Agroecology is a scientific discipline that uses ecological theory to study, design, manage and evaluate agricultural systems that are productive but also resource conserving. Agroecological research considers interactions of all important biophysical, technical and socioeconomic components of farming systems and regards these systems as the fundamental units of study, where mineral cycles, energy transformations, biological processes and socioeconomic relationships are analyzed as a whole in an interdisciplinary fashion.
For starters, most things we consume come from agriculture, like food, fuel, medicine, shelter and transportation. Secondly, modern agriculture is concentrated on a small number of varieties designed for intensive farming, so it's like designer dogs: they're not the healthiest kind. Monoculture is when you cultivate only one variety of a crop on a determined area. And when you do that, you only take nutrients from the soil and you don't give it back, so after a certain amount of time, usually a few years, you cannot farm that soil anymore and you have to spend more money on another piece of land. Conclusion: monoculture is not financially nor environmentally sustainable. Also, needless to say, farmers work & life conditions are rarely taken into account.
Well, you probably never heard of agroecology before. And, if you have, it wasn't in any high-tech related website. So I want to create an app that aims to be a step-by-step guide to starting an agroecological agroecosystem anywhere (for meanings, check sources and glossary below). And by anywhere, I actually mean anywhere: a balcony, a flat, a street corner, a school, a farm. Whoever you are and wherever you are you can practice agroecology and help save the planet or, at least, delay our self-destruction. Plus, you'll get free food.
That's a secret I'll never tell, xoxo, Gossip Girl. Kidding. My name is Thayna (pronounciation is up to you), I was born and currently live in Brazil. I've been studying agroecology since 2013 and web development since 2014. Do I know how to design an app? No way. My plan is to first create a website to showcase the minimum features of the future app, so that I can test it all, before learning a whole new programming language (that I would study anyway at some point in my life, because I'm too curious). Here's a prototype I'm working on: Brazilian Portuguese version
Here's my website, tell me what you think!
Because I need as much help as I can get, not only for the app, but also for the website. This is a big project, probably of my biggest challenges, and I'd love to know who's interested in it. Let's get this party started.
I don't really have a job, I work as a part-time waitress and I sell snacks. So if you can buy me a coffee, it'd help a lot, send me an email: thaynacoelhodasilva@gmail.com If you're an app developer, can you tell the best way to start this project?
- What is the overall goal of your app?
- How does your app address the issue or problem?
- What solution does your app give?
- Who are your users?
- How many users are you expecting?
- What are your users’ requirements? Why are your users using this app? What do they need in order to be satisfied with this app?
- What technologies do your users’ use? Are they Android or iOS users? Both? Will they need to access their account online through a computer?
No idea yet.
- Login systems
- User profiles
- Geolocation services
- Payment proccessing
- Push notifications
- Search
In progress.
https://agroeco.org/ http://www.fao.org/docs/eims/upload/207703/fiche%20wp3.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agroecology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agroecosystem http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.es.26.110195.001221
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1477-8947.1997.tb00699.x/full https://www.idrc.ca/en/article/facts-figures-food-and-biodiversity http://www.sustainabletable.org/982/agriculture-energy-climate-change http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/167301467999716265/pdf/96226-REVISED-WP-PUBLIC-Box391469B-Mobile-Applications-for-ARD-v8S-Complete.pdf http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.es.26.110195.001221 http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2015/05/05/090224b082e3e4bb/Rendered/PDF/Mobile0applica0nd0rural0development.pdf http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Syngenta_Report_on_mAgriculture_abridged_web_version.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/eb33/89189d36fe4784409934865a028ea3a6c362.pdf
Minimum Viable Product http://perfectedtech.com/step-step-guide-planning-app/ https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Fundamentals http://mashable.com/2012/02/24/mobile-app-planning/#EYaWXzMyliqj https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Apps/Design/Planning/Planning_your_app
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience_design https://www.udemy.com/user-experience-design-fundamentals/learn/v4/overview https://br.udacity.com/course/ux-design-for-mobile-developers--ud849/
https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c64c/ec41a5947b3709dc4423922d5889a580a700.pdf
Agroecosystem: "the basic unit of study in agroecology, and is somewhat arbitrarily defined as a spatially and functionally coherent unit of agricultural activity, and includes the living and nonliving components involved in that unit as well as their interactions."