Smart phone usage by farmers expected to jump

Sunday, April 3, 2011

How many farmers are toting a "smart phone" and using them to surf the Internet?

Not that many, according to a study conducted by Guelph-based Stratus Agri-Marketing. The survey of 949 corn growers in Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec in August last year revealed that 11.6 per cent of corn growers had Internet-capable phones and 28 per cent of corn growers used their cell phones, Internet capable or not, to send text messages.

Stratus president Mike Weddel notes that a similar survey with western Canadian wheat growers revealed higher numbers – 15.7 carried Internet-capable phones and 47.9 sent cell phone text messages.

The corn grower survey showed that 63 per cent of growers had high speed internet access at home and 64.2 per cent were visiting farming web sites. And that's what interests Weddel.

He thinks cell phone contracts are holding the corn farmer numbers back, and expects smart phone user numbers to grow dramatically over the next couple of years as current phone contracts expire.

"If farmers are using their desktop at home to access the internet, then they will likely use their phones to go online when they're on the tractor," says Weddel. With the average cell phone contract being three years, the vast majority of farmers will have an opportunity to upgrade to a smart phone in the short term, if they haven't already.

Stratus will field another cell phone study in the coming year. "We now have a good benchmark and it will be very interesting to see where these numbers are next summer," says Weddel.

Stay tuned. BF