The friend invitation system is working sufficiently for members to become friends of other members (farm or non-farm members).

I need to take a moment to explain friends. If you wish to receive bulletins from a farm, you must become a friend of the farm. To do this, you must login, then go to the profile page for the farm, then click Add as friend and submit the form.

We will be adding friend approvals soon. But for now, you are a friend as soon as you make the request.

We have a problem with friend invitations possibly not working correctly. I am working the issue currently and will post a notice when the problem is resolved. The invitation is giving an error (a warning) and the invitation system is functional but I advise not using it.

Users have been experiencing problems with the Farm Foody registration system today. Our technical department (me) has discovered the problem and registration should be back online now. We added Street Address at the last minute to give users greater precision and choice of geographic location, which for some unknown reason caused the registration to think the form was submitting invalid values. Still do not know why, but you may go ahead with your registrations.

The first question many farmers ask is, “what is a social network?” A social network is the web of relationships between people in an online community. Members of the network can affiliate with each other by becoming “friends.” This allows a farmer to join the social network and create a profile for their farm. Then other members of the social network can become “friends of the farm” essentially, to show their support for the farm, but also to benefit from being connected to the farm. They can receive announcements from the farmer when produce is available, at the beginning or end of a growing season or when the farm may be closed to the public. Friends feel connected to the farm and build a transparent personal relationship with the farmer and the independent, sustainable or family farm.

The farmer benefits from this relationship because the social network tools lifts the burden of maintain a farm website, of answering numerous questions from customers about their products, and the network helps build the reputation of their farm and products.

A social network produces many indirect effects as a natural outcome of self-directed activities. For example, imagine you are the member of the social network and wish to eat local. Your co-worker is a member of Farm Foody. You might say to yourself “my friend uses that site to find fresh food. I’ll go there and take a look at his profile.”

When you look at your friend’s profile, you see several farms she is “friends” of. You click on them, but let’s say you just don’t find that heirloom tomato you’re craving from any of the farms. So you return to your friend’s profile. Bored, you idly click on one your friend’s friends. Looking at their profile, you click on one of the farms they are friends with. Hey, they have heirloom tomatoes. You drive out and pick them up that day.

This is just _one_ way we imagine the social network can benefit the independent farm and help it to survive in a very hostile agricultural economic landscape. The example shows why social networking sites are so vital to the marketing presence of popular music groups despite having elaborate websites of their own. This is why having your own farm homepage on your own domain and host is not enough. This is why built Farm Foody.

Tom Davenport has seen first hand what the network can do for a small family farm. It is a lifeline, a marketing tool, a way of communicating, vital to the continued survival of the independent farmer. The web is a proven resource as far as Hollin Farms is concerned. The social network puts all that power in one place in the hands of the farmer.

We are heading for our official soft launch of Farm Foody on September 1st. The site is public and ready to begin using, so feel free to sign up.