Do smart farmers use smart phones?
By Nancy Jorgensen

Tech savvy farmers use modern phones to e-mail, access the web, view commodity prices, check weather forecasts and more

In June, we had no luck reaching Jamie Cox via his land line. He was working sunup to sundown in his fields near Mexico, Mo., planting soybeans and spraying corn, trying to catch up after a wet spring. But we raised him on his smart phone, which he answers in his truck or tractor.

A smart phone is more than a cell phone. Cox uses his Motorola RAZR 2 to make calls like with his old cell phone. But with his RAZR he can synchronize calendars and notes. It’s a handheld computer that also allows him to access the Internet and send and receive e-mail and data. His RAZR features a 2.5-inch screen along with a small keypad for typing messages and surfing Web sites. Some smart phones feature GPS mapping and a variety of other applications.

When Cox bought his RAZR in January, he played with it a lot. That paid off when he noticed soybean prices dropping sharply. “While prices were falling, I was selling,” Cox said. “It helped justify the extra expense of the phone.”

Before getting the smart phone, he accessed the latest commodity prices from the media like radio, his home computer or over a cup of coffee at the local MFA Agri Services. Now, he also checks markets three or four times daily on his phone. “The way the market has been changing 25 or 50 cents every day, it’s important to know what’s going on,” he said. He also tracks crop conditions beyond his farm and how they might affect prices at harvest.

Cox checks the markets on www.dtn.com and other Web sites, and goes to his local MFA online as well. Other farmers check markets on their local farm radio network or station Web site. Cox also surfs www.weather.com regularly. He accesses these sites at no cost beyond the monthly Internet access fee that comes with his phone bill.

What to look for in a smart phone Whether you look for a RAZR, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, or another brand, consider more than the price of the phone and monthly service. • Research whether the provider offers the best coverage in your area. Ask about the calling area and long distance charges. • Check out which operating system (OS) works best for you. While Cox’s RAZR has its own OS, some newer models run on Windows. The iPhone runs on Apple’s system. Most systems can handle Microsoft Windows documents. Is the OS compatible with your laptop when you download data? What about GPS mapping software? • Look for the memory and processing speed you need to support the amount of data you download. • Make sure the battery life meets your needs. • Find a keyboard size and style that works for you and your use habits, whether keypad or touch screen. Another tip: With so many users upgrading, you may find used smart phone bargains online.

On the day we spoke, a thunderstorm warning spurred him to plant beans less deep than normal to speed up growth. Earlier in the spring, storm warnings triggered him to hold off on spraying corn to prevent expensive chemicals from being washed away.

Cox farms in a 15-mile radius, not all contiguous, and he spends a lot of time on the road. “It’s been a lot more challenging to farm this year with it being so wet,” Cox said. “I’ve got planters running in two areas, and I’m trying to deal with different soil types and conditions.” Accessing up-to-the-minute local weather data has proven critical in optimizing the timing of planting and spraying. The information also helps him be in the right place at the right time, saving drive time and high fuel costs.

He’s an early adapter

During those long days in the field, Cox also uses his smart phone to keep in touch with wife, Lisa, along with Tucker, age 3, and Callie, age 8.

At age 32, Cox may fit the profile of the average farmer who uses a smart phone—generally, they’re younger. Still, “there aren’t a lot of young farmers in my area using smart phones,” Cox said. “I’d say about 20 percent of us have Internet on our phones.”

Canadian futurist Jim Carroll, who speaks to agricultural groups across the globe, comments on farmers like Cox that make up the early-adapter crowd.

“Simple demographics mean that as new generations take over the family farm, they will naturally use more of the computing tools that have been so natural to them from birth,” he said.

An Iowa Farm Bureau survey of young farmers, ages 18 to 35, backs up Carroll’s view. About 90 percent have cell phones and computers, and 99 percent use the Internet. That’s higher than the national average for Internet use by farmers of all ages, which runs closer to 55 to 56 percent, according to an August 2007 USDA report. The Iowa study didn’t cover smart phones.

It’s affordable

Cox bought his RAZR from a local store in his hometown to make sure he’d be able to access the best local cell and Internet services. He purchased it with a 2-year contract for $150, but prices vary widely according to contracts, promotions and features.

In the past, he paid about $60 a month for plain voice cell service with a long distance plan. Today, an extra $20 a month buys him Internet and related services. Cox doesn’t use text messaging much—“I prefer to talk to a person,” he said, adding that he doesn’t make time for other options like games or music downloads.

Cox remains pleased with his RAZR, but he’d like to see a few improvements, including better cell coverage to avoid the dropped calls he experiences when driving from one area to another—a common concern for rural users.

