Farm Protocols is an 8-month farm pilot in the Hudson Valley, NY. The questions I’m digging into: 1) how much does soil health actually change the nutrient density in food? 2) how do we use data and technology to make nutritious food more transparent and accessible?
Everyone should know exactly what's in their food and how it was grown, whether it was treated with chemicals that may be harmful, or whether the soil it came from contains dangerous levels of microplastics. This project is a first step toward full food transparency. Everything I measure gets published daily in the dashboard below.
Our food system in the US isn’t delivering the nutrients for humans to thrive. Studies show today’s produce contains 20-50% fewer nutrients than it did 50 years ago.* Modern industrial farming practices have depleted our soil by stripping out the biology, organic matter, and structure that plants need to grow nutritious food. What we eat impacts every aspect of our lives, from our daily energy levels to our health and longevity. Food is medicine, and the data backs this up.
If you have access to nutrient-dense food, good food today is significantly more expensive than bad food. How can technology help us bridge the gap? How can data allow us to grow nutrient-dense food, keep the soil healthy, and eventually reach cost parity with the food in your local grocery store? That’s what I’m here to find out, and I’ll do it by spending the 2026 season farming and collecting data every step of the way.
I’m not a farmer and I don’t plan to be one long-term. I’ve spent the last 4.5 years working in data-centric technology. My journey started about 10 years ago when I read The Overstory by Richard Powers. It really kicked off in 2023 when I watched Common Ground, a documentary on soil and regenerative farming.
As I’ve learned more about our food system and the interconnectedness of nature, I keep coming back to this idea that American society right now is not centered around human flourishing. We have to go out of our way and spend a lot of money to live an active, healthy, and community-focused life. Our cities are built around cars, our work around computer screens, and our food system on convenience. What if the easy and most affordable choice was also the best choice for our lives? I don’t know how to change the system, but I think it starts with the foundation of our bodies: what we eat.
With the way technology is advancing today, it’s going to play a massive role in our food system. It’s already started. How can we use emerging tech to make nutrient-dense food more accessible to more people using regenerative practices? And how can we give people full transparency into what they’re putting into their bodies? I learn best by doing, so to learn how data and tech can support the food system, I’m spending a season farming myself with the mentorship of a farmer who's been working this land for 25 years.
There are farmers on this path already, who are harnessing data and tech to grow food, but it’s not widespread yet among smaller farms. Farms are struggling, the US has lost more than 3.75 million farms since 1950, a decline of over 66%.* Of the operational farms in the US today, only 27% of them currently use any form of precision agriculture technology, and adoption drops sharply among small farms.* That gap is exactly where this project starts. Follow along and let's see what the data shows us.
Every day throughout the pilot I’m going to collect data about the soil, crops, farming process, and anything else I can possibly track. I’ll share in the dashboard below and across social media (@farmprotocols on Instagram). I’ll share what’s working and what’s not working, the failures and successes throughout the experience.
I’ll be using a mix of sensors, my own logging, and lab tests to track the data below: