Land Atlas – soil, farmability, and crop analysis for land listings | Hacker News Reader

Land Atlas – soil, farmability, and crop analysis for land listings

land-atlas-production.up.railway.app

74 pointsL3dge24 comments

Former GIS guy here, I've modeled and mapped hundreds of rural jurisdictions so I'm familiar with what you are trying to accomplish. Not sure how comprehensive USDA soil surveys are these days as soil conditions can be hyper local (down to the feet).

Many of large ranch lands and farms are going to be listed exclusively by a certain broker which may require website scrapping at minimum and or heads up data entry at worst.

Colorado:

https://www.ranchland.com/

For general usability, I'd suggest at a minimum adding State and County lines, and further, census place points for labeling.

You've included some interesting filters that's for sure.

And of course my usual plug for a great mapping book - How to Lie with Maps - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo274005...

I'd be willing to give you input.

Nice start to what can be a really useful tool. I did try some of the filters and I think there is a problem in your lookup database somewhere. I clicked on one of the listings in south Texas, Real County, and instead of the map showing the location of that property it took me to Uvalde, Texas which is quite a ways southeast of the property.

I saw similar things for a property in Joshua Tree, California that had no address, just a street name.

I would do as /u/ecommerceguy has suggested and at the very least add a toggle for State and County lines, and label roads and towns and other useful information.

As a feature that you could consider eventually adding for those who are interested in finding a rural property to land on, consider adding a toggle that can show the locations of the closest power and water access for a property using an labelled icon or other visual aid.

Sometimes the biggest challenge in determining whether you should purchase a property that you can live on is to find a place that is close enough to existing infrastructure that it doesn't cost more than the land value to gain access to water. Electricity is less important unless you are far enough north that your exposure limits your collection ability so that battery storage becomes a critical cost to consider.

With that in mind, adding info about solar suitability could be useful.

Here is a Google maps project that can help evaluate options for a property.[0]

[0]https://mapsplatform.google.com/maps-products/solar/

Water is the biggest challenge in most places. I see that you recommend pulling state wells logs for the properties. Perhaps a link to that resource would be useful. I have done water availability and quality work now for a couple of relatives in different states. There is a lot of variability in the data available and the quality of the data. Knowing which agency handles private and public well locations helps a lot. Knowing which agency monitors water quality locally also is important.

I know this is part of due diligence for an interested buyer. I think for your tool to maximize value to a buyer it should make it easy to find the bits of information that can steer the buyer to a conclusion.

It's nice to have a better UX the the USDA WSS offers, but I feel that this hides too much information. If I click, I am getting soil information at a point, but that might be a minor component and doesn't tell me about the overall area of interest. Also, as a Californian I feel that is irrelevant bordering on useless to display the non-irrigated capability class, as everyone irrigates. Looking at a parcel I am intimately familiar with, it is "4 of 8" but it is class 1 irrigated farmland, prime land of high value.

Many blessings! Thank you for this! My friend just grabbed 5 acres near a phosphate processing plant and was very concerned about the soil. Still waiting on lab results, but the deal is sealed I think.

He intends to occupy and farm it. Organic if possible, else close enough. And I when he can afford, he'll be looking for more. I sent him your url.

Another thanks on his behalf, and his family too!

Relying on soil surveys at 5 acres is typically not advised. Soil samples will always yield best results. Your State Ag School usually will process them gratis or for little cost (they may ask to add the sample to a database). The more samples the better!

One of the best:

https://www.agronomy.k-state.edu/outreach-and-services/soil-...

Homeowners, if you care about your grass looking great, not a bad idea to get a sample.

Yeah, I am quite opposed to grass in general, as an ornamental in Florida. But I do appreciate the link and advice. Samples over surveys. Remembered!

Weird question - is there any talks or attempts at limiting land owner usage of their soil for "<insert purpose here>" or is this mostly folklore or conspiracy talk?

I want to buy land some day and want to avoid the hotspots where my freedom of my property is curtailed in this way.

And maybe the soil use isn't specifically limited, but other proxies are in effect: I think of (a) water use, (b) spread of patented seed observed and business prosecution of your crop or even (c) control of your livestock or animals because "<insert plague or health concern here>".

Yeah those are pretty weird questions. I suggest you may have been spending too much time online. If you ever come across someone marketing property as the ultimate in Libertarian dirt, I would carefully investigate what liberties have been taken with it prior (dumping out New Jersey sewage trains, for example).

I'm disappointed you focus on weirdness and whats normal, and respond in a dismissive tone from there and then expect that I would suddenly engage your hostility and bad faith with respect.

You have disrespected me and I am not open to engaging with you further. Please read the hacker news rules as well, you have violated them.

Just slipping in to encourage you to ignore the vacuous comment. I am aware of all the things you alluded to. Land restrictions can be surprisingly strange. I mean, I know geriatric people who've been fined and endured attempts by the city/county to steal their property because their grass and trees were too unwieldy, requiring class-action level intervention to save them. The patented seed has a well documented precedent, but is probably moot for small farms. Water, you can expect, to be an extremely contentious issue in the future.

Stay informed, build positive networks of similar minded/valued people and choose your spot wisely. I have lived on farms, but I am far from a guru on the subject. Your list of concerns, in my opinion, is far too short. If you take land seriously, keep learning, and don't let ankle biters discourage you. Freedom is important for a homestead or farm, and not every district agrees.

