Open Technology Ecosystem for Agricultural Management (OpenTEAM) is a community of farmers, ranchers, businesses and developers working to increase food system resiliency in the face of climate change.
In 2025, OpenTEAM moved to a new “home” at Raft Foundation after being incubated at Wolfe’s Neck Center. Wolfe’s Neck Center is proud to have been a part of launching OpenTEAM and remains a partner and an active node in the OpenTEAM ecosystem.
WHAT WE DO
OpenTEAM began in 2016 as a network connecting farmers, open-source tech developers, researchers, and agricultural community organizations in an open agricultural technology learning series. In 2019, with the support of the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), Wolfe’s Neck Center began facilitating OpenTEAM’s development of collaborative technology and data infrastructure to support participatory action research on soil health. Since that time, OpenTEAM has grown into a global initiative with over 60+ national and international partners in open-source agriculture technology, food systems, science, and community knowledge stewardship.
Past Wolfe’s Neck Center projects connected to OpenTEAM include the FFAR grant that provided funding to support the initial development of OpenTEAM community and governance frameworks (2024); a USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grant funding farmer practice transition support, soil analysis, and OpenTEAM agricultural data systems and technology development projects (2025); and USDA Cooperative Agreements supporting tools for collecting, storing, and sharing conservation cost data for use by NRCS and users and organizations outside of the USDA (Conservation Cost Database, 2025) and analysis and improvement of a NRCS software platform to collect and manage agricultural data, particularly focusing on soil health information (Producer Operations Data System, 2025).
The transition to RAFT allows OpenTEAM to focus on advancing open agricultural technologies and data-systems that are transparent, equitable, and regenerative while Wolfe’s Neck Center deepens its core focus in regenerative farming education and technical assistance, market development, research and data innovation. Wolfe’s Neck Center continues to manage projects connected to the OpenTEAM community, including the Grazing Lands Conservation Data Initiative and the TRAC co-op agreement with the USDA.