At ForestFoods, one of the most significant challenges we face in managing our syntropic systems is the ever-changing variety of crop species on our fields. Traditional technological solutions fall short in providing real-time management insights and performance analytics. To address this, we've taken a unique approach by utilizing off-the-shelf products to custom design a digital ecosystem. This system retrieves and harnesses vast amounts of data, much of which has never been captured before, to provide actionable insights.
ForestFoods Data Collection App
Leveraging Google Cloud Workspace products, we've designed a robust data collection system using Appsheet, compatible with both iOS and Android devices. This system comprises a series of submittable forms, enabling our field teams to capture crucial information via tablets and phones:
Crop Planting: Farm hands can easily log the module they are planting in and select crops from a master list, noting whether they were planted by seed, seedling, or cutting.
Product Harvesting: The production team records all harvests, detailing the volume based on the most desirable denomination of each product (e.g., heads of lettuce, kilos of carrots).
Wastage/Recycling: Any damaged products are logged to track the mass recycled into our system.
Product Sales: Sales managers log all product sales to retail, wholesale, and commercial clients.
Farm Expenses: The accounting team records expenses according to specific hectares of land or field groupings.
Tree Management: Our head botanist logs every tree species planted, focusing on those outside of market-ready fruiting trees.
Forecasting/Harvest Predictions Tool: Our quality control lead uses a custom-built forecasting tool to predict harvest times and relay this information to the marketing and sales teams.
The system is designed to be intuitive, ensuring even those unfamiliar with iOS can easily use it, thereby minimizing errors in data acquisition.
Future Enhancements
We plan to integrate additional data streams such as live feeds from automated soil sensors, rainfall, and weather data from Google Maps, and irrigation consumption rates.
Database and Repository
We utilize Google BigQuery to store the data gathered via the app. XML-coded routines allow us to manipulate data sets, such as calculated growth times, profit and cost distributions, and yields. These data sets are mirrored into Google Sheets for easy access and editing, which is particularly useful for managing:
Master Crop List: Stores agricultural crops with unique identifiers.
Master Product List: Tracks products harvested from each crop, including value-added products like oils, salads, and soups.
In the future, we aim to store data from models predicting carbon sequestration rates of tree crop species, enabling us to estimate CO2 capture capabilities per hectare based on crop consortia.
All sales data streams directly to Google BigQuery for use in our larger infrastructure. We currently use Google Firestore to host data before submitting it to BigQuery. Additionally, we've developed an API integration with Safaricom to facilitate MPESA payments through our store.
ForestFoods Farm Walk Tool
We are developing the "ForestFoods Farm Walk Tool," a web application providing a customizable status board. This tool will enable managers to update crop statuses and report field production challenges during weekly walks. This visualized digital twin of each field will soon drive management decisions and work lists.
Analytics Dashboards and Insights
ForestFoods is transitioning from Google Looker Studio to Tableau for our analytics dashboards. These dashboards showcase metrics such as profitability, crop performance, market favorability, and yield efficiency, derived from field data.
Our goal is to evolve from hosting historical analytics to creating predictive analytics using dependable historical data. Features like long and short-term production forecasts will enable marketing management to promote upcoming products well in advance.
Overall Goals
In the coming year, ForestFoods will consolidate these infrastructural pieces into a single iOS and Android-based application. This app will host everything described above, minus database storage and most analytics managed through Tableau. This unified app will enable us to create investment channels, deploy marketing campaigns, and showcase farm performance to our partners.
ForestFoods is committed to leveraging technology to enhance our syntropic agroforestry systems, ensuring we continue to lead in sustainable and innovative farming practices.
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