ST. JOHN’S, Nfld. – Every farmer should have a cellular phone, says Susan Hickey, a Newfoundland poultry business owner.
It’s a “necessary thing” for safety and for communication, she told the Canadian Farm Women’s Network conference here. Hickey, who does the books for the 150,000-broiler operation she owns with her three brothers, uses the phone to keep in daily touch with her father who manages the farm. She works for the provincial agriculture department in St. John’s, 50 kilometres away.
The phone is also useful to access accounts at the bank and pay the farm bills. Hickey said farm women have been traditionally stuck with the paperwork and she’s no different.
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“I was thrown cold turkey into it.”
For the first six months after taking over the farm from her father she had to keep asking him what bills were paid and where receipts were. That’s because he used a “bag accounting” method in which every financial paper wound up unfiled and seldom examined.
“Banks and lending agencies consider farming risky. They want better paper plans and documents. It’s a skill you must develop.”
Hickey now uses a computer and praised the accounting software package she bought because “if you don’t get the paperwork done on time, it’s like waving a red flag for an audit.”
She is now attempting to do what she calls projection accounting that analyzes how different factors affect a farm.
Other time-saving devices she uses include a computer with a fax and modem to link up with financial institutions and customers after hours, and having the bank do the payroll for their composting and mushroom-growing sidelines. Since she does the farm books at night, she praises any technology that speeds the job.
Time-saving technology
Technology also eased life for dairy farmers Daphne and Jack Taylor of Cormack, Nfld. Their 85-head herd produces tonnes of manure and disposing of it was a time-consuming job. In 1994 they got a mechanized system for handling the manure, plus computers to feed the cattle and keep track of herd health.
“After years of scooping manure from earthen pits and getting rocks that break the machinery, this system is a real dream,” Taylor said.
Technology can be friendly, agrees Newfoundland agriculture department official Edward O’Reilly. Electronic mail, accounting and management software and the internet can all put farmers in touch with the larger world. But he cautioned there can be problems with computer communication. Often users must wait to get on the internet because so many people want to use it. Also, the information is uncontrolled and people can accidentally load viruses into their personal computers.
Public can be leery
Technology can also rouse controversy, said William Davidson, of Memorial University.
He told the conference “biopharming” is how farmers will survive in the next century. They’ll be raising animals with altered DNA so they’ll produce human drugs in their milk or other byproducts.
However, the public is leery of biotech products and distrusts scientists, said Davidson. But farmers have a lot of credibility and they are the ones who must sell the value of biotechnology to consumers.
