Saskatchewan Agriculture has great people doing a lot of great work.
However, the ministry’s lousy website is detracting from its overall efforts.
“I can never find anything on your website,” I often find myself telling staff members.
The usual reply is a sigh of resignation.
Maybe it’s because all of the provincial government is linked under one website umbrella, and agriculture has lost control over how its information is presented. Maybe it’s because communications efforts are being diverted into other social media channels.
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While it’s no doubt difficult to categorize all the information posted in a way that makes it easy to find, using the website is far more frustrating than it should be.
A lot of good reports posted somewhere on the site might as well have been dumped down a big black hole. Even when you know what you’re looking for, good luck actually finding it.
On Twitter, I saw a mention about a newly released land lease survey. Even with the help of the website’s search function, I couldn’t find it. Finally I emailed someone with the ministry who sent me the specific link.
There was a time when new reports such as this one were highlighted on the home page of the website or at least under some sort of link such as “New Postings.” Now, stuff is added, and unless you know to look for it, it’s seldom accessed.
The ministry stopped doing paper copies of its Crop Planning Guides. That’s fine, but without adequate visibility for the guides, I’ll bet very fewer producers used them this spring.
Regular cattle and hog market reports are generated by the ministry. If you’re signed up, you can get them by email. Of course, they’re posted somewhere on the website, but you have to dig.
It must be incredibly frustrating for professionals to be assembling good information only to have it buried where few people will ever see it.
Eventually some politician or bureaucrat will question why the report is being done at all.
The ministry delayed publishing the 2017 Crop Protection Guide until closer to spring so that product registration information would be more up to date.
The big books weren’t handed out in January and when I checked at a Saskatchewan Agriculture regional office in late March, they still weren’t available.
However, I was told that it was posted on the website. Yes, but it’s a 724 page book and you have to go page by page to find anything. A tremendous amount of work goes into this guide, and it’s highly valuable, but to be useful on a website it needs a different format.
A review of agriculture extension activities is underway and online surveys have become the new way for governments to consult without actually talking to stakeholders.
From my vantage point, good extension needs to start with a strong website. Dedicated, smart people are trying to do good work for farmers and the entire industry. A discombobulated website design, a product of bureaucracy, masks much of the good work being done.
