An ongoing problem to farmers has been trying to keep up to date in a rapidly changing agriculture. At the same time, obtaining relevant information has become increasingly more important as farmers face new challenges in their farming operation. These challenges may include new crops, marketing off-board crops, weed control in direct seeding, etc.. Traditionally, farmers have relied on farm magazines, extension agrologists, etc., for the bulk of their information and these sources will obviously continue to be important. More recently, however, the electronic age has allowed farmers with a computer and a modem, to access a variety of information. A good example of this is FBMInet. There are also very specialized, subscription-based services such as DTN and Global Link. These two market oriented services require a satellite hook up and specialized equipment to download information.
The latest trend in electronic information transfer is the Internet. Although there has recently been an explosion of people accessing and "surfing the net", the Internet has actually been around for over 25 years. For those who are new to the net or are thinking about joining the "Information Highway", it can be a little intimidating. There are virtually millions of documents on the Internet. Finding something of interest and relevance to you can be a challenge. Although there are so called "search engines" that are simply electronic indexes (just like in a library), the amount information one can access is simply mind boggling. Also confusing, are the search engines have rather bizarre names like Web Crawler, Lycos, Gopher, Archie, Veronica, etc.. In addition, their ability to search for a specific item may not overlap with each other. Another problem is that information is constantly being added and deleted from the Internet on a daily basis.
There has not been much ag-related information on the net that had much relevance to farmers in Saskatchewan. However, this has changed in the past few months and continues to improve. Although the amount of information relating to agriculture is steadily increasing, certain problems remain for rural areas. One problem is the line charges and packages still tend to be higher in rural areas as compared to the primary urban areas. Another problem, which relates to line charges is the amount of time involved when making extensive searches for information. The more time spent making searches, the more the line charges will be.
With the increased interest in Internet, there has recently been some activity in reducing the necessity for each individual to make extensive searches. The Extension Research Unit of Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food have developed a booklet called The Internet "Agriculture Magic Bus" Directory. This booklet contains a wide variety of Internet addresses the individual can use to contact directly. There is also a brief description of what information the user can expect to find at that address. This provides an important shortcut for users. The 31 page booklet is available at your local Rural Service Centre. The booklet covers a variety of Agriculture-related topics such as; general agriculture, biotechnology, weather information, market information, extension articles, livestock, horticulture, libraries, educational information for schools, agricultural magazines, statistics, and even shopping. For example, an address that would link you to the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange would be http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/WWW/AGATOR/HTM/AGMARKET.HTM. Note that addresses are case sensitive, therefore, must be typed in the correct case.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada are undertaking a pilot project to develop a national directory that can be accessed through the Internet. This directory of Canadian sites can be accessed at the following address: http://actest.agr.ca/agriweb/agriweb.htm.
Various software programs can be downloaded as well from various locations. For example, the September issue of the Country Guide had a listing of several programs in its home page. Some of these programs include CROPCOST, COWCHIPS, CROPPLAN, and FETBLND. Some of these programs are only demos of the original program, but it will give you an idea if you feel the program is worth purchasing. The address to this site is: http:www.mbnet.mb.ca/~wilkins.
PARI (Parkland Agricultural Research Initiative) have research information from Agriculture Canada Research Stations in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Their site is located in the text-based Gopher system and the address is: gopher://paridss.usask.ca
SSCA has also entered the information highway. The text-based page includes past issues of the Prairie Steward and proceedings of the last two SSCA Annual Conferences. The address for the SSCA Page is: gopher://logic.uc.wlu.edu:30002/7?paridss. Our page is found in the PARI directory.
Ultimately, the Internet should be looked on as another source of information the farmer can now access. In most cases, the information you can access will be free (except for line charges). However, in some cases, certain information like detailed commodity market quotes may have a subscription fee before you can access the information. Undoubtedly, the amount of agricultural information coming onto the net that is relevant to the prairies will greatly increase in the near future.
How much use farmers will get out of the Internet will depend on their needs and in some cases their demands for certain information. Navigating the maze of information that is on the Internet is now being made easier by various groups who are compiling directories of agriculturally related addresses. Hopefully, these groups will continue to update the directories on a monthly basis in order that we can be kept up to date in this rapidly changing medium.
Happy motoring on the Information Highway!