After Simon Huntley graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Information Technology, he followed an interest in agriculture to western Colorado. He spent two years at Rancho Durazno while the farm was diversifying its operations to include a small-scale CSA and market vegetable operation. This experience of helping to build a vegetable operation from the ground up was instrumental in the later development of the Small Farm Central software system.

During the winter of 2005-06, Simon took the skills he learned in Information Technology and applied them to agriculture by developing a database-driven website for Rancho Durazno’s CSA. While managing the CSA’s operations throughout the growing season of 2006, he witnessed how the website augmented the goals of the farm. The database-driven approach allowed quick and easy updates of the website and it became a base for new and existing customers to connect with the farm

By having a website that was worth visiting throughout the year, the CSA site received well over 20,000 page views. This translated into telling the farm’s story many thousands of times to current customers and potential customers. The website was a starting point for discussions and a way for customers to understand the vision of the farm. The website was important for the farm because as an “experience-based” farm, the business relied on connecting to customers on a personal level.

The Small Farm Central software system is an outgrowth of Simon’s experience with the CSA website. He asked: how can the power of database-driven, professional websites be brought to a price point acceptable for the average small farm? The price of these types of websites is very high due to the time requirements and technical nature of programming and design. The core idea of Small Farm Central is to use advanced web programming and databases to allow farms to collectively share the cost of development and give each farmer a database-driven website for their farm.