Educational Resources

The OpenTEAM community views agriculture as a shared human endeavor with the goal of providing everyone with the best possible, site-specific, and data-driven agricultural knowledge to improve soil health. Increasing carbon sequestration, water infiltration, and ultimately creating a more resilient agriculture starts with improving soil health.

• NRCS: Soil Health 
• Soil Health Institute
• Soil Carbon Coalition
• NACD Soil Health Champions Network
• OATS
• NE Cover Crops Council

Research

• Gold Standard for the Global Goals – Land Use Forests Activity Requirements
• Gold Standard for the Global Goals – Soil Organic Carbon Framework Methodolgy.pdf
• Gold Standard for the Global Goals – Guidelines for the Development of SOC Activity Modules.pdf
• Methodology Webinar

Field Methods and Protocols

• Our Carbon Series, led in partnership with Point Blue Conservation Science, explored key considerations for carbon quantification methodologies for various goals, scales, and management practices.
• Introducing the North American project to evaluate soil health measurements

OpenTEAM is developing technological infrastructure to support a suite of open source technologies. These tools offer digital management of records, field-level carbon measurement, remote sensing, predictive analytics, as well as input and economic management decision support. Examples of tools and their functionalities include:

• LandPKS – A planning and management tool to collect, share, and interpret soil, vegetation cover, and management data.
• SurveyStack – A collaborative research platform that utilizes open source tools to create customizable surveys, collect data, and report and share results.
• FarmOS – A free and open-source web-based farm management, planning, and record keeping system.
• COMET Farm – A tool to support conservation scenario analysis and greenhouse gas inventories at the farm level for cropland, grazing lands, livestock, forestry, and agroforestry.
• Cool Farm Tool – An online calculator that enables farmers to measure their greenhouse gas emissions, and understand mitigation options for agricultural production.
• Hylo – A regenerative social network tool, changing the way communities work together by helping groups be more organized, creative, and resourceful.
• Permanent – An online wholesale sourcing platform, serving as a local foods aggregator and technology company.
• Element84 – A technology company developing impactful end-to-end geospatial data-processing pipelines and software solutions for clients who want to improve our planet.
• LookIn.To – A digital storytelling tool that serves businesses in building better connections with their partners, stakeholders, and especially customers.
• RegenScore – A scoring platform that provides a unified, adaptive framework that recognizes and integrates all approaches to regenerative transition, monitoring and verification; assigning a numerical value to farms and ranches and translating detailed information into an accessible, engaging format for purchasers and consumers.
• In-Depth Learning Series – Hosted by OpenTEAM, this ongoing web series highlights organizations working across the agricultural sector, from open ag tech to climate work.

Open source software development is centered around transparency, collaboration, inclusivity, and community. OpenTEAM collaborates with a number of open source communities.

• Gathering for Open Science Hardware (GOSH)
• Gathering for Open Agricultural Technology (GOAT)
• Farm Hack

Building upon participatory action research, OpenTEAM utilizes a human centered design approach to receive and implement feedback and support improvements to our suite of technologies.

• Ankita Raturi talks Human-Centered Design at an In-Depth
• IDEO’s What is Human Centered Design

OpenTEAM partners with a diverse community of farms and ranches, from large scale agricultural companies to local farm network organizations. Learn more about our Hub And Network Program here.

The OpenTEAM Community connects to ecosystem service market initiatives to offer interested community members with direct access to the marketplace and the organizations that have come to be experts in this space.

• Regen Network
• Nori
• Ecosystem Service Market Consortium

OpenTEAM has collaborated in ongoing efforts to co-create an ecosystem services claims clearinghouse. Learn more here.

OpenTEAM firmly believes in an individual’s ability to fully create and control their own data, also known as data sovereignty. It ensures that the individual or community about whom data is collected has knowledge of, and consents to, how that information is used and shared by others. OpenTEAM is committed to co-developing the shared guidelines of data ownership, sovereignty, and use to ensure the privacy of everyone in our community.

• Ag Data Use Agreements – This site contains key documents to achieve the above goal and serve as the shared foundation for the envisioned consent management structure.
• Conference webinar: Big Data Promises and Obstacles: Agricultural Data and Privacy
• Webinar: Cultivating Trust in Technology-Mediated Sustainable Agricultural Research by Ankita Raturi, Purdue University

OpenTEAM is a collaborative network supporting the emergence and continued viability of a global food system that is a resilient driver of healthy soil, healthy food for all, and racial equity to support thriving communities.

• 2017 Census of Agriculture, USDA
• Black Farmers in America, 1865 – 2000, The Pursuit of Independent Farming and the Role of Cooperatives
• Who Owns the Land? Agricultural Land Ownership by Race/Ethnicity. Jess Gilbert, Spencer Wood, Gwen Sharp
• Spatial Supermarket Redlining by Mengyao Zhang and Gohosh Debarchana
• Business Case for Racial Equity W.K. Kellogg Foundation
• Food Solutions New England Racial Equity Challenge
• Facts: Racial Economic Inequality
• Open Rivers Podcast on diversity and barriers in agriculture with Dr. LakIsha Odom
• Diversify Tech
• Slack’s Erica Baker On Hiring A Head Of Diversity And The Need For Inclusion In Tech