Starting a superstructure is only the beginning. The real task is envisioning what it can do, how it will work, and who you need to work with. If you're not a member, consider joining now. If you are a member, be bold, jump in, and use the superstructure to start organizing for survival. Edit it, add to the vision, and make it real, online and off. And don't forget to rave.

More about Superstructures

  • Food Webbies

    Modeling the global food web from the bottom up
  • Founder: KathiVian

    food, global, forecast, folksonomy, model, food web,

  • Who We Need
    Open source scientists, amateur scientists, gamers, modelers, farmers, gardeners, food producers, food scientists, ecologists, wildlife managers, trackers--anyone with an interest in collecting and interpreting information about the food web, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. In particular, we need people who can thnk innovatively about how to pull together data from disparate data sets based on bottom-up, folksonomic-style tagging systems into forecasting models.
  • How to join
    Describe one challenge that this project faces and one idea for how that challenge might be addressed.
  • Mission
    Our goal is to enlist an open community in modeling the global food web to provide the kind of insights and forecasts that global climate change modeling has provided. The complexity of the food web will require a much more diverse base of expertise and a worldwide web of trackers to begin to understand the weak links in the web and the focal points for intervention to prevent collapse. We also have the opportunity to apply folksonomic approaches to an emergent modeling process that will almost certainly be necessary to model the food web quickly enough.
  • What we can accomplish
    • What we can do is use the idea of superstructing to lay the foundatiion for a new kinds of global modeling projects that address very complex problems from the bottom up. But more specifically, we can actually begin the essential task of linking studies of food webs on a micro scale into a set of macro scale models that help us understand the complex food ecology that we are part of. Such a model would allow us to move beyond simple product-and-consumption models and develop much more sophisticated approaches to human food issues.
  • How this superstruct works

    • This superstruct will start by outlining the practical, conceptual, and technological challenges to doing this kind of bottom-up food modeling. Getting the challenges on the table is the first step to developing a methodology for making it work.At the same time, we will work with other superstructures to engage them specifically in addressing the challenges of this project. We will offer our own award to the most innovative solutions.

  • Other information

    • Although they're not directly part of my network, I know enough about farmers in both Hawaii and Australia to realise they're busy people!  To mobilise them I think a campaign aimed at informing and persuading food producers of the benefits of becoming a FoodWebbie could be incredibly useful -- an intuitive explanation (say in animation or as a website) of how the web will work, how they can input to it, and how membership would benefit them. //futuryst 28 oct19

      I have family in the orcharding business here in New Zealand, and can help get them not only involved in this project but advocating it to other growers in their co-op network. I've added my thoughts to the discussion below as to the challenges we'll need to face to make that happen... ~ mrjudkins, 29 Oct 2019 (NZDT)

  • Discuss this superstructure

    • Please list the challenges of this kind of bottom-up food web modeling project here, along with your ideas for how we might address some of these challenges.

      Data can be input from producers or consumers on crop yields, location of crop production, environmental conditions, and the status of the food distribution network.  In addition to user-input, a network of sensors can be deployed that can wirelessly relay continuous data on  environmental and growing conditions as well as the response of crops to management, such as irrigation, fertilizer.  The ground-based data can be combined with remotely sensed data from satellites to expand the scale of the model from the field to the regional level.  

      A consistent framework will need to be developed to seamlessly input data from a variety of sources. Whether from web-based/cell phone data entry, wireless sensors or satellite data collection, QA/QC will be important in differentiating between useful data and noise.

      The more specialized a species' diet, the harder it is for that species to thrive. If we're webbing, we need to look at not just that food that we do eat but also the food we CAN eat. Aboriginal peoples in North America use hundreds of native plants for food and medicine. Most people don't know that plants like milkweed and queen anne's lace  can be eaten. Let's gather information about native edibles and  disseminate this in our communities.

      One challenge I see here is incentivising contributions to this "food web".  How would farmers, producers etc be enticed to add the task of info input (into the proposed information system) to their already busy lives? While my first thought was to bring in behaviour experts (part of my community network) to shed light on the psychology of motivation, I now think it may be simpler than that: those who give to the network get more back.  i.e., they could be granted more comprehensive access to the foodweb database, enabling their own planning and activity. //futuryst 28oct19

      My father-in-law owns and operates an organic kiwifruit orchard in New Zealand. All kiwifruit growers belong to a co-operative which are a single point of contact for kiwifruit sales, and this network would be ideal for getting out to this group of producers here. One challenge which would be faced gathering information here however is limited internet access and famiiiarity of many of those in this country's rural areas. We may need to communicate with these groups in more traditional means, and will have to find avenues in which they can share data in ways they are comfortable with... What do you think will be best? Paper based systems with data entry volunteers? Data collectors who will travel through their region? ~ mrjudkins, 29 Oct 2019 (NZDT)

       great arvhived data source on low external input sustainable ag systems around the world:

      http://www.leisa.info/

      We'll need practical methods to map and measure biogeochemical flows at the regional, landscape and farmstead scales.

      -otterinwater

       

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