Enough with the "so-and-so planted a rhubarb in your name" kind of nonsense of FarmVille that you see on Facebook: MyFarm plans to be the real deal, a real farm, with real animals, real people and a real online organization.
Britain's National Trust is behind the newMyFarm online project, which it hopes will draw 10,000 members of the public to help manage. The Wimpole Home Farm at Arrington is in Cambridgeshire, about 50 miles from London. And no farming experience is needed, says the National Trust; just the equivalent of about $48 as a contribution.
"MyFarm is a big online experiment in farming and food production, giving 10,000 members of the public a say in the running of a real working farm," the private organization says on the MyFarm website.
"MyFarm Farmers will join forces on this website to discuss and make decisions on every aspect of the farm: the crops we grow, the breeds of animal we stock, the new facilities we invest in and the machinery we use.
"The aim of the farm is to be profitable, and to maintain the highest standards of sustainability and welfare."
Certainly, FarmVille, made by Zynga, has been profitable, for Zynga at least, with more than 110 million installs and 32 million daily users worldwide, according to Gamasutra.
The National Trust's concerns are that "many people in the UK are increasingly disconnected from the realities of how food is produced. Meanwhile, food production is becoming increasingly important both globally and nationally."
The trust "looks after a large amount of land" and wants the public "to understand the role we play and how it benefits them. Over the past few years the National Trust has done this by creating 1,000 new allotments on Trust land, running thousands of events and giving away millions of seeds to encourage people to grow their own food at home, highlighting the importance of sourcing local and seasonal food in the Trust's 150 restaurants, and working with local groups to create three Community Supported Agriculture schemes (one of which is at Wimpole)."
And so far, so good: This week, "We hit 1,000 members within our first 48 hours, which is great and well ahead of what we were hoping!" wrote staff member "Farmer Jon" on the MyFarm blog.
The first vote by members will be May 26, when MyFarm members decide what should be grown in one of the key fields on the farm.
"Now, we don’t just want to chuck the reins to you and say 'Do whatever you like!' " he wrote. "This isn’t a Facebook game — it’s a real farm, with real decisions and real consequences."
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