SASKATOON – Surfers normally find themselves carried back to the beach where they started, but prairie farm surfers are finding they have some places to go, even at -60 C. Provided they are on the internet.
The World Wide Web is an internet system that allows individuals, groups, companies and governments to create easily accessed information centres, dubbed web sites. The information may be provided and retrieved by interested users, nicknamed surfers.
The latest World Wide Web offering of interest to farmers is the Saskatchewan Agriculture department’s web site.
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The site contains the information the department normally provides through printed material, but it can be examined 24 hours a day, seven days a week using the web site.
Visit a number of offices
Users can browse through all the offerings and gain access to otherwise awkward files and libraries now located in several different government offices.
The surfer arrives at the site’s address, http://www.sasknet.sk.ca/agfood, and is greeted by a photograph, some high tech graphics and a directory of topics.
The topic list includes crops, management, statistics, soils marketing, newsletters, weather, livestock, food, programs and general information. Once inside the site one can find publications and reports relating to the subject.
The provincial government hopes to save up to $125,000 per year in publishing and printing costs once farmers increase their computer use.
