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Nearly Half Of All Farmers Have Internet
from the e-farming dept
A few months ago we wrote about how a farmer was spending a large part of his time designing websites for other farmers. At the time, I wondered just how many farmers had internet access, and now I've got the answer. It turns out that nearly 50% of the farmers in the US have internet access. There was a lot of growth from 1997 to 2001, but it's slowed down in the past few years, as the remaining farmers don't trust the internet. Those that do, however, have found that it really changes the way they go about their business, and can give them quite an advantage over farmers who stick with old fashioned methods of bookkeeping and accessing information.
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farming and Internet
Seems to me the biggest problem is access--dial up really doesn't cut it for more than occasional surfing and e-mail, with the bloated web pages that're being churned out now.
My parents have a farm in a (very) rural area in Montana--the nearest town is only about 300 pop. However, when Qwest (USWest) dumped all the smaller communities, the local phone cooperatives that took over were in many cases much more progressive. They have had DSL service there for several years now, and at reasonable prices. They will even attempt to run the service out 4+ miles in some cases, depending on the line buried. It's natural that the farmer subscriber level would plateau, but I think as more of the younger generation take over the farms the percentages will steadily rise.
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