Credit - Flickr User ComputerMonger

Food+Tech Connect held the 2nd annual Farm Bill Hackathon. The event was designed to encourage 120 designers, food policy experts, USDA employees, developers and marketing experts to ”hack” concepts of the Farm Bill and transform them into web tools and infographics that can be used to convey the problems in the food system and the importance of the bill to the media and public.

For those that are unaware of what the Farm Bill represents, it is the primary agricultural and food policy tool for the United States federal government. Voted on every four to five years, the Farm Bill covers a large scope of areas of food and farming including agricultural research, rural development, trade, conservation, commodity programs, marketing, farm credit and food and nutrition programs for schools.

The Food + Tech Hackathon demonstrated that in just 12 hours over the course of one day, great ideas have the potential to emerge that can change the food system for the better. Whether its visualizing legislation that governs (for better or worse) the production of food and produce in the US or strengthening the connection between local farmers and consumers, the Food + Tech Hackathon proved that small technological ideas can potentially make a big difference for food in the United States.

Tags: Farm Bill, Food+Tech Connect, Hackathon

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 27th, 2011 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Farmigo, Legislation, Sustainable Agriculture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.