2025 - 2026
GrownBy Register for Farm Generations Cooperative
Farm Generations Cooperative is a farmer-owned organization building technology that empowers local growers and strengthens food systems. In 2019, they created GrownBy—a free, farmer-owned platform to connect growers with consumers and support farms across America.
About
GrownBy Register is a tablet and mobile point-of-sale system built specifically for independent farms. It syncs directly with a farmer’s GrownBy inventory, supports SNAP/EBT and farm credit, and enables in-person sales and self-checkout at farm stands, farmer’s markets, and stores.
Product
Lindsey Lusher Shute, Co-Founder
Kara Valdon, Product Design
Yash Totale, Developer
Figma - Static UI
Figma Make - Interactions
Claude - Prototyping
HTML with Tailwind CSS via Claude ← passed to and from → Figma
Team & tools
WHAT FARMERS NEED
GrownBy made sales simple for small farms, but in-person selling meant juggling separate systems and duplicating inventory. GrownBy Register unified these channels with an integrated POS that shared inventory and reporting with online orders.
QUICK ITERATIONS IN CLAUDE X FIGMA
Self-checkout mode
After launch, farmers wanted a self-checkout mode to operate their roadside farm stands.
Prototype made with Claude from figma components, and hosted at https://github.com/karavaldon/grownby
Ring yourself up! You can also explore the Self-checkout mode by creating and entering a PIN.
My personal stake in agriculture
I grew up working on independent grass-fed cattle operations and raising livestock. Working on this project was a great way to give back to a community that gave me a whole lot.
Preserving independent farms promotes food security, land stewardship, rural economies, and generational knowledge. When we design better infrastructure for local growers, we’re supporting livelihoods, protecting working landscapes, and helping keep local agriculture viable for the next generation.
SUPPORTING FINANCIAL ACCESS
Why SNAP / EBT
matters
SNAP/EBT support directly expands food access while increasing revenue stability. Many farmers markets and farm stands serve communities where SNAP benefits are a critical part of household food budgets. If a POS system doesn’t support EBT, farmers are forced to run separate terminals, rely on market-wide token systems, or avoid accepting benefits altogether.
While platforms like Square and Stripe dominate small business payments, their support for in-person EBT is limited, and Stripe does not natively support in-person SNAP transactions at all. For independent farms, having SNAP/EBT built directly into their primary sales system removes complexity and strengthens equitable participation in local food systems.
TEXAS COTTAGE FOOD LAWS
Permission to build a better food economy
As an Austin resident, I’m inspired by the expansion of Texas’ Cottage Food Law in the fall of 2025. It opens the door to a new layer of neighborhood-scale commerce. Bakers, gardeners, homesteaders, and small farmers can now legally sell a wider range of foods directly to their communities. Porch markets, neighborhood co-ops, and micro-enterprises have the opportunity to become embedded in a community, and those sellers will need tools designed for this exact kind of small, decentralized commerce.
Tools like GrownBy Register can become infrastructure for the kind of hyper-local economies this legislation makes possible. Traditional POS systems like Square or Stripe were built for conventional retail. They assume standardized products, and centralized businesses. But the kinds of producers enabled by the new cottage laws operate differently: farm stands on the side of the road, online orders via DM, CSAs, porch pickup, neighborhood markets, and seasonal goods with constantly changing inventory. A POS system that connects directly to online inventory, supports SNAP/EBT, and can operate on personal devices helps bridge the gap.