kombucha a few days ago and it inspired me to share this food.

Kombucha, a fermented tea, is new for me, and I love it. Tea and water are great, but Kombucha goes the extra mile.  Sweet, tart, a little fizz, and heathy drink for your insides.  And it’s becoming popular here in Portland to the point where a few local brewers are popping up.

For me, the best part of liking this drink is learning to make it myself.  You can make gallons of it yourself at home quite easily, instead of paying $4/8oz jar in the store.

It has been a fun science experiment to learn how to make it to my specific taste, and my replacement to the many commercial soft drinks I used to drink.  And lately it always comes up in conversation, so it’s great for parties. (insert bad joke)

For even more detail, check out Wikipedia.

Happy Fermenting!

Do you brew?  What and how do you brew?  Please share by leaving comments.

At the 2010 Dept. of Ag Show in Augusta, MOFGA held their annual member meeting.  For those who missed it, here you are…

 

Download MP3

I attended the show on the first day and sat in on this discussion about addressing “what’s happening in Maine with growing our own grains”, the session was full of people doing great things with grains.

Enjoy!

 

Download MP3

This was my first trip to the Farmer to Farmer Conference, and I had a great time. I really loved the location.  Everyone was super nice and down to earth, smart and fun loving.  The younger farmers with the kids in tow are beautiful, and I got to share some food and laughs with lots of farmers I buy from here in Portland at the Farmer’s Market and through the Portland Food Co-op.

A big thank you and shout out to Melissa White at MOFGA. You’ve given me some great learning opportunity, and a fun project for me that is also serious.  If I can’t be a farmer, volunteering to support the ways of the small organic farmer is the next best thing.

OK, on to the audio recordings from around the conference...

Each recording is around 2 hours 15 minutes.  The audio towards the end where it is discussion may be too low, but it’s worth hearing.

Keynote Address
E. Ann Clark, Associate Professor, University of Guelph, Ontario Canada

 

Download MP3

Farm Financial Planning
Richard Wiswall, Cate Farms

 

Download MP3

New Food Safety Policies: What do they mean for your farm?
Russell Libby, MOFGA Executive Director
Cheryl Wixson, MOFGA
Jim Ostergard

 

Download MP3

Natural and Organic Honeybee Keeping for Crop Pollination
Ross Conrad, Dancing Bee Gardens
Christie Hemenway, Gold Star Honeybees
Luis Feliciano, Miel Farm & Apiary

 

Download MP3

Regano™ Project for Parasite Control
Diane Schivera, MOFGA’s Organic Livestock Specialist
Perry Ells, Ells Farm

 

Download MP3

A great article on getting started as a small business on Facebook was in the NY Times today, was the “Most Emailed”.  Follow these words of wisdom, and you’ll make a good showing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/business/smallbusiness/12guide.html

After you read the article, keep in mind that with Internet Farmer’s Newsletter Blog, you can automatically update your Facebook page, as well as MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other social network, at the same time as posting to your blog.

This is far from a political blog, but in this article from the NY Times today, I was THRILLED to see that WhiteHouse.gov is now run by the open-source software package called Drupal.

For me as the Internet Farmer, I love open-source. The software is free, and after using it for over 15 years I’m pretty good at helping clients use it.  It is the basis of most of my business.  Without it, I would have no choice but to charge high fees that farmers may not afford.  Using free software allows me to focus on service, and that is what client’s pay for.

Personally, I don’t use Drupal.  It’s a much larger package than me or my clients need in most cases.  I keep it simple by using two open-source packages that do most of what anyone needs. I use WordPress for my Blog Newsletter, and Zen Cart for E-commerce.  That covers 95% of what anyone needs for their website(s).

What is “open-source software”?

You can find the details of what open-source software is technically here.  It can be quite technical and focus on distribution and the code itself, when you get down to it.  For me, the keys to open-source are these simple principles:

• It’s free to download and use
• You can change the code to make improvements as long as you are willing to share those changes
• We all benefit from the improvements that we and others make

It’s a real do-it-yourself thing, and it is supported by thousands of programmers and users around the world.  People writing software like this are literally giving back by letting the community use, and improve upon, their software.  That last part is key… improve upon.

When you make the software better and share it with people, we are all better off for it. I think that idea goes a long way here.  Not much different than two farmers sharing ideas is it?

If you are ready to start using open-source software, contact me today, or start some discussion below.