Smart Phones: The farmer's new best friend

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Estimates are that upwards of a quarter of Ontario's farmers are using these devices – and finding that they are making information sharing and decision-making a great deal more efficient

by BERNARD TOBIN

Mark Brock, a member of the board of directors of Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO), doesn't know what he would do without his BlackBerry. Quite simply, it's changed the way he farms. "I don't know how we could do the stuff for GFO plus the work at home if we didn't have BlackBerrys," says Brock, who cash crops 1,500 acres near Staffa in West Perth.

For Brock, attending a farm organization meeting before smart phones came on the scene was often an exercise in frustration. Dealing with a simple request from his local mill to pick up a load of corn meant ducking out of meetings and trading voice mails during breaks. It could often take a couple of hours to exchange the few details needed to make the delivery happen.

"With my BlackBerry, now it's just a couple of texts," explains Brock. "It provides a lot more flexibility because the turnaround of information is so much quicker."

The whole Brock farming family, including Mark's wife, father, brother and the hired man, are now armed with a variety of smart phones. Between cash cropping and the family's broiler breeder operation, there's plenty of information to exchange and a need for quick management decisions. With the information-sharing capabilities of their smart phones, Brock says decisions that used to take three days are now made the same day.

While he works on a laptop computer at home and totes an iPad to GFO board meetings, Brock uses his BlackBerry Torch to manage the bulk of his communications and also access business information. He relies on his Twitter account to follow grain market watchers who release market information during the day.

"Every little bit of information can help and I do believe it's helping me be a better grain marketer because I'm more aware – especially in my busy crop season – of what's happening in the markets," says Brock.

When you're running a dairy farm, getting away from the barn can be difficult. Cows need to be milked, rations need to be adjusted, cow performance needs monitoring and a host of other chores have to be done. But that's no problem for dairy farmer Chris Vandenberg of Harley, west of Brantford. To check in on his herd, all he needs to do is reach for his smart phone.

When he wants to see what's happening, the 28-year-old, who milks 70 cows with his parents, Albert and Yoka Vandenberg, simply reaches for his iPhone. He can quickly log on to the live camera he has mounted in the barn and see if all is well with the herd. "It can be controlled or zoomed in on any point in the barn, and I can do that from anywhere," explains Vandenberg.

Not only can Vandenberg see the cows on his phone, he can also access all the farm's management software, including control of the farm's two robot milkers. "It's great when I'm in the tractor or in town. I check to see if there is enough feed or if a cow is calving and whether I should come home."

In October, Vandenberg spent three days at the Dairy Farmers of Ontario fall policy conference but, thanks to his phone, he was never far from the barn. Every morning and evening, he logged on to the farm's management computer to review how each cow was doing and also checked the cameras to inspect the barns. Notes on problems that Vandenberg flagged would pop up in the computer the next morning when his father logged on.

"As soon as you get into a business which has multiple employees, or multiple family members involved, you need quick contact with everyone," says Vandenberg. "The phone is a good way of keeping things running smoothly."

Use of smart phones, loosely defined as cell phones with a big screen, keyboard, Internet access and the ability to run add-on programs, also referred to as applications, is a growing trend in agriculture. And farmers like Vandenberg say they are a perfect fit for a growing farm business that increasingly relies on information and communication to manage its needs.

While statistics measuring the rates at which farmers are adopting smart phones are hard to find, a random sampling of opinion in the agriculture industry suggests that between 25 to 33 per cent of  Ontario farmers are currently utilizing some level of smart phone service and that number could double in the next 18 months. More concrete numbers should be available in 2011, reports Marinus Van Dijk, senior vice president, Ipsos Forward Research. He says the company plans to conduct a study of smart phone usage on the farm this winter.

A report released in November by U.S.-based Paulsen Marketing estimates that half of all American farmers will have access to mobile Internet access by the end of 2011. The report identifies a number of factors encouraging farmers to make the move to smart phones, including expiring cell phone plans; greater involvement of a younger, tech-savvy generation; availability of in-cab technology; the need to stay connected when working off the farm; and "agvocacy," the ability to use social networks like Twitter to gather information, communicate with others in the industry and tell farming's story to consumers.

