Hancock College students develop app that connects users to local agricultural businesses

SANTA MARIA, Calif. – Allan Hancock College students have helped develop a new app that connects users with Santa Barbara County agricultural businesses, such as local farms, wineries, vineyards and farmers markets.

The new AgriDiscovery app is now available for mobile devices. It allows both visitors and residents to search for agricultural products made and grown in Santa Barbara County, and find the locations where they can be purchased.

"This new app will help improve the community’s knowledge and understanding of farming, food, and wine in our region, and connect them with the people who grow and produce these crops and wines,” said Hancock College viticulture and enology instructor Alfredo Koch. “This will also help the county’s growers and winemakers by increasing awareness of their businesses and products."

AgriDiscovery was developed with assistance from students in Hancock's viticulture and agriculture programs.

"It was really fun," said student Joey Hill. "You know, "One of the things that you don't really think of are how many farms, vineyards are in this area, so it was great just having a better sense of context of what's around us. You really don't understand how many different growers, how many different producers, how agriculture focused this area is, so being able to see that in a single app is is pretty amazing."

Currently, there are more than 100 wineries, farms, and farmers' markets included in the app, a number that is expected to grow as students help bring more businesses onto the app.

"There was a lot of data and information that needed to be collected from these businesses, and our students were willing to get out there, connect with these growers, and make sure the information we included was correct and accurate," said Koch.

AgriDiscovery took over a year to develop and provided students with a valuable educational opportunity.

"It was like endless hours of cleaning data, looking up every single vineyard, every single farm in this area," said student Melissa Yee. "A whole team that had to do this, and so to be able to use what it is that they're using, I think it's something I really learned is that you need to get a team to work together across so many disciplines and you also have to bring together a community, all the vineyards, the wine growers, the farmers had to help with this too."

The AgriDiscovery app is free and currently available for download from the App Store for Apple devices and on Google Play for Android devices.