Urban Agriculture & Education

This week we had a departmental meeting at HCC--usual stuff. One of our buildings is slated to be remodeled. That go me thinking about the planned remodeling of Kuykendall on the UHM campus and my recent conversations with my friend Bryan about urban agriculture--especially after the Honolulu Weekly published this feature story about the need for urban agriculture movements in Hawai'i.

My bucket list should also be my grocery list.

I asked at the HCC meeting if anything in the current renovation plans included urban agriculture. At the same time that Hawai'i has the 5th lowest obesity rate in the nation, we also have a Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander population that is 3.7 more times likely to be obese compared to our Asian populations. Many of my students express a liking for Costco's cafeteria, where a full lunch can be purchased for under $5. This concerns me.

Many of my students are commuters or ride the bus, so transportation time takes away much of their discretionary time that might be used to prepare lunches in advance at home. Ever tried to each a salad after a 45-minute commute? With no access to refrigeration? Many of my students also come from households with financial hardships, or they work two jobs. Many of them have neither the time nor the capital to shop for organic foods--or even fresh foods for that matter.

My students, shoot even I, need a source of free/cheap local, organic produce. HCC has the Kalo farm where students can volunteer, and I see the occasional Papaya trees, but we could do so much more. Most of the objections to urban agriculture come from maintenance sectors, who reasonably want to avoid spoiled fruits/ veggies that attract bugs. However, the HCC language division alone is 40-50 people. If each faculty member invested one hour a week to care for one plant, we could have 40-50 plants. My friend Cara and I ended up chatting about this after our meeting ended.

So to get to my point for this post...I started to wonder if there was an app for that. So I Googled "urban agriculture app" and got 60 million hits. Excited, I clicked the first site that popped up, Food and Tech. Disappointed, I went back to Google when all 5 of the apps reviewed were for iPhones only. After (much) more searching, I found several promising food apps:

Compost News

Available on Android
Android Market Rating: 1 star
Created: February 28, 2011 by Hippyapps
Memory: 10.39 KB
Price: FREE

What it does: It is a newsfeed on composting.

My Review: Loaded in less than a minute--however, I could only get it load once before it froze several times. This is one more to try tomorrow.

Why I didn't review Farmbox: This app allows Android users to set up a growing system regulated by a smart phone, but it had a lighting rig rather than using sunlight, as in wall gardens, roof gardens, and bucket/lanai gardens. Since I want methods that use zero electricity and that will work on a large scale (like for a community college campus and a university campus), this app isn't really an option for what I want.

Fooducate

Available on Android
Android Market Rating: 4.5 Stars
Created: February 17, 2012 by Fooducate, LTD.
Memory: 3.71 MB
Price: FREE
Updates from Previous Version:

• Improved alternatives & search algorithms
• Bug fixes

What It's Supposed to Do--Market Description: "Scan and choose healthy groceries."
Criticisms from the Comments Forum: error messages, needs a bigger product database, cryptic information, can be slow, phone freezes, no grocery list function, snide editorials, trouble scanning codes with (HTC Evo, HTC G2, Sprint Epic, Galaxy Nexus Gsm), no option to save things you may want to buy in the future
My Review:

Although this app was a quick download (less than a minute), when I opened it, I immediately got an error message. After several restarts, I kept getting this message. Looks like I'll have to try this one tomorrow.

Garden Guide

Available on Android
Android Market Rating: 3.5 stars
Created: November 4, 2011
Memory:0.93 MB
Price: FREE

What it does: Provides basic articles about growing specific plants and general gardening techniques.

Criticisms from the Comments Forum: missing instructions, unintuitive setup, freezing, crashing, content not downloaded to Droid 2

My Review: Took less than a minute to download the app, but downloaded content and registration took about 3 minutes. Once I got into the app, I found a list of articles about growing various plants and 3 buttons: Crops, Techniques, and Resources. I then realized that the menu was the interface for Crops, so I switched to Techniques. This menu looks the same as Crops, but with articles specifically devoted to the how part of gardening. Resources took me to a bulletin-like page with a somewhat short list of ouside resources, newsletters, software, etc.

Locavore

Available on iPhone and Android
Android Market Rating: 3.5 stars
Created: February 29, 2012 by Local Dirt
Memory: 2.75 MB
Price: FREE
Updates from Previous Version:

• CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) information added
• Photoes, likes comments enables for farms, farmer's markets, CSAs
  

What It Does: Search for and share in-season, local food. Maps farms, farmer's markets, and CSAs based on your GPS location.

Criticisms from the comments forum: Excessive permissions, frequent freezing on GalNex, missing recipes in recipe section, some freezing/loading issues

My review:
The setup of my profile took less than 2 minutes, upon which I was greeted by a clean and simple interface that included options to "Share" by taking a photo, choosing from a gallery, or used a pic from the app.

The "Forage" option is a Facebook like board where other local users connect to you. This might be a great way to find people dedicated to urban agriculture projects! So far, there are users from Honolulu, Kailua, Kaneohe, Pearl City, and Kahului.

The "Local" button took me to a screen that showed my closest setter today is the Makiki District Park (People's Open Market). Clicking the "Local Sellers" button takes me to a list of several, organized by which are closest to my current GPS location. Users can also choose to sort these results by Farm, Farmer's Market, or CSA.

The " In Season" button on the interface screen showed that Papayas are peaking in season (and reminds me to eat the one I bought at the UHM Farmer's Market this week). Clicking the button takes me to a list that shows what's currently in season and for how much longer. For example, Green Onions, Kumquats and Winter Squash have 4 weeks left from today. When I kept scrolling, I came to a list at the bottom for "Coming in Season Soon." Now that I know the markets will have Okra in 4 weeks, I can plan for making gumbo!

Below the "Local" and "In Season" buttons is "Locavore," which shows the user(s) closest to me in miles.

The "Recipes" button doesn't work--all I get is a message "That's not available right now but will be shortly--check the market for updates!"

The "Me" button takes me to a food profile page, much like Facebook's interface.

Overall, I like this app and will definitely be using it as I transition from busing to biking and will need to shop in smaller amounts more frequently.

Organic Gardening for Beginners

Available on the Android
Market Rating:
Created:
Memory:

Price: $1.34

What it does: This app is basically an online version of a book about organic farmin.,

My review: The "chapters" are very short and might make good reading assignments--particularly in HCC's developmental classes if tied in with service learning.

True Food

Available on the Android

Market Rating:4 Starts
Created: July 7, 2012 by Center for Food Safety
Memory:577
Price: FREE

What does it do? I'm not too sure actually--their website is pretty vague on how this app works, but it sounds like to would help me find GMO products so I can choose alternative brands.

My Review: Loads the install in less than a minute. The greeting screen has 4 buttons: What's New, 4 Simple Tips, Join the Network, Support Us. I choose to start with joining the network and, once again, get an error message. Looks like this is another one to try again tomorrow.