SASKATOON – The first entry in The Western Producer card index file labeled “Computer” appeared in January 1980.
Readers were told about Telidon, an information retrieval system connected to a database in Ottawa which could be connected to a regular television set.
Simply by pushing a button, said the computer expert quoted in the story, farmers could get information on grain prices, the cost of farm machinery and other inputs.
And that’s not all.
“By the late 1980s the housewife will be using the television set to get grocery prices, catalogue sales and newspaper information,” said the article. And the system would immediately notify police in the event of a break-in or fire.
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Well, not exactly.
Computers have certainly become a familiar sight in the farmer’s office, but they haven’t lived up to some of the early billing.
In a 1984 article in the Producer, a computer whiz from the University of Guelph garnered headlines by telling a conference that well before the end of the 1980s, the majority of farmers would be hooked up to computers.
It’s now 1996 and while there are no numbers readily available, people in the industry estimate that anywhere from 20 to 30 percent of farmers in the prairie provinces have a computer.
“Maybe it’s 20 percent, who really knows,” said Larry Guteck, an extension manager with Saskatchewan Agriculture.
Even that may be too high.
In the 1991 census only 11 percent of Canadian farmers reported using a personal computer in managing their farm business.
It was nine percent in Manitoba, 11 percent in Saskatchewan, 12 percent in Alberta and 14 percent in British Columbia.
The same question was asked in the 1996 census, which will be released next year.
Computer salespeople and experts say interest in computers has risen dramatically in the past couple of years, sparked by the development of the internet and other communication packages that give farmers ready access to market, weather and production information from around the world.
“There’s a feeling now that they’re going to take off,” said Guteck. ” I really think we’re right on the edge of something.”
Jason Skotheim, a graduate student in agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan and an expert in computer technology, said there’s no doubt farmers have been slower to adopt computers than other businesspeople.
“Farming has such a traditional mind-set. You learn from your dad who learned from his dad and so on.”
Not a priority
Many farmers wrongly see computers as an unnecessary frill, he said. They’ll complain about having to spend $2,000 for a computer system even though it will quickly pay for itself, whether it’s by providing better market information, improved accounting or better herbicide and fertilizer selection.
Ralph Pieper, a farm management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, thinks the number of farmers using computers will increase out of necessity, even if not by choice.
He foresees the day when farmers will have to communicate via computer or not at all, whether it’s sending information to a bank or feed mill or placing an order with a chemical supplier.
“Some day there will be as many farmers with computers as there are with telephones,” he said.
The 1991 census also found that computer use varied according to:
- Age – Fourteen percent of farmers under age 55 use computers, compared with six percent of those over 55.
- Gross sales – Among farms with gross receipts over $500,000, it found 43 percent used computers. Among those in the $50,000 to $100,000 range it was 10 percent, while just six percent of farms with under $10,000 in gross receipts were computerized.
- Education – Among those with a university degree, 25 percent use a computer, compared with only four percent of those with less than a Grade 9 education.
- Commodity – The more intensive the management required, the more likely there is to be a computer. Mushroom farms were the most computerized at 33 percent, with poultry at 20 percent, wheat at 10 percent and less than four percent of maple syrup producers.
For more on computers and agriculture, see the Computer Guide insert in this issue.
