Writer: Marlene Fritz (208/364-4010 in Boise)
Source: Wilson Gray (208/736-3622 in Twin Falls)

TWIN FALLS, Idaho–We’ve known they’re stretched thin and stressed out. Now we also know they’re exceptionally wired.

This month, the USDA released the results of a national farm computer use survey confirming that Idaho’s agricultural producers are increasingly doing their farming and ranching at the keyboard.

Gem State agricultural producers have surged forward so rapidly in computer and Internet use that they now rank second in the nation in access to computers, fourth in ownership and leasing of computers, eighth in access to the Internet and 12th in use of a computer for their farm business.

"We’re in the top ten in three out of four categories," says Wilson Gray, University of Idaho extension agricultural economist in Twin Falls. "The computer is becoming a more familiar business tool all of the time for Idaho farm and ranch operations."

Of Idaho’s 22,314 agricultural producers:

• 75 percent now have access to a computer, compared to 47 percent nationally
• 59 percent own or lease a computer, compared to 40 percent nationally
• 41 percent have access to the Internet, compared to 29 percent nationally
• 34 percent use a computer to assist them in managing their businesses, compared to 24 percent nationally

Gray attributes Idaho’s higher-than-average levels of digital farming to the larger-than-average agricultural operations and greater-than-average distances to markets characteristic of Western states. Indeed, only Arizona surpasses Idaho in farm computer access and only Arizona, Utah and Colorado exceed it in computer ownership and leasing.

The USDA defines a farm as any operation selling $1,000 or more in agricultural commodities in a given year. In Idaho, 21.5 percent of farms and ranches have $100,000 or more in annual sales. Numbering about 4,800, these larger operations comprise 91.3 percent of the Gem State’s agricultural sales.

While state-by-state figures are not available, the West’s $100,000-plus operations are far more likely to be computerized than its smaller ones: 80 percent have access to a computer, 77 percent own or lease a computer, 69 percent use their computers in managing their businesses and 59 percent have access to the Internet.

"Larger farms and ranches have to have good business management," Gray says. "You don’t run a multi-million dollar operation out of your back pocket."

The USDA study was first conducted in 1997. At that time, Idaho farmers ranked 9th in the nation in access to computers, at 48 percent; 16th in ownership or leasing of computers, at 36 percent; 21st in farm computer use, at 21 percent; and 22nd in Internet access, at 12 percent.

The more than tripling in Internet use since 1997 was made possible by widespread installation of high-speed fiber-optic lines throughout most parts of rural Idaho, Gray says. Nearly 9,200 Idaho farms and ranches can now surf the Net for production information and marketing reports.

In addition, he suspects that Idaho’s high-tech industries breed a generalized familiarity with computers, and that the state’s computerized schools are sending home lots of kids who pressure Mom and Dad to get wired at home. And once the kids get hooked up to the Internet, why not see what it can do for the farm or ranch?

Idaho ranchers still lag Idaho farmers in Internet access–37 percent compared to 44 percent–but since 1997 they have closed the two-digit gap that stretched between them in computer access, ownership and business use. According to Gray, livestock operators are increasingly seeing the value of using computerized records in their management.

By the year 2002, he projects that nearly every Idaho livestock and crop producer will have access to a computer, that three-fourths will own or lease one, that about 45 percent will use it for their farm business and that more than half will be connected to Internet.