Agriculture's Future down on the Cyberfarm

Information consumes the attention of its recipients. Therefore a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. -- Herbert Simon.

Everyday, we see reminders of the phenomenal growth of the Internet in society. Advertisements on television, radio and newspapers routinely include the firm's Internet address and encouragements for us to browse their web site. Even sport's announcers have been glibly spelling out their e-mail addresses between the slam dunks and three-point shots that have filled the March airwaves lately.

It seems that there's no end to the ways that each of us can have access to more and more information over the Internet. But, as economist/psychologist Herbert Simon stresses, too much information can detract us from the critical factors that influence effective decision making.

As we in agriculture consider use of the Internet, it's important that we focus on this tool as an aid to farmer decision making, not just on providing more information. But how would using the Internet benefit farmers?

To address that question, let's explore Cyberfarm (http://w3.ag.uiuc.edu/INFOAG/cyberfarm), the unique creation of the Champaign County Network Agribusiness Task Force. The purpose of developing Cyberfarm was to discover those future Internet uses that farmers and their agribusiness trade partners believe will provide value.

Of the than 100 members of the task force, approximately 25 percent are producers, 20 percent are from local agribusiness firms, 30 percent are from the University of Illinois, and the remaining 25 percent come from area schools and government associations. Led by volunteers, members contribute a diverse range of experiences with the Internet and technology.

In 1994, when the group first assembled, relatively few were actively "on-line". Today, most of the communication within the task force takes place with e-mail, the "killer application" on the Internet.

Of course, Cyberfarm offers a world of information to the farmers of Champaign County. Yet, potentially valuable applications involve communications that never extend beyond the boundaries of the county. Crop scouting is an important practice to ensure that pest problems are addressed without unnecessary application of pesticides. But, how can those crop scouts most effectively communicate the

extent and location of specific problems to their farmer clients? Why not put a digital picture of the specific field site where the problem is found on a password-protected web site for the producer to examine at their convenience?

Many of the task force producers are early adopters of precision agriculture. They see the Internet as an essential means to transfer yield maps and other data generated within precision agriculture to the crop consultants whose expertise is needed to best understand this information.

As farmers and marketers discussed uses of the Internet, they realized that an important potential of the technology was in improving how they worked together. The Internet can be used by producers to access their individual accounts at their elevators with the use of passwords and then to download information in spreadsheet form. This is an attractive option to the frustration of the farmer having to type data from scale tickets -- when those tickets can be found.

Although these are only three of many Cyberfarm examples, they illustrate that the Internet offers the means for important communications for farmers and their trade partners, whether input suppliers or marketers. Outside of agriculture the use of electronic communications has provided an important margin of advantage in many industries. Firms such as Walmart and American Airlines gained enormous value by effectively using electronic communications. For the first time, the Internet offers farmers the potential to gain similar business benefits.

More and more farmers and agribusinesses are, and will be, adopting the Internet. In doing so, we need to resist the temptation to see the Internet just as a means to get more information. As the Cyberfarm experience demonstrates, the Internet offers farmers and agribusinesses the ability to gain efficiencies. These efficiencies then can be used to improve farmer decision making.

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Steven Sonka serves as director of the National Soybean Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois and holds the Soybean Industry Chair for Agricultural Strategy in the College of ACES. Cyberfarm currently is being registered as a trademark by the Champaign County Network (CCNET).