Today we are very happy to share that Crop Help is live.
Crop Help started as a simple question from growers and educators in the field: can a small team bring AI assisted crop monitoring and practical learning support into real gardens without drowning people in dashboards or jargon. The first answer is this early stage MVP, now running in the browser and ready for small farms, school gardens and community projects to try in their real work.
Crop Help runs as a secure web application with a dedicated marketing site, so you can read, learn and decide before you ever upload a photo. You can learn more about the Crop Help story, see what Crop Help can do on the products page, or go straight to action and create a free Crop Help account to upload your first photos.
What is live today
At launch, Crop Help focuses on a single clear loop:
- capture a photo of a crop bed or container
- run a health check with AI powered analysis
- turn issues into tasks and simple follow ups
- review history and learning resources in one place
Behind that loop there is a practical set of views that are already active in the app:
- Analyze for uploading plant photos, running detections and reviewing issue summaries
- Gardens for organizing beds and sites so photo data is not just a pile of files
- Issues for tracking what the system or the user flags, with status and severity
- Tasks for turning findings into work that can be assigned, scheduled and closed
- History for looking back across activity and outcomes instead of guessing from memory
- Guides for connecting real field observations to focused learning content
Everything is running on our pinned FastAPI and SQLModel stack with authenticated access, encrypted sessions and optional two factor security. That technical detail is there so that educators, districts and farm managers can trust that even a small pilot is built on a serious foundation, not a weekend demo.
Who Crop Help is for at launch
Crop Help is designed to serve three main groups right from this first release.
Small farms and market gardens
If you manage beds, tunnels or small fields, you already walk the rows with your phone in hand. Crop Help gives you a place to collect those photos, flag issues and turn them into a short list of tasks instead of a long scroll of images in a camera roll.
The MVP is intentionally lean. It will not replace your whole farm management system yet. Instead, it focuses on:
- quick photo uploads from the field
- a shared view of current issues
- a simple task board for the next few days of work
Partners like Boreal Farms are helping us test this loop in real operations, where weather, labour and time pressures are not theoretical.
Schools and classrooms
School gardens and classroom grow units are a huge part of why Crop Help exists. Many teachers are already working with inquiry based science, SHSM programs and hands on STEM. What they often lack is a simple way to connect plant observations, student tasks and digital resources into one shared record.
Crop Help gives educators:
- a garden or unit view that students can help maintain
- an image based way to talk about plant health and stewardship
- clear follow up tasks that can be assigned to classes or groups
If you are an educator, you can see how Crop Help fits into school garden programs and how it connects with existing STEM Minds and STEAM Hub content. This launch is just the first step toward a deeper learning platform that speaks the language of both teachers and growers.
Community gardens and youth programs
Community gardens and youth programs often rely on rotating crews, volunteers and seasonal staff. That can make it hard to know what happened last week or who responded to a problem.
For these teams, Crop Help is a shared memory and a gentle guide:
- a simple record of issues that anyone on the crew can review
- a task view that keeps work focused on what matters today
- links to lessons and guides that new volunteers can read between sessions
You can explore resources for community gardens and learn more about our broader education network through partners such as STEM Minds and STEAM Hub.
How the app works right now
The MVP is built around one simple question: what is the smallest useful experience that still feels like real help.
When you log in, you can:
-
Create or select a garden
Set up a site, bed or container collection so your photos have context. -
Upload a photo in Analyze
Use the Analyze view to send a clear picture of your crop, bed or container. The system will process the image and highlight potential issues. -
Review suggested issues
Each analysis returns a summary of what the model sees. You can accept, edit or dismiss these suggestions so they reflect what you know on the ground. -
Turn findings into tasks
From an issue, you can create tasks, assign them to people and set simple expectations for timing or priority. -
Check History and Guides
Over time, your account builds a trail of what you saw and what you did. Guides and lessons sit one click away, so a question in the field can lead to a focused read without leaving the workflow.
The current release runs in a modern browser on desktop, laptop and mobile. There is no separate native app yet. Instead, we are putting energy into a stable and accessible web surface that respects theme choices, reduced motion settings and the realities of mixed connectivity.
Built with partners, not in a vacuum
Crop Help is part of a larger learning and innovation ecosystem. It is not a stand alone project.
Through STEM Minds and STEAM Hub, we work with educators who bring curriculum, equity and classroom realities into every design conversation. Through Boreal Farms and Farm In A Box, we work with growers and garden program leads who care about soil, yield and stewardship.
The MVP you see today reflects that mix:
- language that students, teachers and growers can all understand
- features that respect limited time on the ground
- a roadmap that ties technical work to real learning and farm seasons
If you want to see who is behind the product, you can meet the team behind Crop Help and read more about the mission and values on the About page.
What is coming next
This launch is a starting line, not a finish line. Over the next seasons, we plan to:
- expand the guide and lesson library, with more classroom ready material and farm focused playbooks
- deepen the issue model so it can speak more clearly about severity, confidence and likely causes
- refine tasks and history so they better support audit needs for schools, districts and farm managers
- continue to improve accessibility, performance and mobile layouts across the entire experience
We will be listening closely to early pilot sites, support requests and partner programs. Feedback from real growers, educators and volunteers will shape each new feature.
How to get started
If you are new to Crop Help, a good path is:
- Visit the home page to learn more about Crop Help and see the high level story.
- Read the products overview to understand the main features and views.
- Create a free Crop Help account to upload your first photos and set up a small garden or classroom container.
- Browse the blog index, guides index and lessons index for ideas on how to use Crop Help as part of regular routines.
If you are already part of an early pilot, you can log in to Crop Help to review your issues, invite the rest of your team and begin using the app in day to day work. Our Support page and FAQ are there when questions come up, and you can always get in touch with us for partnerships and press.
This is a small but important moment for the project. Crop Help is now live, and we are ready to learn alongside you as you use it in real gardens, classrooms and community spaces.