Difference between revisions of "RAWiki:About"

Revision as of 10:49, 3 February 2015

This is the platform for development of the Regenerative agriculture wiki(RAW) Jacob Springs Farm's Theory of Everything: that is to say - a central repository of articles outlining worldview, techniques, insights and experience related to Abundance Farming, Regenerative Agriculture and other topics of interest.

Regenerative Agriculture Wiki Project

Background Information:

Jacob Springs Farm

We are an Organic farm near Boulder Colorado. In addition to providing our community with ethical animal proteins and sustainably-grown produce, we aim to regenerate the landscapes we work on and promote regenerative agriculture models that other farmers can learn from, improve and apply. An important part of our mission to show leadership in the agro-ecology movement is the spread of information.

Regenerative Agriculture Wiki

To categorize, organize, curate and disseminate practical information on topics related to regenerative and sustainable agriculture we have been developing the Regenerative Agriculture Wiki (RAW) project. The project uses the MediaWiki platform to maximize interoperability with wikipedia. The project currently has 165 articles and stubs of articles waiting to be expanded.

Why develop a new wiki?

We believe in the mission of Wikipedia, and we are actively editing, linking to, and improving wikipedia content. However Wikipedia does not go far enough: Wikipedia does not allow practical “how to” material - techniques and application “Principles” of regenerative agriculture are difficult to cite within the wikipedia framework. Experiences and narratives of others who have applied different techniques do not have a place on wikipedia. Wikipedia requires a “neutral point of view”. In an industry dominated by corporate agriculture, sustainability is unfortunately not “neutral” and most research represents corporate-sponsored views.

Examples of RAW pages

Permaculture: the RAW project article on permaculture allows the main principles of permaculture to be displayed in an organized, concise way that allows it’s claims and insights to be evaluated based on scientific knowledge and practical experience. RAW links it’s pages on permaculture directly to other pages and articles related directly to sustainable agriculture - for example the article on Permaculture: Fruit tree management links to pages with more documented Scientific knowledge such as “Apple Tree: (Malus Domestica)” and “Venturia inaequalis (Apple Scab)” as well as articles relating to other techniques of sustainable orchard management such as “Silvopasture” and “Sustainable Orchard Management” and articles about people putting these techniques to work like “Lost Nation Orchard”.

"I want to help!" What can I work on?"

RAWiki is seeking help with the development of the project.

We need people who will research, observe, write and edit articles and cite sources to expand the scope, accuracy and usefulness of the wiki.

If you want to help you could do all or some of the following: Edit current pages for accuracy, style and organization Expand current pages which are incomplete Research supporting documentation and link to these sources Identify “red links” (linked topics with no article written about them) and write the linked articles Identify important topics which are not currently covered by the wiki and create stub articles for future expansion Create new pages on farms and farmers “doing it right” Update Wikipedia with useful, relevant data from RAW and include links to RAW in relevant wikipedia pages Interview sustainable farmers on relevant topics and summarize their experience and advice with appropriate citation and caveats. Observe and describe regenerative practices at Jacob Springs Farm

Examples of pages that need to be researched and written

Important grazing species - identify the 25 most important species of perennial plant to grazing systems globally - create a template for presenting information relevant to herdsman on each pant species - create stub articles about each species using information from wikipedia and grazing science handbooks. Important crop species - identify the 25 most important food crops globally - create a template for presenting information relevant to farmers on each pant species - create stub articles about each species using information from wikipedia and other sources. Important pest species - identify the 25 most important pest species globally - create a template for presenting information relevant to farmers and herdsmen on each pant species - create stub articles about each species using information from wikipedia and other sources. Holistic grazing - write on the Savory Institute and Alan Savory, link to his TED talk and his books. Incubation - summary of available science and best practices for hatching eggs on small and medium scales - what effect does temperature and humidity have on success rate? How tightly do these conditions need to be held? - advantages and disadvantages to allowing a hen to hatch her own eggs, Permaculture guilds - review permaculture material and scientific material to try to tease apart “hype” from potentially useful interactions between species in Permaculture “guilds”. Devise a way to rate the effectiveness of a guild - collect anecdotes and testimonials from the web and other sources about people using guilds to good effect.

Key Pages

Regenerative agriculture

Farm organizing principles

Jacob Springs Farm

Recommended references

Food preservation

Getting started

Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.

• Configuration settings list
• MediaWiki FAQ
• MediaWiki release mailing list
• Localise MediaWiki for your language