The first Farm Hack event to hit the Midwest was a great success last week, spanning two days at University of Iowa in Iowa City and Echollective CSA in Mechanicsville.  

Farmer Grant Schultz demo’d his electric tractor at Echollective, and Francis Thicke of Radiance Dairy presented on his use of various on-farm energy sources for decreasing energy use on his grass-fed dairy operation.  Steve Fugate of I-Renew and the Yoderville Biodiesel Collective also presented on production and use of biodiesel from waste vegetable oil.  

Several ideas came out of the design charrette, and the notes for the brainstorming have been posted to the Farm Hack Iowa forum thread.  At least one group made plans to put their design into action following the hack.