Seeed Studio Feature:

"OPEN Sustainable Agriculture Experiment with SenseCAP on Jamaica Farms

Founded in 1998, One Planet Education Network (OPEN) is an international education technology company focused on sustainable community development and cross-cultural knowledge exchange. Having served as a consultant to an MIT Sloan School committee that advised the US Government on the commercialization of the Internet during the early 90s, OPEN’s founder George Newman had a window into the future and early on the possibilities for positive uses of the Internet for cultural understanding, education, and knowledge exchange on a massive scale.

Developing and managing multiple projects on different continents, OPEN accumulated rich experience and resources in science, technology, and education, stitching together a global network of like-minded educators, technologists, scholars, and strategic partners. While sustainable community development and the environment have been their main focus through the years, OPEN’s programs are designed to prepare young students of today and professionals alike with critical thinking, just-in-time learning, and problem-solving skills that can serve them well in any industry.

Today, OPEN develops programs in sustainable agriculture, forestry, climate change research, and air quality/pollution mitigation where students of all ages can conduct citizen science guided by scientific researchers and experts. OPEN’s work adheres to several of the UN’s 2030 SDGs including but not limited to Zero Hunger Goal 2 (e.g Target 2.3, 2.4, 2. a), Quality Education Goal 4, Sustainable Cities and Communities goal 11, Climate Action Goal 13, Life on Land Goal 15, and Partnerships for the Goals Goal 17.

And now OPEN teams apply IoT solutions to continually monitor and interpret sensor data. This enables farmers, forestry professionals, and other experts to make more informed decisions on improving soil fertility, and air quality, sequestering carbon to combat climate change, and conserving precious water resources. The long-range goal is to have young student citizen scientists help make the world a healthier home for future generations.

As a main example, to address a series of issues in agriculture such as extreme climate, water shortage, soil erosion, and low productivity, and to create more food sustainably without clearing more forested areas, OPEN has prescribed a simple but effective regenerative agriculture research solution. Regenerative agriculture uses no chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides.

Their regenerative agriculture research program gives students and professionals the support to trial natural and time–honored farming practices, such as no-till and cover crops to produce healthier, tastier food, and more bountiful crop yields. OPEN is currently developing a data-driven standardized approach for regenerative agriculture, using Seeed SenseCAP sensors. Currently, the devices are deployed to obtain data for validation on different farms globally. And the Jamaica Farm below is one of them. Read full article...