Internet changes way farms do business

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Think of farms and images of tractors and combines come to mind. But what about laptops, smartphones and tablets?

The number of farmers with Internet access on a variety of digital gadgets has dramatically increased, changing the way farms do business. Farmers say they're increasingly using the Internet to speed up their work flow, improve their farming techniques, market their crops, connect with customers and retailers, and fulfill a variety of regulatory requirements.

Within the past decade, the number of farms with an Internet connection has increased by nearly 20 percentage points, according to a report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this month. More than half of America's farms now have access to the Internet, with farmers in the West with the highest access.

"The Internet is such an integral part of doing business in agriculture," said Dan Errotabere, who farms 3,500 acres in Riverdale, Calif., 25 miles south of Fresno. "If the power goes off, everything on the farm seems to stop. Everything is so electronic now."

Farmers still lag behind the general population — nearly 80 percent of Americans surf the Web at home — but the fact that Internet-enabled devices have become less expensive and more portable has fueled the increase.

Big farms like Errotabere's have the most access, the USDA report shows. More than 70 percent of farms with sales of $250,000 or more use the Internet for farm business.

For Errotabere, the Internet is key in communicating with and delivering documents to government officials, manufacturers, packers and retailers. His staff files reports online, catches up with pest control advisers via email and receives text messages about the weather.

Errotabere emails brokers and trades agricultural commodity futures on the Web, and he downloads delivery information on an hourly basis for his crops.

"The Internet is quicker, portable and more reliable than mail," said Errotabere, who uses a laptop and smartphone and just got an iPad. "You get a pulse for whatever is happening in real time. It has revolutionized the ag business."

Alec Smith, whose family's Turlock Fruit Co. grows melons and other crops on several thousand acres near Firebaugh, Calif., 45 miles northwest of Fresno, says one of the most important advances of the Internet is in pest control. When plants exhibit signs of disease, staff at Turlock Fruit snap photos and email them to plant disease specialists at universities. The specialists email back with advice for combating a disease.

About 41 percent of smaller farms also are online, according to the USDA.

But despite the enormous benefits to using the new technology, barriers remain for many farmers, said Richard Molinar, a small-farm adviser at the University of California Cooperative Extension in Fresno.

Older farmers and immigrant farmers tend not to use the Internet or digital devices. And while the cost of computers, phones and Internet connections has fallen, for small farmers the expense can be prohibitive.

And no matter the benefits, farmers said, the Internet is never going to replace the physical labor of planting and harvesting.

"Farming," said Alec Smith of Turlock Fruit Co., "is still about farming."

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