• On-line farmers

  Internet comes to the farm according to study by Greenlee's Eric Abbott.

• Farm kids probably have vivid images of their fathers tuning into the radio every day at noon to get the latest grain and livestock prices.
  
  The memories may also include a constant checking of the weather on the radio or the late night television news.
  
  Now, constant checking of the Internet may be added for the current generation of farm children according to an in-depth study by Eric Abbott, professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication.
  
  Abbott has looked at Internet adoption and utilization by Iowa farm families. In 2001, Abbott surveyed 226 farm households that owned computers about their use of the Internet for both farm and non-farm purposes.
  
  The results showed heavy Internet use by multiple farm household members especially for information-seeking and email activities. Almost 80% of the households utilize the Internet.
  
  "As might be expected, farmers were much more likely to seek farm decision information, children were more likely to play games and use the Internet for school activities, and spouses used the Internet most for email," Abbott reports. "Non-Internet users tended to be households without children who paid relatively little for their computers and envisioned them to be used for household records and decisions.
  
  "Farmers' attitudes toward the Internet indicate they now regard it as an essential tool for gathering information, and see it as providing information not accessible to them from other locations."
  
  So in addition to getting up-to-the-minute grain and livestock prices, farmers are now using the Internet to research new equipment, seeds, fertilizers and other agricultural-related items.
  
  Abbott's study indicates that farmers who use the Internet are typically better educated, have children at home and have large farming operations.
  
  "Computers are useful to the larger farmer because the scale of their operations provides a bigger payoff in the management of their business," Abbott said. "The Internet is essential to these types of operations, allowing the large farming operations to get even bigger and become more efficient."
  
  Smaller-scale farmers tend to use the Internet less for farming, and more for off-farm jobs or education.
  
  There are additional implications for increased farm use of the Internet Abbott argues, including at Iowa State University.
  
  "First, because farmers now believe they can get more detailed information on-line than from other sources, it is time for university information providers to make sure that they have a strong on-line presence," he said.
  
  "Second, finding information on the Internet that you can trust is a problem. I see an opportunity for trusted sources like ISU Extension to help people find where the trusted sources are."
  
  Abbott presented his study at the Research Special Interest Group of the Association for Communication Excellence meeting this summer and was recognized as one of the top three papers in his division.
  
  The study is an offshoot of a collaborative project Abbott has been researching for several years with Paul Yarbrough of Cornell University. Abbott is also the co-author (with Peter Korsching and Patricia Hipple) of Having All the Right Connections: Telecommunications and Rural Viability.

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September 6-19, 2004