ABSTRACT
The success of open source as a strategy for sharing knowledge has proven its merits over the years. Nowadays, its applications and implications go far beyond the original field of software development, being increasingly integrated into fields such as design and agriculture. Open Source Agriculture is a vision of a potentially more democratised alternative for technology design and development based on community-led ecosystems of food technologies for more sustainable food systems. Similarly, in the last two decades, design practice and research have increasingly become more knowledgeable of the potential of open and collaborative design methods. The aim of this research is thus to map the scientific contributions acknowledging the role of Design in Open Source Agriculture. The research question of this article is: what are the existing connections among design, open source and agriculture? In order to answer this question, we performed a semi-systematic literature review by querying the Scopus database for publications with all the “design”, “open source”, “agriculture” terms in titles, abstracts and keywords. We identified 137 publications and analysed them with the VOSviewer and Bibliometrix software to explore the overall bibliometrics, titles and abstracts terms co-occurrences, keyword co-occurrences, co-citation networks, bibliographic coupling, thematic maps and evolution. We thus uncovered the primary sources of publications and the main topic clusters, their connections and evolution through the years. Publications started in 2004 with a growth that doubled during 2017-2018; “design” emerged as the main word used in titles together with “system”, before “agriculture”. In terms of thematic evolution, “design” emerged around 2017 from “system”, “agriculture”, and “monitoring” and then developed into one of the main themes. While “system” and “open systems” are the main topics, more than “agriculture”, “design” is a relevant topic that can be found as the main element of a cluster that connects it with strategic topics such as service, sustainable development, regional planning, urban growth or even policy implementation. Thematic analysis shows design as a basic topic, widely developed but not consciously focused and not pushing the field forward. Design in Open Source Agriculture is often considered for orchestrating, monitoring, managing systems such as IoT. Here, design has had an increasing thematic relevance: while it is typically considered as a basic, general, universal practice of developing technology, it is also often adopted together with more strategic topics it deals typically with (service, policy, sustainability). Design is a foundational element of Open Source Agriculture, but there is no research on the specificities of its role in this context. Further research could thus explore the role of design in Open Source Agriculture in a more conscious way and for more strategic directions beyond technological development.
