Foragers unite! Now when you discover some sweet street-side amaranth or blackberries, you can share the surplus with Boskoi, a mobile phone app for wild foods. Named after the greek word for grazer, the app lays out a map of local fruits and herbs and allows users to edit and add their own finds. Now there’s even more reason to test the limits of your 3G network and spread word of your explorations. Get out and find some food!
Originally created strictly for Amsterdam as an Ushahidi-based app, this forager’s tool comes from the folks at Urban_Edibles. Boskoi also points you toward further info on your found plants, so you can verify that you’re not about to eat something that’s actually inedible. Foraging culture is typically very territorial, and Urban Edibles gives very clear guidelines: don’t tread on stuff, only pick what you can use, and ask if ownership is unclear. But if you come up with a great recipe for Miner’s Lettuce, by all means, pass it on!
is it possible to get this for iPhone? So cool.
I hope that anyone using this app would be ethical in their collecting of wild foods and medicinal plants. Overharvesting or incorrect harvesting of any plants can damage the plants, their ecosystems and endanger the delicate balance of life in the area of the harvest. Just because you can identify a plant with a phone app does not necessarily mean you should take the plant for your own use.
Hi,
@annadaria3 Indeed we intend to make the app available for iPhone, but we are working on a limited budget. We aim at early next year for this.
@karynherbalist hopefully many foragers share your care for the food sources they find and we added a few terms of conduct that appears when installing the app.
Can animals who need food also get an iphone app to claim their part, mark it as ‘needed for my family’ ? So they won’t die from starvation this winter? Or is it just for gadgetfreaks on two legs?
please make an iphone version