SASKATOON – It will likely take a few years before a computer will help a farmer turn a profit. In addition to plastic and microchips, farmers must invest in learning time, said a farm computer specialist.
“If they are just using (a computer) as a book-keeping device, it will never pay for itself. There are much cheaper ways of doing that,” said Bruce Waldie, Alberta agriculture computer application specialist.
But using a computer as an electronic book-keeper is the first step in having it contribute to the bottom line. Waldie, who for nine years has been promoting use of computers by farmers, said computer farm managers go through a developmental process.
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For the first few years, farmers do “compliance book-keeping,” recording and producing information for other people such as “the banker, the tax department and the GST critters”, not for themselves, said Waldie.
In the first three to five years, farmers learn how to operate the machine, manipulate software programs and build up a historical record of their farm.
The real economic benefits start once an operator can analyze records to identify problems, track costs and make decisions based on the information.
Waldie said a computer used in this fashion can help the bottom line of any farm, but he warns a computer will not make a good manager out of a bad one.
The 1991 census figures released by Statistics Canada indicate computer usage by farmers almost quadrupled to 11 percent from three percent in the 1986 census.
Waldie suggests usage is actually higher because of Statistics Canada’s definition of a farm. Census farms include those that gross as little as $250 a year, said Waldie. When looking at farms that gross a minimum of $25,000 a year, the number of Canadian operators using computers jumps to 18 percent, said Waldie.
The average first-time buyer is from 30 to 35 years old, who spends on average $2,000 to $2,500 on a computer purchase and $300 to $500 on software.
Census numbers indicate six percent of farmers 55 and older use computers, while 14 percent of their counterparts 54 and younger use computers.
Currently, farmers who are comfortable with computers are using them to gather information from off-farm sources, such as FBMInet, an agricultural electronic warehouse of information.
