My cousin and buddy Rick Birmingham (Tech Circuit Rider for MAP for Nonprofits) sent me a fun article last week from CNN.com (Web forums replacing coffee shops for farmers). The article reported:
“Fifty-one percent of U.S. farms have Internet access, according to a July 2005 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, up from 48 percent in 2003. More than two-thirds of them, however, still use dial-up modems to connect.”
We both found this to be surprisingly low. When I get some time I’m going to try to research more current number and/or statistics on Minnesota farmers.
Rick read about the article in an email newsletter published by The Baller Herbst Law Group. I’m pleased to announce that I have just joined the email list myself. I have heard wonderful things about it – and have had several people forward interesting issues to me in the past.
You can join the list by sending an email to the list owner info (at) baller.com. (Replace (at) with @ – I just didn’t want to subject them to unwanted spam by posting the full email address here.)
How else would farmers get connected? “The Cable” can’t go from farm yard to farm yard.
Farmers were “early adopters” of computer AND internet technologies because the technology is relatively inexpensive compared to a combine or other farm equipment. They are big users of spreadsheets and real-time market information.
BUT how to get faster connections is a problem. I even think it might be worth what I pay for my cable internet connection in Minneapolis, about $45 per month, to have fast rural access. It took an hour to download a large PDF document from the Dept of Ag. As a farm expense it works, as a family expense it may not at that price.
I am the technical support for my retired, but still on the farm, parents and as far as I know the choices are: dial-up, satellite dish and RF, but the RF only works if someone has put it on a watertower that you can see and is within 5 miles…I think. I have been waiting for the radio solution since that seems like a good one for the one farm I know about, but I havn’t heard much about it lately.
just my two cents…
It’s great to hear a first hand perspective. After talking with Jack Geller at the Center for Rural Policy and Development, I learned that 37 percent of rural residents have high-speed Internet connections, compared to 57 percent in the Twin Cities.
I think there are two factors in play – the difference between rural towns and living on a farm AND the difference between broadband connections. Many of the people surveyed for the report did not know the speed of their connection. Often I think for regular users the distinction is “always on” or “have to call up via mode”.
For your parents I think living on the farm is more remote that “living in rural MN.” Also the cost factor, which you astutely point out – $45 isn’t so bad as a farming expense but is pretty high for a home account.