By Lianne Appleby, Ontario Beef Editor

I would imagine that ten or even as little as five years ago, certain words we now associate with the Internet were not in the average Ontario beef farmers’ vocabulary. Emails were foreign and Web sites were rarely used by our membership, let alone the jargon that goes along with all this stuff nowadays…words like hashtag, blog, podcast, RSS feed, cookie, tweet, …the list goes on.          

While you may not know what some of these words mean (and I’m not going to go through them all here…you can look them up online!), don’t fret. Even those of us who work in agricultural communications are running to keep up.          

The reality is, the world has become a small place very quickly – due to technology - and like greyhounds chasing the elusive rabbit, agriculture needs to make sure it stays somewhat with the pack.  If we don’t, we will find ourselves so far behind the curve, that in a few years it will be a foreboding mission to even keep out of the did-not-finish category.

I can say with great pride that OCA is at least middle of the bunch…visitors to our Web site can see a link to our Twitter account right on our homepage, and we use that forum to get information out, and also to bring it in as well.  We use DIGG to get information, and even YouTube to check for video’s we may have missed on the six o’clock news last night. In some cases, I’ve found information through the Tweets I receive, even before official news releases go out. 

What’s even more exciting is that slowly but surely, our members are coming online…as reported by Ipsos Reid, recently. That study, which polled about 600 farmers across Canada, explored the type of Internet connection they use, first of all.  Then, questions explored just how Canadian farmers are using the Internet – and more importantly, why.

The results are quite encouraging for those of us tasked with getting information out to our members as quickly as possible.  A whopping 75% of producers use the Internet in some form or another. Half of these “users” regularly visit blogs and use streaming sites, one-third visit social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook, and a quarter have tuned in to a podcast at least once.

From December of 2006, to December of 2008, there has been a 29% decrease in the number of producers using Dial-Up Internet connections – the slowest form (this is good news for communicators at commodity organizations - who are accused of sending through files that are too large to download at the receiving end). Wireless usage has gone from 4% to 28%, while connections such as DSL, satellite and cable have seen increases of 1-2%. Still more good news.

Another interesting result of the study showed that farmers are spending more time online, with the average being 8-9 hours per week – that represents about a 15% increase. A higher percentage of the producers using the Internet represent one, two or all three of the following: they have a large farm operation; they are younger; they have a post-secondary education.

The dramatic results are partly due to the fact that broadband access in rural areas also doubled over the 2-year period in question, but Ipsos representative Marinus Van Dijk says that 70% of online farmers have a broadband connection now, which gives them a greater opportunity to conduct business online, search stories and media without being frustrated by download times.

And what are farmers doing online? you ask. Well, Van Dijk reports that not only are they accessing market information, which is an obvious reason, they’re also doing things like comparison shopping, and a full one-third are using social networking sites, like MySpace or Facebook. That compares to 40% of the general Canadian population – meaning they’re not too far behind. Fifty percent of young farmers (under 45 years old) have at least one social network account.

So, if you don’t know your ISP from an FTP and you’re not even sure that you have a URL, it’s not too late to join the momentum in learning how the Internet can help your farm business.  Studies show after all, that technology is slowly reaching our rural areas, and as it does, I encourage you to take advantage of the Internet as a tool for success.

Have a wonderful holiday season. And don’t forget to leave some cookies out for Santa - real ones, of course.