'A total geek'
Peterborough chicken farmer Glen Atkinson may be one of the pioneers of mobile technology on the farm. "My kids think I'm a total geek," says Atkinson, who also runs a chicken retail operation at his farm property.

Atkinson has been using his phone to help run his operation remotely since 2005. With his BlackBerry, he can log on to his desktop computer and gain full access to cameras in the retail operation and chicken barns. Temperature alerts sent to his home phone are immediately forwarded as emails to his BlackBerry, from which he can quickly connect with his desktop, determine the problem and adjust the temperature as required.

"It's really allows me to wear several hats at the same time," explains Atkinson, who adds that, without the technology, running the retail operation would be a real challenge. "With my phone, I'm at the store, but I'm also at the farm."

Cash cropper Peter Gredig says he's gotten to the point that he could now farm effectively without a desktop computer.

"My mobile device has changed the way I allocate my time and structure my day," explains Gredig, who today focuses primarily on running his farm near St. Thomas after working many years in agriculture media and communications.

Rather than waking up early to sort through emails and catch up on news and farming information before breakfast, Gredig now finds time for that during the day, thanks to his BlackBerry Torch. He says it's incredible what can be accomplished with a smart phone, even during the 90 seconds it takes to unload his combine during harvest.

"I can check and send email, send text messages, check different applications, find a phone number for a dealer, look at the radar map or check the markets" says Gredig. "I could do a lot of that with a regular cell phone, but the smart phone has so many tools that it's really only limited by your imagination."

There is one significant thing, however, that both ordinary cell phones and smart phones have in common – the service contract. Traditional long-term contracts, typically three years, still dominate the mobile service industry and it's important for farmers to find the best service quality for their area. While now widely available, the quality of 3rd Generation (3G) network service, which delivers such services as wireless voice telephone, mobile internet access, video call and mobile TV, varies between service providers.

Gredig cites his own experience as a cautionary tale for farmers who need to evaluate both cost and service coverage when choosing providers and plans.

"I switched providers at one point to try to get a better deal on the cost and the coverage was brutal. It cost me a fortune to get out of the contract," says Gredig. A lot of farmers ask him if they should be buying an iPhone, BlackBerry or an Android phone, but he says "the more important question is which service provider should you go with?"

Gredig says it's important for farmers to do their research before signing on to a plan.

"You really need to talk to your neighbours. Salesmen are also really good guys to talk to because they're on the road in your area and they know where the dead spots are."

Without good network coverage, "you basically have a stone in your pocket," says Gredig.

Updates from iTunes
While mobile applications for weather and markets have become quite common, specific applications for farming have been slow to emerge.

For several years, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has made its popular CropLine update available through iTunes. It has also supported a mobile-enabled weed identification tool. But with increasing evidence of smart phones taking root on the farm, industry sources expect an explosion in the number of mobile applications for agriculture. Agriculture-specific applications reviewed by Better Farming are available free of charge to farmers and that trend is likely to continue.

In December, GFO unveiled its first mobile application, the SellSmart which allows farmers to comparison-shop between local elevators in their area, comparing prices as well as basis levels. Users can also set a target price at Chicago or at a local elevator and receive an alert on their BlackBerrys when the target price is hit. The free application can be downloaded from the GFO website at: www.gfo.ca/SellSmart.

With a diverse membership that includes 28,000 Ontario farmers, the organization is looking at every means available to connect with its membership and provide value, notes GFO communications specialist Erin Fletcher. She says GFO will continue to use traditional communications vehicles such as farm publications, but it also wants to connect with younger, more progressive members who brandish smart phones.

Fletcher says the organization is anxious to see how great the uptake of the new application is. GFO does have plans to introduce a suite of applications for its members, but next steps will be determined by the popularity of the first application.

