Farm Hack Iowa, June 20-21

Farm Hack Iowa, a two-day gathering of farmers, designers, engineers and tinkerers to collaboratively shape an open-source future for farm technology and machinery, will take place June 20 - 21, at Echollective Farm in Mechanicsville, IA.

Farm Hack Iowa is a collaborative program of The Greenhorns and the National Young Farmers' Coalition, and is the first Farm Hack event to take place in the Midwest.

This event will bring together a diverse group of farmers, designers, engineers, and other allies to demonstrate innovative on-farm designs already in practice, and to share and create new ideas for invention.

The focus of Farm Hack Iowa will be on-farm energy production, including electric tractor conversion and biodiesel production from waste oil.

Farm Hack was created by farmers and hackers to address a practical need faced by small-scale and diversified agriculturalists that do not benefit from the top-down, energy and capital-intensive strategies of mainstream agricultural technology.

In addition to face-to-face creation at Farm Hack events, participants continue to dialogue through Farm Hack's Internet forums. Through these forums, farmers can brainstorm, share and discuss designs and tools across the country.

Farm Hack is part of a vision to resurrect the American tradition of tinkering by which farmers have developed tools and solutions on their farms.

For more information, visit http://www.youngfarmers.org/practical/farm-hack/iowa/.