Usually it’s Steve who gets to try out new tools for the farm. But not this time.We’ve been operating as a CSA farm now for a decade and a half, and a lot has changed in the world of technology since the mid 1990s. This week we are leaping into the present by launching our new on-line sign-up system. The system is designed by a software company called Farmigo, whose mission is to help farms like ours use internet based information-management tools capable of tackling the challenges inherently associated with running a CSA farm.
When we started exploring the possibilities last fall, we were responding to the fact that Chrissi and I had both talked to several people during a single renewal period who said things like “I don’t know if I can even find my checkbook!” For better or for worse, the internet has changed the way we pay for things, and we knew it was time for us to make it easier for people to pay for their vegetables too. What I began to realize once we started looking at Farmigo, was how much else this program could help us with. With Farmigo, we will be able to easily place add-ons on the web, so that you can sign up for that flat of strawberries or a jar of honey when we have them available without the many hours of administrative time and inevitable mix-ups that we usually contend with. Farmigo will improve our management of pick-up sites, from pinpointing all sites on google maps to allowing people to access their accounts to re-check their pick-up time. Farmigo will even help to better manage our harvest data – things like printing out harvest lists for the crew on CSA harvest days and keeping track of the data that we’ll need for our CCOF inspection every year.
Overall, we’re pretty excited about this. Here are some cool things about the new Farmigo system for you:
- Google maps with all the pick-up sites shown, so you can easily find the one most convenient to you. Once you’re signed up you can see the address and directions to your site anytime.
- Access to your account anytime, so you can renew, check or change your pick-up site, or check your payment status.
- Ability to make payments on-line via bank to bank transfer (electronic check) or credit card. The fees we pay for electronic check are much less than for credit cards so we urge you to pay by electronic check whenever possible. The electronic check option is already set up and the credit card option should be available by the end of the week. (You can also still pay by check mailed to us the old-fashioned way.)
- When we have honey, flats of strawberries, or other add-ons available, we can post them on the web store and you can add them to be delivered to your pick-up site for that week.
If you have already paid for the 2012 season, you should get an e-mail this week with a link to your account, so that you can check that we transferred all your information correctly. Note that the winter subscriptions are not included in the Farmigo system.If you have not already paid for the 2012 season, you can go to the sign-up pageand do so online now!
We think that Farmigo is going to make our lives a lot easier from the administrative stand-point. But we do realize that with any new technology there is a learning curve, and no doubt we will come across a few bumps along the way. Please bear with us as we learn how best to use this useful new tool, and let us know if anything doesn’t seem to be working as it should. (We do know about the extra 4 cents that are added on to the full-year payment–it’s an unavoidable rounding error and there’s nothing we can easily do to fix it. Also check your spam blocking, as the e-mails we send through the online system will actually be from info@farmigo.com, though you shouldn’t use this e-mail to contact us.)
To help you navigate the new system, I also want to introduce Sarah Brewer, our new CSA administrator. Sarah is talented, capable, and friendly, and she is familiar with what we do here because she’s Chrissi’s daughter! Besides, you never know when you’ll need an archeologist on staff to dig through our records.
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