After interviewing potential users and articulating our design goals, we drew up detailed mockups of our site. Squash & Vine has been designed to address the needs and desires of our interviewees.

We propose a suite of tools based around an online social network to magnify the efforts of the food community towards a safe and secure food system. By aggregating information from a variety of sources and then creating tools to disperse information down critical paths that have previously been under-served, we have created a place for people to explore their food community and discover new things, to nourish these connections by giving farmers and retailers feedback, and to take action by asking questions, attending events, or signing petitions.

Essentially, Squash & Vine will be a community of interacting profiles with multiple data flow pathways and various relevant tools to aid farmers in collaborating with one another, retailers in educating consumers about their mission and vision, and consumers in discovering the story behind their food.

Each profile is organized in a modular fashion, so users can customize the amount and type of information to display.  Below you can see an example of our farm profile.

To see a real-world example of what a farm's status feed might look like, see the microblog Shawna set up while apprenticing at Honey in The Heart Farm in the Sierra Foothills.

Our design is an attempt to address real problems in our food system.  It requires significant time and effort to explore and discover how the food system affects what is on one’s plate. Squash & Vine provides a space to efficiently aggregate this information and visualize it in an understandable way. It is difficult to communicate with others to understand collective challenges, learn about good farming practices, or express appreciation. Squash & Vine provides a space that promotes the easy flow of conversation, the answering of questions directed to the appropriate people, and an updated cultural image of farmers, who they really are, and what they really do. Coordination to promote change requires access to a critical mass of people open to learning about the issue. Squash & Vine provides a space where people hungry for political involvement can join relevant groups and get urgent information in a timely fashion.

The progression of this movement to mainstream awareness is important: it will determine the health and well-being of our children and grandchildren. We hope that Squash & Vine can be a driving force in facilitating this awareness.

Want to know more?  Interested in being one of our funders? Please contact us: contact [at] squashandvine [dot] org