---
id: organizations/open-agroecology-lab
about:
  label: Open Agroecology Laboratory
  description: >-
    Argentine network of rural organizations, technicians and researchers, grown
    out of Cooperativa Ayllu, CEFIC and reGOSH in Mendoza, that builds
    open-hardware instruments and a soil-data web app so farmers can track soil
    health through agroecological transitions.
  tags:
    - agroecology
    - soil health
    - open hardware
    - farmers
    - argentina
organization:
  form: network
  homepage: 'https://regosh.libres.cc/en/projects/open-agroecology-lab/'
  country: Argentina
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: Open Agroecology Laboratory – REGOSH
      url: 'https://regosh.libres.cc/en/projects/open-agroecology-lab/'
    - title: Agriculture - The OpenFlexure Project
      url: 'https://openflexure.org/about/agriculture'
    - title: >-
        DWeb Virtual Meetup — DWeb Camp JOMO (or FOMO, in case you missed it)
        PART II (September 2026) : DWeb SF : Internet Archive
      url: 'https://archive.org/details/dweb-virtual-meetup-sep-2026-camp-jomo-fomo'
  created: '2026-10-17'
  reviewed: '2026-10-17'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
import:
  source: openai-linkedin-scrape 2026-10-17
  id: DT117
  kind: adjacent_initiative
  family: enabling_technology_and_adjacent_work
  priority: supporting
  verified: false
  posts:
    - P082
  posters:
    - DWeb Community
domains:
  - food
---
The Open Agroecology Laboratory (Laboratorio Agroecológico Abierto) is a loose organization of rural groups, technical teams, researchers and activists in Argentina that builds open tools and participatory processes for farms moving to agroecology. Its backers and partners include CEFIC–UST Somos Tierra, Cooperativa Ayllu, the Latin American open-hardware network reGOSH, Crece desde el Pie, two faculties of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, INTA, and funders such as the Shuttleworth Foundation, CYTED and Code for Science and Society. Fernando "Nano" Castro of Cooperativa Ayllu teaches at the lab.

Its main product is an Open Source Soil Health Monitoring Kit: a set of open laboratory instruments and protocols plus a companion app that walks a user through the tests, records results with standard metadata, and lets groups compare and interpret soil indicators together. Earlier work used OpenFlexure microscopes with farmers in Mendoza to look at soil organisms, and soil chromatography workshops. The lab frames this as collective learning among farmers and technicians as much as data collection.

The tools are open hardware and open software; the kit, its protocols and its data recording were the subject of workshops with INTA Junín and the agronomy faculty in 2026.

Active; listed activities run from 2021 in Mendoza to DWeb Camp and the Kompost Festival in Germany in 2026, and the kit was presented at the DWeb virtual meetup of September 2026.