Grow Observatory
GROW Observatory (2016-2019)
Horizon 2020
€ 5.096.919
€ 34.702,5
Fab Lab Barcelona
Description
The GROW Observatory is a platform and community for large scale citizen science that aims to empower tens of thousands of growers across Europe with knowledge on sustainable practices and make a vital contribution to global environmental monitoring.
Partners
University of Dundee (UK), Internationales Institut Fuer Angewandte Systemanalyse (AT), Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations – FAO (IT), MET Office (UK), Hydrologic Research BV (NL), StarLab Barcelona SL (ES), FutureEverything CIC (UK), Ecolise (BE), WeCreate Workspace Ltd (IE), CulturePolis (EL), Parrot SA (FR), The James Hutton Institute (UK), Technische Universitaet Wien (AT), Thingful Limited (UK), Storythings Ltd (UK), Miskolci Egyetem (HU), The Forest Trust (UK), Fab Lab Barcelona / IAAC
The project
The GROW Observatory (GROW) will create a sustainable citizen platform and community to generate, share and utilise information on land, soil and water resource at a resolution hitherto not previously considered. The vision is to underpin smart and sustainable custodianship of land and soil, whilst meeting the demands of food production, and to answer a long-standing challenge for space science, namely the validation of soil moisture detection from satellites.
GROW is a highly innovative project leveraging and combining low-cost consumer sensing technology, a simple soil test and a large user base of growers and plant enthusiasts to contribute individual soil and land data. It is designed to engage primarily individual growers and small-scale farmers across Europe and to enable them to develop new wisdom and innovative practices through the collective power of shared and open data and knowledge.
The GROW partnership will connect and scale to globally dispersed communities linked through digital and social platforms, and a wide range of additional citizen associations and NGOs in sustainable agriculture, gardening, food democracy and land management. IAAC is developing and testing new open source tools based on the Smart Citizen Kit to support citizens across Europe to monitoring soil quality.
The technology used in Grow Observatory consists of a series of sensors in which are low-cost and accessible for the wider public. Not only are they accessible to buy, but also accessible for use. Grow Observatory, in partnership with Future Learn, has created a series of free online courses which illustrate and guide citizens through a series of simple soil experiments. Grow Observatory bridges the online-offline boundary to create a sustainable network of databased scientific experiments. Citizens not only develop their personal, nourishing food patches but also contribute towards a much richer insight into a geographical ecology of the region. The data collected contributes towards vital scientific environmental monitoring, which can then be further used to study soil healthy strains which contain crucial biota – the basic building blocks for our complex global ecosystem. As part of the project, Fab Lab Barcelona developed a series of open-source soil measurement sensors built upon the Smart Citizen platform.
Who is it for?
GROW Observatory has accessible information for many people to use – from farmers to roof gardeners.
Growers
Anyone plan(e)t-minded and green-fingered who wish to participate and develop a caring community based around food production.
Scientists
Scientists who are interested in collecting global data which could potentially feed into specialised soil for crop production in a future of uncertainty from climate change.
Land lovers
Encompassing a wide range of people – most of Earth’s inhabitants in fact. If you like food then this project should be of interest to you.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 690199.
