Kestrel: A Simple Web App for Community Supported Agriculture
I’m just getting started on a new project nicknamed Kestrel.
The basic idea a simple and user-centered web app that helps facilitate ordering, billing and member management for CSA’s. Things are JUST getting started and I am soliciting help in doing some feasibility research as well as a basic evaluation of existing CSA management applications.
A CSA, (for Community Supported Agriculture) is a way for the food buying public to create a relationship with a farm and to receive a weekly basket of produce. By making a financial commitment to a farm, people become “members” (or “shareholders,” or “subscribers”) of the CSA. Local Harvest
So far were in stage zero: Over the holidays I was brainstorming with some of my agri-geek friends in North Carolina, notably tes thraves. (I like to say that tes is to poverty + agriculture issues as Jay-Z is to hip-hop — a badass producer who just makes things happen.) :) So far there’s been a lot of excitement about it from both consumers and producers.
- Stage zero is lots of talk over drinks around the New Year’s bonfire, basically. Check.
- Stage one is research about what real CSA’s need.
- Stage two is getting a few CSA’s to pilot test a first iteration for a season.
- The rest is iterating and improving based on real feedback. This is the hard part. And the fun part.
The only real spec so far is an application that is incredibly simple and driven purely by a real understanding of the users’ needs.
There is no timeframe yet. I imagine things could take a year or so; nobody’s getting paid by Kestrel.
Codewise, I’ve done some simple scaffolding of the application, but really I think the requirements for this type of thing are simple — the codebase is not really the issue. Just a few forms, login/out and billing. So I’m not looking for help from coders as much as I am trying to garner some interest from A) the users of the application, farmers and consumers and B) people with experience in user-centered application design and user testing.
The goal is a management tool that would simplify the process of ordering food from your CSA, but also serve as an educational model of CSA best practices.
Right now I’m thinking a hosted solution, almost certainly built in Rails. And of course completely Open and Free.
The basic use case comes from my mom : she doesn’t like very much lettuce in her box. Last year she got six heads of lettuce at a time. So ideally mom could just login and set her preference, pay her bill, update her address, give notice that she’s out of town for a month, etc. The farmer then knows exactly how many heads of lettuce to harvest, and can keep the rest in the ground until going to the market on Saturday.
It’s not a new idea, I know. There are several in San Francisco. I haven’t seen them yet. But I am sure that they’re not as good as they can be and I want to put the users at the front of developing a new open source solution.
CSA’s are great for environmental, social and economic reasons. And they’re really just a lot of freaking fun. So if you are a consumer or producer with opinions about what you’d like to see in this type of software, let me know in the comments or unthinkingly-at-gmail.com.
Fantastic, Chris. Count me in.
perfect timing. i’m speaking at a Farmers’ Market annual dinner in 2 weeks about CSAs here in NC…i’ll see if i can get any feedback from the farmer/producer end of things. glad you made it home.
fabulous. will pass this on to farmers I know might be interested and will put it out to the SSAWG CSA session. Shall I just pass on your contact info or do you have printable info you want me to pass out, etc?
keep up the grossly excessive praise–makes me laugh.
hugs,
tes
For now I think that I think it’s just important to get the CSA’s involved, so lets focus on simply getting the conversation started. I really am motivated by building something that is actually used so that we can use it as a platform to replicate some best practices for CSAs (whatever those may be). Here’s to local food!
Oh, and, you guys completely rock.
Sounds like a great idea. I’m interested in this project if I can pitch in — particularly with domain modelling and/or anything related to rails development on the backend, or deployment, or test-first / BDD development guidance.
great idea people. im krumping in the office about it.
i will help wherever i can.
Hey -
This is an excellent idea - I help out with the CSA organization’s (basic) website up in the Portland, OR area
http://pacsac.org
I’m sure you would get some interest here.
One difficult thing I’ve found is that a lot of the CSA owners get extremely busy during summer/harvest months and don’t get to their computers as often as their customers might.
As you mentioned, simplicity I would think would be key here. If you’re looking for some testers/ feedback from the community of CSAs up here let me know and I’ll plug it into their discussion list.
-Ben
Great Ben! I am absolutely looking for testers still. I was just talking to tes (previous commentor) today about getting together some phone interviews. Then I am planning on posting a survey to get some quantiative feedback. I will be in touch soon.
[…] Unthinkingly is looking to start work on building a free, open web app to help CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture - organic farms that sell a share to a family, in essence) facilitate ordering, billing and member management. “The basic use case comes from my mom : she doesn’t like very much lettuce in her box. Last year she got six heads of lettuce at a time. So ideally mom could just login and set her preference, pay her bill, update her address, give notice that she’s out of town for a month, etc. The farmer then knows exactly how many heads of lettuce to harvest, and can keep the rest in the ground until going to the market on Saturday.” […]
Hi Chris, Ben at ideacog forwarded me a link to this site. My wife and I run a csa and farmers market farm outside of Portland, OR. I also work with the Portland CSA coalition.
Amy and I have been dreaming about a setup like your Mom wants. In particular we would like to allow members to select from a menu for a given week. The farmer would update the menu weekly and after the members enter their orders we would get two harvest sheets - one sorted by member and the other by item.
Members would buy a share at the begining of the season as they do now. (Farmers still need the cash infusion early in the year.) The member’s weekly customized share would deduct from their account. When they reach a zero balance they can put more money in the account, quit taking produce, pay as they go, etc.
Some limits may need to be set on quantities of individual items. Members could establish a standing order that gets filled each week if they don’t want to do regular updates. Lots of cool stuff is possible.
We have thought about this a fair amount and have some other ideas to share. Others in the Portland Coalition would surely be willing to provide input and probably do some beta testing for you. Please feel free to contact me at the email I entered on this form. I am not on the email everyday so don’t be alarmed if you don’t hear from me immediately.
Chris Roehm
Square Peg Farm
Hi Chris~
Your ideas for a simple web-based system useful to CSAs are timely and most welcome.
Our CSA comprises 30 families, so communication is not a huge problem (yet). Our website is an educational and marketing tool, and signups are done the old-fashioned way. As our membership grows, a more efficient method of ordering and bilateral communication with our members will be essential.
As Ben stated, CSA farmers don’t have lots of time once the growing gets going, but we still manage to read our email and respond eventually. I will look forward to hearing more about ‘Kestrel’ as the project develops. If you need Beta-version testers, please let us know.
Anne Lawrence
Storytree Farm
These are all great ideas BTW.
Ben: I especially like your point about the simple beauty of the share box on your blog. I would be happy if we do research about the need for this app and then end up throwing it out altogether for something as easy.
I have been hearing a lot of great ideas lately about the project that I would have never thought of. Some of which I think might get in the way of a simple and powerful user experience. It looks like were are going to get started with telephone interviews (including on-the-phone walkthrough of proposed interfaces.
So if anyone would like to give input about some pre-functional mockups, please email me at unthinkingly at gmail.
Also,
Chris Roehm: I love your detail about the two report sheets a farmer needs when they walk away from the computer. I’ll be in touch very soon with lots more questions about stuff like that.
Anne: I love your point that your website is also an educational and marketing tool. It seems like a shame to not use the tool for managing a website as well, so I originally imagined that it would have some capability to manage content online. (like a simple blog that manages just a few pages).
So we should talk on the phone soon, and that goes for anyone reading this who is interested!
Good Morning Chris:
Chris Roehm in on the same page as I am. I have a few other ideas and would love to talk to you. I have included my contact information.
Luisa