Pgsoc hackathon
PGSOC(PGS Organic Council) is a cause driven social organization dedicated to bring about an inclusive platform for small and marginal organic producers to collaborate and flourish in local markets through a guarantee process based on verifiable trust. PGSOC envisions socially, ecologically, and economically just food systems guaranteed by trust, co-owned and controlled by communities, and driven by traditional ecological knowledge systems
Farmer’s Trust is a data-driven platform for documenting and certifying the organic farming and cultivation processes of small-scale, marginal, and tribal farmers. The tool captures the full lifecycle of a Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) process and procedures. PGS in India is a Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)-certified process for following, producing, and selling organic produce. We’ve been working with farming communities all over the country for the past couple of years to help them transition to organic farming and validate the organic cultivation method followed by small-scale, marginal, and tribal farmers, in collaboration with various non-profit organizations and state governments.
The Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) is a locally focused quality assurance system that builds on the foundations of trust, social networks, and knowledge exchange, demanding the active participation of all necessary stakeholders. Altough, Markets, government, customers, farmers, educators, etc. are all involved, the question that remains is, what are their stories? Envisioning a platform, that allows members of these communities, who are mostly low literate is a dire need than just as a documentation platform. These stories, connect the right local stakeholders (government, policymakers, and NGOs), allowing for community enablement and community-led change. The sheer number of parties involved and a focus on eco-friendly approaches generate a lot of data, necessitating a technology that’s not just low-literate-friendly but would also encourage community leadership and interaction.
At the intersection of IPFS/Filecoin based technologies, and community stories, we see a platform for knowledge sharing and amplifies the concerns of all communities involved. It serves as a space for information exchange, allowing farmers from different backgrounds to share their experiences, challenges, and innovative solutions, fostering collaboration and collective learning. The process also creates a strong community knowledge base by facilitating the sharing of best practices, documenting agricultural practices, seasonal data, native growing patterns among local farmers, and historical knowledge, which is mostly oral knowledge.
For the context of the hackathon, we will explore a platform, that would enable documenting these stories, and sharing it amongst the local communities.
