By DOUG SCHMITZ
Iowa Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Within the past 10 years, Internet access on U.S. farms has increased 19 percent, with 62 percent now using the World Wide Web – up from 43 percent in 2001, according to a 10-year USDA report released earlier this month.

“It’s no secret the landscape of rural America and the ways in which farmers and ranchers do business is evolving,” said Cynthia Clark, administrator of the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). “These changes are happening not only in the fields, in terms of what is produced and how, but also in the office and home with how producers access information and conduct business.”

Released Aug. 13, the report, entitled Farm Computer Usage and Ownership, said a total of 62 percent of American farms now have Internet access, compared with 59 percent in 2009. This year, 65 percent of farms have computer access, up 1 percent from 2009.

The proportion of U.S. farms owning or leasing a computer in 2011 reached 63 percent, up 2 percent from 2009; farms using computers for the farm business remained virtually stable at 37 percent in 2011, compared to 36 percent in 2009, the report added.

In Iowa alone, farms owning or leasing a computer in 2011, at 68 percent, increased slightly from 2009, and are 5 percent higher than the U.S. percentage.

“The Internet has radically changed the ways that farmers get information and the speed with which they get it,” said J. Gordon Arbuckle Jr., Iowa State University assistant professor of sociology and extension rural sociologist. “Many farmers subscribe to, online, daily emails from farm magazines and other farm press outlets.”

For example, Arbuckle, who conducts ISU’s annual Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll, said the 2011 poll found 60 percent of farmers use the Internet on at least a weekly basis for farm-related information such as markets, weather and general agricultural news.

“About 38 percent reported that they access the Internet for ag-related information on a daily basis,” he said.

For U.S. crop farms, the report said 67 percent have computer access and 41 percent use a computer for their farm businesses in 2011, up 2 and 1 percent from 2009, respectively.

“Internet access for crop farms has increased to 64 percent in 2011, compared with 60 percent in 2009,” the report said. “In 2011, a total of 63 percent of livestock farms have computer access and 61 percent have Internet access.”
The report also found that Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is the most common method of accessing the Internet, with 38 percent of U.S. farms now using it, up from 36 percent in 2009. Dial-up access dropped from 23 percent in 2009 to 12 percent in 2011.

“Satellite and wireless were each reported as the primary Internet access methods on 15 and 20 percent of those U.S. farms with Internet access, respectively,” the report said. “Cable was reported as the primary access method on 11 percent of the farms, the same level as 2009.”

Tim Recker, an Arlington, Iowa, corn grower, has had high-speed Internet for the past 13 years when his locally-owned phone company started offering it.
“At first, I used Starband through the satellite and it was okay, but didn’t work well during storms,” he said. “I have a cable DSL line.”

If he has questions about products, prices or general agriculture stories, Recker said he usually finds them on the Internet – especially since “markets come to smart phone and computer, so I can have constant market access.

“Iowa Corn Growers and several other groups use the Internet as a lifeline to their members; all pricing with my seed corn contracts are done via a Web-based pricing system,” he said. “This has made selling crops more efficient, and there’s always a record online.”

As a result, Recker said the advantages to Internet access are fast and efficient communication and information (market access to several potential buyers, for example). However, he noted “the disadvantage is information overload. A person needs to be smart about the sites and information that one might subscribe to.”

Overall, Arbuckle said the Internet has made the world a smaller place by bringing “instantaneous communication and access to information to anyone with a decent Internet connection.

“Places that have been isolated are now connected to wherever they want to be connected to,” he said. “While many of our rural areas are still geographically isolated, the ability to access information and communicate through the Internet has opened up opportunities by increasing connectedness.”

In fact, Arbuckle would argue the Internet is relatively more important to rural well-being than to urban, and that “we need to continue to develop broadband Internet infrastructure in rural areas.

“I see very few disadvantages to using the Internet to inform the management of a farm operation,” he said. “As in any other business, the more informed you are about markets, innovative technology and practices and so on, the better. So as long as a farmer doesn’t spend too much time on Facebook or Farmville, I only see the upside.”

To read the complete Farm Computer Usage and Ownership report through your Internet access, visit www.nass.usda.gov