Agribusinesses servicing the farm community are also looking to determine farmers' interest in mobile applications. Seed companies Pioneer Hi-Bred and DeKalb both released applications last year.

Pioneer's "From the Field" agronomy alert application for BlackBerry brings agronomy information and alerts to growers instantly from Pioneer's agronomy team. The information flow is fed by Pioneer agronomists from across Ontario who are armed with BlackBerrys that allow them to take pictures and post information and insights from the field. Growers have the option of choosing to receive information that is relevant to their county or from across the province and can communicate directly with the agronomist. In September 2010, DeKalb launched a corn and soybean plant population calculator application for BlackBerry. It evaluates specific agronomic factors such as soil type, tillage and row width, which are selected by the farmer, and then recommends the optimum planting rate for those conditions.

"We wanted to test the waters and see what type of appetite there is for this," says DeKalb marketing manager Denise Hockaday. She believes mobile technology has the potential to provide tremendous value to customers. "We're trying to provide as much information as possible to the grower about the products they're purchasing so they can make better decisions." 

When it comes to determining plant populations for corn and soybeans, many of the factors that affect the decision can only be assessed when the farmer pulls into the field with the planter. In this case, a smart phone application is a perfect fit," says Hockaday, adding that the application has "gone over really well" with customers. Farmers can download the application at: www.dekalbmobile.ca.

Based on feedback received, the application has already been upgraded to calculate the number of seed units a grower requires to plant a specific number of acres. Hockaday says there may be more applications to follow, but they will have to meet some tough farm criteria. "If we go forward with anything else, it will have to be functional, practical and add value. That's what growers need." BF

SIDEBAR: Smart devices mobilize 'agvocates' for agriculture

Huron County farmer Wayne Black calls himself an 'agvocate' for agriculture and he's using mobile technology to get the word out.

About a year ago, when he was president of the Huron Federation of Agriculture, Black was looking for a way to advocate for agriculture; simply put, the process of speaking, writing or arguing in favour of agriculture. But reaching out to industry stakeholders, politicians, media and consumers to communicate about farming is challenging.

That's when he discovered Twitter, the social networking and micro-blogging service that enables users like Black to send tweets – messages containing up to 140 characters – to the phones of followers who are interested in his perspective and the information he has to share.

"I spent about two weeks reading about Twitter – how to use it, how not to use it – and then I signed on and just went with the flow," explains Black. As of December, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture director-at-large had more than 400 people following his daily tweets @wayneblack.

His list of followers include Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Agriculture Minister Carol Mitchell, Canadian and U.S. journalists and a host of legislators, regulators, farmers, communicators and "foodie people."

"They're all on there (Twitter). Both the premier and ag minister have responded to my tweets.

It's a great way to open the line of communications," says Black, who recalls meeting Minister Mitchell at a recent function where the conversation immediately focussed on a Black tweet concerning food labelling.

Andrew Campbell (@AgriNewsHound) of Fresh Air Media, a company focused on educating and informing people about agriculture, new media, technology and how they all fit together, believes Twitter has tremendous potential for farmers.

He notes, however, that many farmers are apprehensive about joining Twitter for fear that their smart phone will be inundated with irrelevant information.

"When it comes to the Internet, farmers know how to find the websites they're interested in. You can do the same for Twitter. You can go in and follow the specific people you are interested in," says Campbell, who believes that once more farmers have a stronger understanding of Twitter, they will be signing on to follow their favourite grain market commentator or specific information sources.

Jeff Steiner (@ScoutingFields) of Reesor Seed & Grain farm supply in Stouffville, doesn't believe his smart phone will ever replace personal relationships, but he does believe Twitter allows him to connect more often in a meaningful way with his farm customers.

Steiner, who joined Twitter last April, now has about 100 followers who receive his daily market and agronomy updates. "That's where Twitter fits for me. I have a lot of customers who want to know what the prices are at the elevator. It's a nice way of getting information to a lot of people quickly." BF