I will tell you of a serious problem few speak of... Sludge(1). It has been used all over the country, especially in Florida. It can have permanently disastrous effects on soil, replete with your 'forever' chemicals and such. I advise looking into that before buying, if you want organic. A lot of prospective farmers buy land, then have it tested, and discover Sludge has rendered it unfit for even conventional farming.

1. (bio-solids, along with everything ever flushed down a toilet or run down a sewer or drain, and then some)

Thank you for sharing all that, and your experience. I didn't know sludge was an issue, and that's valuable for me to remember that it can be tested for! In some of my past I lived on eco villages and sustainable cooperative farmland housing, and we had a regenerative farming process going - since they were on remote regions like Hawaii big island or Oregon sludge likely wasn't used though I know now to check wherever I go next.

> 1. (bio-solids, along with everything ever flushed down a toilet or run down a sewer or drain, and then some)

Ah yes so the sludge or at least the other undesirables ends up on the land even without the owner intentionally using it there?

I think from our convo maybe the options in popular states or counties are limited or corrupted and that leaves a few. I wonder if non-USA areas are just simply better for many of the reasons mentioned.

Good chatting my friend.

Not exactly. Sludge(®) is the product of that. It is sprayed on land, often through coercion (subsidies) and marketed as beneficial. It's waste capitalism.

I think it could be fine, for strictly industrial purposes, eg lumber. But not indiscriminately.

Right. when you say waste capitalism, I hear that it's really a hostile form of extractive, incredibly selfish, self-serving philosophy that takes more than is sustainable.

When I believe sustainable practices can go farther that waste capitalism, and that we could feed most people on earth with that change, I do feel anger and frustration.

Waste management has a problem. What do they do with the final product? They asked that question and figured out how to turn an expense into a profit. But instead of doing so in a way that would be sustainable long-term, they bought their way through legislation and got authorization to dump it everywhere anyone couldn't fend it off. Cow pastures being one example. Farmers, watching their cattle chew on condoms, literally.

As I said, they could have used it in other, less hostile ways, but corruption is default in the US.

Things are far worse than we are allowed to openly identify. Mentioning it can make enemies. But the corruption is everywhere, as more of a rule than exception.

Ever heard of the documentary, "Everything is a rich man's trick?" it's more like some really rich people can trick a lot of other people. And then the next layer down of rich people, can perpetuate the same until you get to the lower rung of people who get it the worst.

It's just a layer of hierarchical nasty, horrible, aggressive people who have made rules for others for their own benefit but when they get caught they cause disarray, havoc, chaos and distraction to skirt the rules and start over when attention has moved on.

I built Land Atlas, a web application for analyzing the agricultural potential of land listings. The main goal is to answer: What is the quality of the soil? How farmable is the property? Which crops are best suited to its soil and growing conditions? Most property listings contain price, acreage, photographs, and a short description, but provide little structured information about agricultural viability. Land Atlas combines listing and geospatial data with: Soil type and texture Soil productivity indicators pH and organic matter Drainage and water capacity Slope and terrain Flooding and ponding Climate and growing conditions Crop requirements The application attempts to convert those inputs into: Soil-quality assessments Farmability scores Property limitations Crop-suitability rankings One difficult part has been accurately resolving rural listings. Postal cities, listing labels, coordinates, and physical parcel locations frequently disagree. I recently changed the location hierarchy to prioritize parcel identifiers and listing-provided coordinates over ordinary address geocoding. I would appreciate feedback on: Soil-scoring methodology Crop-suitability modeling Parcel-level versus point-level analysis Communicating uncertainty Global agricultural datasets Normalizing data between jurisdictions Demo: https://land-atlas-production.up.railway.app/

I checked it on a property I own in Temecula CA. It gave me great stats but not being a farmer I didn’t talk know what I was looking at. Tooltips or links to definitions would help a lot. The property scores 64 overall.

I like the idea but I wonder if your market might be larger still by including precipitation and sunlight, elevation, tax rates, and distance from highways.

He already has precipitation, elevation, and distance from highways. I don't think I saw sunlight or tax rates.

I suspect you didn't do much digging into the content before posting since 3/5 of the things you mentioned are already there and easy to locate.

Precipitation - Select one of the properties to view. In the right sidebar the listing should appear. In that sidebar there is a heading "Water Security" so select that. The first item in that list is the expected annual precipitation.

Elevation - Select one of the properties to view. It will appear on the right sidebar. The main listing block includes the property elevation, in meters, and maximum relief in meters. Under the "Parcel Report" you can find the slope, probably an average value, in percent. Just below that information you find the nearest major road distance, in miles.

With those notes, it feels like there is room here for a units toggle to select metric or American. Mix and match just feels like I'm selecting wrenches while working on a late 90's vehicle. Use the one that fits best.

Property Taxes are mentioned in the "Diligence Documents" drop-down at the bottom of the list.

In a different comment I suggested they include sunlight data so that people could determine suitability for solar installs especially for rural sites that are not close to grid power.

We're in need of more local, non-pesticide based farming

The project doesn't seem to be about enforcing philosophies on how to form or what do to with land but providing an objective assessment. Your statement depends on whose perspective you take. I don't disagree from a health standpoint and I think even economically this GMO all you can out of a piece of dirt is not long term viable but others disagree.. Don't like it, don't buy it. Capitalism at its best.

In reality it's more of a "if you don't like it, pay more to not have to buy it".

best they can do is drive farmers out of business and kill all the bees.

Even organic farmers use pesticides.

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