It was called CornCam.
A camera was trained on a field of corn in Iowa last fall and people could watch it via the magic of computers.
Any time of day or night, computer nerds could check the corn crop. “Yup, still growing.”
Right now, the farmer in you is probably thinking computer nerds should leave their screens a bit more often. Crops growing? You’ve probably seen that a time or two, and it isn’t a scene of nonstop excitement.
But as it turned out, it wasn’t only nerds who were checking the site. CornCam, a project of Iowa Farmer Today, was the web sensation of the season, and the corn crop belonging to Jim and Sharon Grief of Prairieburg, Iowa, spent 150 days in front of a worldwide audience.
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Newspapers and magazines did stories about the site. Almost 9,000 people sent e-mails, expressing amazement, enlightenment and the sense of peace achieved through watching corn grow.
With that kind of popularity, you knew a similar project wouldn’t be long in coming — and it has.
Enter DairyCam, a project initiated by the same newspaper and a few partners. It encourages website viewers to feast their eyes “until the cows come home.”
By calling up www.DairyCam.com, viewers see scenes from a 220-cow dairy operated by the Dairy Foundation and located on the campus of Northeast Iowa Community College near Calmar, Iowa.
There is live action from the freestall area, the milking parlor and the “special needs” area where sick cows are treated and calves are born.
There’s much more potential for action in a dairy barn than a corn field, so the college and the newspaper expect an even greater website success.
The more the better, because the idea is to showcase Iowa farming practices.
In our brave, new, wired world, this seems a great way to bring agriculture into urban homes.
In Western Canada, most city dwellers could visit a farm simply by driving half an hour from home. That doesn’t mean they have any inclination to do it, however.
If people the world over will sit and watch corn grow and cows give milk, will they also watch canola flower and hogs eat and beef cattle graze? Why not?
Perhaps it’s time to get a camera on the Producer website, and get to work on WheatCam and HogCam and PastureCam and FeedlotCam and …
