As the world of agriculture blooms, we are moved into new challenges that inspire revolutionary solutions.
Vertical farming is a fast-growing and promising solution for many problems in the agriculture industry. It is a method of farming that maximizes land use by growing vertically instead of only horizontally. It reduces unexpected crop loss due to unavoidable weather conditions and lessens the carbon emitted by growing closer to the consumer. One of the essential features of vertical farming is the technology controlling its environment, automating the operations, and collecting its data.
This technology is commonly connected to the internet giving farmers remote access to lights, pumps, dosing, fans, AC units, and much more, all in the palm of their hands. Unlike traditional farmers smartphones and the internet are weaved into the operation protocol. This creates a near-seamless migration to web3 and the exponential possibilities it offers.
There are a few challenges for the vertical farm community. Due to its high dependency on electricity, and cutting-edge technology, the cost of starting up and operating a farm can be expensive. Many of the pioneers of this arena have closed their doors due to a lack of funding and profitable strategies.
Most came and went quietly, without the community knowing they existed. From overhead costs to crop sales, farmers struggled to get the help they needed. If they had a more strategic way to solicit support and offer benefits for participating, we would likely be experiencing a more progressive agricultural reality.
Blockchains and NFTs offer just that, a means to make vertical farm projects and others alike more available to public investments, providing transparency of operations and allowing direct access to fresh produce. You may wonder why transparency matters at all. Today more than ever consumers are becoming interested in how business systems impact the environment and the quality of their foods. Through blockchain, the farmer's actions can be recorded and verified ensuring the farm is sustainable, both financially and ecologically, and the produce was consciously grown, free of harmful chemicals, and harvested at the peak of nutrition.
Plyant dApp is the first tier of building towards a DAO that will provide farmers a platform to build a community investing in both the front and back end of operations. It will also serve to be a directory of NFTs for farm businesses and the crops they grow. This demo will only show the initial steps of entering the dApp via your wallet and choosing to be a farmer or distributor. At this stage of development, the initial registration of the farm creates an NFT, while the distributor registration creates a profile for those wanting to buy the NFTs.
As the concept develops beyond this stage there would be more interactive features included that allow communication between profiles, charts that analyze activity for public or private views, a means for farmers to create multiple NFTs for various projects, register for carbon credits, and ways to tokenize community participation. The potential is exponential for the world at large when it comes to blockchains and NFTs, but for the industry of agriculture, it can truly revolutionize the distribution of crops to consumers and the amount of funds that reach the farmers. This is the beginning of a farmer platform that encourages and incentivizes sharing what they love doing most, which is growing nutritious and delicious produce for the families and businesses of their communities.
- Node.js 14+ and
npm
Run the following command on your local environment:
npm installThen, you can run locally in development mode with live reload:
npm run devOpen http://localhost:3000 with your favorite browser to see the project.
You can see the results locally in production mode with:
$ npm run build
$ npm run startYou can create an optimized production build with:
npm run build-prodNow, the project is ready to be deployed. All generated files are located in out folder.