FOA 189: Farmers Solve Their Own Problems Through Open Source Technology

Farm & Rural Ag Network

Reinier van der Lee is the CEO & Founder of Vinduino, an AgTech company that supports farmers and other producers in the ag industry with products that improve profits and fruit quality as well as increase yield. One of the company’s latest products is the Vinduino R4 Sensor station, an open-source sensor that gives farmers data on water usage and efficiency. Reinier also owns a 4-acre vineyard and credits his need for better irrigation management as the reason why he founded Vinduino.

Reinier joins me today to share how Vinduino is helping farmers gather the kind of data they need and understand when it comes to water management. He explains how their products work, what separates them from other AgTech companies, and why knowing how much water you’re using is critical to your business. He also discusses why he chose to keep their products open source and shares some of the upcoming events and projects they have lined up this year.

“Water use is important because it impacts the quality and yield of your crop.” - Reinier van der Lee

This Week on The Future of Agriculture Podcast:

• The contributing factors of understanding their need for water.
• The methods they used to determine how much water they should use.
• How Vinduino’s software provides water data for farmers.
• What inspired them to name their product "Vinduino."
• Where Reinier’s interest in growing grapes rose from.
• Why they chose to keep their program open-source.
• Encouraging others who are not tech savvy to innovate existing solutions.
• When he decided to scale this his business.
• What it means to sort good solutions from bad solutions.
• Why simply more data from sensors is not good enough.
• What's next for the Vinduino company?

Resource:

• Citizen Science
• Hackaday

Connect with Reinier van der Lee

• Vinduino
• Reiner van de Lee

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