Southwest Florida gets farming ‘Facebook’ – Florida AP – MiamiHerald.com.
After would-be farmers swamped her office phone lines looking for land, manure and other agricultural resources last year, a South Florida resource conservation coordinator created a website to help link farmers to their community.
Part Craiglist and part Facebook, Farmlink tries to help would-be farmers find land, landowners find farmers and provide general assistance to anyone interested in local agriculture.
Created by the Florida West Coast Resource Conservation and Development, the site wants to strengthen local economies throughout Florida by connecting growers and consumers in a network that not only improves small business communication but community awareness as well.
Farmer’s will be able to market their crops before harvest, landowners can find labor to tend their orchards, and anyone interested could find a truckload of manure ready for home delivery.
2 Comments
August 13, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Farmlink is a great tool. I really like how you are putting this information out there to help others. Connecting with communities, customers and other farmers via the web is becoming more and more important each day for Florida farmers.
August 13, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Thanks for commenting Sarah. I also really like what localharvest.org is doing with their nationwide, geographically searchable local food map. I’m looking for a concise way for backyard and hobby gardeners to communicate online, outside of a typical question and answer forum. Specifically, I think it would be interesting if folks involved in food not lawns types of gardening in an area could keep up with other gardeners/farmers to coordinate their activities and increase crop diversity and overall abundance. Just thoughts.