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When we think of farms, we often imagine those pastoral places of swaying grain and glimmering corn silos. But like all of us, farmers live in the digital age. There’s software to manage crops, robotic farmhands to pick oranges or spray pesticides, and even microchips that tweet reminders to water crops. Technology and agriculture are also pairing up to get products from the field to the dinner table.

Here in New Hampshire, a virtual farmer’s marketplace allows producers to take orders for what’s available. A similar pilot is running in the Bay area. And Tom Grace is here to fill us in. Tom started a neighborhood farmer’s market in Portland, Oregon, and now he’s shifted his efforts to the web, as the vice president of programs for a start-up called Farms Reach. The service aims to make it easier and cheaper for restaurants to buy food from small, local farms.

Wired Science: Food Web, Meet Interweb: The Networked Future of Farms

New Hampshire Virtual Farmers' Marketplace

(Photo by swisscan via Flickr/Creative Commons)