I sat down with Rachel Weidinger of Common Knowledge about the upcoming SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin, TX.  She’s the mastermind behind a cool panel on technology and sustainable food.  Yes, food at a predominantly tech conference; then again, who doesn’t eat?

She was telling me how the conference attendees are 99% passionate techies who want to make a difference, and who incessantly Twitter, upload Facebook photos from their mobile, blog, and party at Tweetups.  Yikes.  And I thought I was tech-savvy.

At FarmsReach, we’re bringing technology to the farm community, a demographic that’s not exactly known for its tech prowess.  It’s one of the hardest things we’ve had to do: Build robust business tools for farmers and buyers, but still make the UI easy enough for farmers to navigate and simple enough to work with in the back of a bustling restaurant.

While we’re launching FarmsReach itself at the upcoming Green:Net event later this month, we’ve been meeting with lots of farmers and chefs in the SF Bay Area to learn what adjustments we need to make to the application. It’s a process of constant learning, and I’m always reminded of how varied the range of users can be. For example, Paul Arenstam, Executive Chef at Americano, said they’re setting up a Facebook group (hey, be a fan!) and are starting to Twitter. On the producer side, however, several farms whose produce is the most sought-after in the city still operate completely offline, relying entirely on their cell phone and faxes.

We want to help bridge that gap: Let chefs source easily, while still working within farmers’ technology comfort level and the tools that they’ve got.

Ultimately, this isn’t about technology. It’s about a community that will exists both online and off, built by people who want to optimize the path food takes from field to plate.  Some of those builders will be tech geeks like those descending on Austin this week; some will happily remain the dirty-fingernailed, sun-bleached-smile tech-minimalists that they are. But we’ll all be after the same thing: Making local food an efficient, sustainable option for Americans.

The panel, entitled “Lessons in Local Tech: Sustainable Food 2.0″, happens in room 10 on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m (just before lunch!). Here’s the event listing, which lets you add it to your calendar, too!