He’d like more durability as well. “I’m hard on phones,” he admits, adding that the more a phone does, the more fragile it seems to be. “They should be made of flexible material that bends, not breaks. My phone probably won’t make it through the year.”

That might not be so bad—Cox dreams of upgrading to an Apple iPhone.

“The RAZR was popular here when I bought it, but now everybody wants an iPhone,” he said. They like its larger screen and touch screen features. An iPhone cost more than the RAZR in January, but new generation iPhone prices have dropped. Still, some believe that higher fees charged by AT&T for iPhone connectivity effectively bump up the iPhone’s cost.

Smart phones get smarter

Michael Boehlje, professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University in Indiana, predicts smart phone-wielding farmers will accomplish even more in the future.

“I see an increasing use of handheld computers,” he said. “We’ll see the first new systems in California, because those growing high-value crops will be the first to adapt.”Boehlje paints this scenario as an example of how smart phones may be especially useful for farmers who employ several workers. Farm managers will hand out a phone to each worker every morning. It will be loaded with a work schedule spelling out tasks and the hours they should take to accomplish. On another screen, workers will plug in soil and crop conditions, weeds and pests, and other data as they move across fields, all tracked via GPS. That evening, workers will hand in their phones so data can be synced to the manager’s computer and so the manager can input work schedules for the next day.

Here are more ways Boehlje and other agricultural futurists see farmers using the technology:

• You can receive e-mails alerting you that a commodity has reached a floor or ceiling price that you’ve selected.

• Similar to the OnStar system for autos, farm equipment providers will alert you about a potential breakdown in your machinery or maintenance that should be scheduled.

• Sensors will notify you when grain in a bin reaches the right stage for drying.

• Your irrigation system will e-mail you about pivot breakdowns and allow you to control pivots remotely. Soil sensors and localized weather alerts will help you customize application to match conditions in the field, saving energy and water.

• Severe weather alerts formerly only available from weather radios can now be captured on mobile devices with Internet connections.

• Fruit and greenhouse growers take photos of tree and plant canopies to support precision agriculture.

• In developing nations, farmers shoot cell phone pictures to show how they replanted trees in deforested areas so they can collect payments from carbon sequestration groups.

• In Australia, farmers can download a pest field guide.

• Vendors are e-mailing promotional information to targeted farmers and are providing more product and pricing information on company Web sites. In fact, you’ll soon be able to purchase more products with your mobile device. The practice already has a name: m-commerce.

• With a phone’s camera function, users will snap a picture of a bar code and receive detailed information about the product, including instruction manuals, chemical labels and how to purchase the product.

Smart phones represent the latest expansion in an explosion of wireless telecommunications offerings. On its Web site, CTIA, a trade association for the wireless industry, offers a glimpse of how pervasive this technology will be in the future: “Based on the current 15 percent annual growth rate of the wireless industry, in the next 5 years wireless will become a larger sector of the economy than both the agriculture and the automobile sectors.”

MFA agronomists scale up use of smart phones Rick Greene meets up with lots of technologically advanced farmers in his work as manager of MFA’s Precision Agronomy division. His team at MFA, along with agronomists who work for local MFA stores, increasingly use smart phones to collect, share data and access the Internet in the field. “I see an increasing number of farmers in the last few years asking questions about how we use this technology in the field,” Greene said. “I tell them my phone has increased my productivity by about 20 percent, and it’s saved my rear on several occasions.” For example, when a customer e-mailed Greene a competitor’s quote on a discount program, Greene contacted MFA’s vendor and provided the customer with a competitive deal on the spot. “Just to have the ability to update contacts and calendar and check e-mails from a phone while my laptop and desktop sync instantaneously is worth the price of the phone and service,” Greene said. MFA farmer-customers are stepping up their technology savvy as well. They snap photos of insects or weeds with their phones and e-mail them to agronomists for identification and a quick eradication plan. Until recently, Greene and his team used handheld portable laptops in the field, but smart phones eliminated the need. The newer phones combine the processing power of a handheld portable laptop with the functionality of a phone and wireless Internet. At the end of a workday, agronomists can download data they’ve gathered on their phones and load them onto their more powerful laptop computers. They also download precision agriculture software updates via the Internet to their phone for on-the-spot upgrades to farmers’ equipment. “For our type of work, we still need the larger screens, keyboards and processors you find on laptop computers,” Greene said. “But in the field, smart phones are the only way to go. We live in a technology age where information is king. Smart phones bring technology and information to our fingertips no matter where we are.” Still, he added, some bugs need to be worked out, especially when it comes to phone battery life and processing power.

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