Dear LiteFarm community,
With the intention of familiarizing you with our team, we will gradually be introducing LiteFarm members on our news page. Last month, we presented Larisse, our Farmer Success Associate. Today, we have the pleasure to introduce David Trapp, our Farmer Success Manager (FSM), and the other half of our Farmer Success team.
Born and raised in Seattle, David has been living in the city of Florianópolis in Southern Brazil for the last two years. Besides his work with LiteFarm, he is also working on a Master’s in Organic Agriculture from the Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, which he will complete in March of 2025.
David began working at LiteFarm in May of 2021, but first learned about it in 2020 while working with an association of organic producers in Paraguay. The organization was selected to be one of the partners for the “Agroecology in Latin America: building pathways” project, which uses LiteFarm to measure 11 agroecological indicators.
David’s job as an extension officer with the project was to visit the farmers and support them in the use of LiteFarm, helping them to register their fields, crops and tasks in the app. “I quickly saw and heard from the farmers the need for an app such as LiteFarm. It allowed them to better manage their crops while also generating useful data to identify and improve sustainable farming practices,'' he says.
As the FSM at LiteFarm, David’s role has a couple different hats. He is responsible for supporting the users, providing solutions to problems as well as onboarding to new partners and individuals. On the development side, he works with the designer and developers, integrating feedback from users and his own agricultural experience to ensure that what gets built is based on the needs and requirements of farmers. “I'm fortunate enough to get the opportunity to visit farmers in the field and see how they are using LiteFarm in their operations and what challenges they are facing,” says David. He also works on outreach, encouraging LiteFarm's growth by connecting with new farmers who are looking for a farm management tool.
When asked what he is excited about at LiteFarm, David replies without hesitation: “Livestock.” According to David, for many farmers, animals are a fundamental part of integrated and diversified farms. “They use the manure to generate on-farm fertilizers, integrate them into pastures for pest reduction, they provide a significant source of income as well as tons of other benefits,” he says. But not having the ability to track this information in LiteFarm means that a critical portion of the farm is not represented. The LiteFarm team has been working extensively on a Livestock management feature to be released later this year. If you would like to learn more about how you can get involved in the design process, please reach out to us.
David also says that users should always feel free to share their criticism or suggestions about LiteFarm: “We are building the app for them, so if something is not working or needs to be improved, we want to hear about it.”
If you have any ideas for how we can improve LiteFarm, feel free to email us at community@litefarm.org or check out our Productboard page to make recommendations or vote on suggestions from other users.
As always, happy farming!
The LiteFarm team
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