Why OSFarm

Because farm tools should belong to the people who farm.

For centuries, villages shared their pastures, their ovens and their seeds. These were the commons.

Today, it is farm machines, farm data and farm software that are being fenced off.

OSFarm stands for the opposite: open tools, maintained in common, so that farmers stay in charge of their work, their choices and their data.

What is closing, what we reopen

The four families of the commons directory are the four fields where agriculture loses control, and where it can take it back.

Family What is closing What the commons make possible In the directory
Hardware On many recent machines, a repair can only be validated with the manufacturer’s software, reserved for its dealers. Published designs, parts and code: the machine gets repaired on the farm, at the village workshop or between neighbours. L’Atelier Paysan, AgOpenGPS
Data Data produced on the farm goes to the manufacturer or the vendor, in formats other tools cannot read. Open formats and public reference data: the data stays with the farmer and moves from one tool to another. Météo-France, Data Food Consortium
Software Subscriptions, in-house formats, and tools that vanish when the vendor changes strategy. Free software outlives the company that wrote it, and anyone can adapt it to their farm. Ekylibre, farmOS, QGIS
AI models Advice produced by models whose data and reasoning nobody can check. Open, frugal models, trained on known data, running on servers you control. PlantCV, Mistral AI

Repairing your own tractor, a right to win back

In the United States, farmers wait for the dealer to fix breakdowns they could repair themselves, because they have no access to the machine’s software. More Perfect Union’s report puts the bill at $4 billion a year.

Hardware with open designs and open code leaves no one in that position.

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What guides us

Openness
Code, designs and data are published under free licences: anyone can use, study, change and share them.
The commons
A shared resource only lives if a community maintains it and sets its rules. We connect, document and support the communities that do.
Farm autonomy
Farmers choose their tools, repair their machines and keep control of their data. Changing supplier should cost them nothing.
Cooperation
Farmers, companies, researchers and local authorities build once, together, what each used to reinvent alone.

What OSFarm does

  • List the commons

    The directory gathers 112 agricultural commons, software, hardware, data and models, spotted by our watch and reviewed before publication.

    Explore the commons

  • Train and support

    17 training courses and 7 consulting assignments, delivered by 13 members. The association puts people in touch and takes no commission.

    See the catalogue

  • Bring the makers together

    Farmers, software vendors, manufacturers and researchers meet in the association, at the Paris International Agricultural Show and at our yearly gatherings.

    Meet the collective

What the FAO and the United Nations say

The major institutions reach the same conclusion: without accessible, shared tools, most of the world’s small farms will stay out of reach of agricultural technology.

A commons only exists if people look after it.

Joining OSFarm keeps the watch, the directory and the gatherings alive, and gives you a vote at the general assembly.

Join OSFarm Contact us