"Mate, we don't need a chip to tell us the soil's dry"

• DOI: 10.1145/1858171.1858211
• Publication Date: 2010-09-14T14:53:20Z
• Authors: William Odom
• Keywords: 2. Zero hunger; 11. Sustainability; 05 social sciences; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; 15. Life on land; 12. Responsible consumption

We describe findings from ethnographic fieldwork and a participatory design workshop conducted with members of urban agriculture communities. The aim of this work is to critically understand community members' agricultural practices as well as uses of interactive technologies in the service of investigating how the values of these communities might shape future sustainable HCI research. We found members heavily resisted technological augmentation of their agricultural practices, but suggested several novel ways in which interactive systems could be leveraged to help achieve their goals and potentially engender more sustainable ways of living. We conclude with a discussion of opportunities for designing interactive systems to support small-scale urban food production and implications for future research.