Need Broadband Service In The Field? Consider A Pay-As-You-Go Plan.

In a recent article in The Business of Consulting - the web business magazine that covers the ag consulting profession - I recommended that my readers look into a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) mobile broadband plan if they didn't want to sign a 2-year contract and shell out $60 to $70 a month for service that they may only need part of the year.

The 2 plans I outlined were with Verizon and Virgin.

At least one more plan also is available now. This one is from Telava, which appears to be using the T-Mobile network to deliver 3-G internet connections on a PAYG basis.

With the plan, you pay a $100 security deposit to use the USB modem ($200 if you want to buy the device) and then spend $50 a month for 5GB of service or $60 for a month's worth of unlimited broadband.

The great thing about a plan like this: you can buy a month of service when you need it, then go dormant (for example, in the winter) if you're out of the field. It's also an option for people (like me) who travel intensively but in limited periods of the year.

- Owen Taylor

Why Some New Technology Catches Fire

Why do people buy into new technology?

The best answer comes from Nokia, the global cell phone manufacturer. Nokia – which accounts for more than 37% of global cell phone handset sales - has extensively studied that question and finds that a person will invest in new technology if it improves at least one of three specific needs in the consumer’s life. The more of these factors it touches, the easier the sale.

The three needs are:

• Security/Safety. That could mean enhancing the person's wellbeing. Examples could include improving his or her personal safety or making some contribution to career or business security. At their simplest, cell phones are a direct way to summon help if a car breaks down. On a more complex basis, they now deliver email to us, providing a leap in how we receive and process the information that keeps our careers on track or our businesses in the black.
• Socialization. This boils down to interaction with other people - family, friends, associates. Facebook, Twitter and other social networks are the most immediate examples. But before all that, simple text messaging gave millions of teenagers a reason to beg for a cell phone.
• Entertainment. Cell phone manufacturers widened their products' appeal - and the consumer's need to upgrade - by designing new models with entertainment-type features like MP3 and video capabilities. The same goes for the push toward internet access and built-in photograph captures and video recording.

This month I’ve spoken to two consultant groups about how internet and email technology are changing the structure of ag communications. Both times, I wished that time had permitted me to share Nokia’s findings.

The company’s research is interesting for a couple of reasons.

First, convenience isn’t a direct factor. You can argue that it’s kind of in the background with all three factors, enabling security, entertainment or socialization. But it’s not in the forefront of anyone’s thinking.

Second, it’s very simple to look back on older technology and see how Nokia’s findings clearly apply to past trends and purchases.

Broadcast television took hold purely on its value to entertain, disrupting a broadcast radio industry that for a couple of decades had held center stage in the American parlor. In the same way, cable television disrupted the broadcast TV industry, offering more channels and options. Now, people are abandoning their telephone land lines because the cell phone – with its myriad of uses – emerged as a better way to stay in touch.

My favorite example, though, comes from my mother, Elizabeth Jenkins Taylor. At 86, she’s now on her third computer, so she’s watched a fair amount of technology come and go.

One day recently when we were talking about something to do with computers, I touched on the Nokia study and the three factors – security, entertainment, socialization.

“The first and maybe the best example of that that I can remember was the CB radio,” she said. “It was a social network for a lot of people.”

She was right. In high school, I had a CB radio (call letters KKR-4150), so she certainly watched me wile away (well, waste, actually) plenty of hours talking to people I might not have spoken to on the street. And, as she pointed out, it was entertaining. People told stories. Sometimes you heard news on Citizens’ Band before it made it into the newspaper. And there was even that element of security. If your car broke down and if you were really lucky, you might use a CB radio to call for help.

Taken to its extreme, Nokia’s findings even apply to the Paleolithic campfire caught on for all those reasons. It provided security and gave people a warm place to come together and tell stories. Plus, the fire was entertaining, all by itself. The fact that you could cook on it was a bonus.

- Owen Taylor

Ag Communications Taken To Its Simplest Form

The farm audience has increasingly become mobile, meaning that a larger share of you retrieve email and browse the web through a mobile device, whether it's your cell phone or a notebook computer linked to the internet through a wireless card. We launched our mobile site, agfax.mobi, halfway through the last decade for that very reason, and about 7% of our web traffic now comes through some form of wireless internet connection.

This isn't a U.S. trend or even something confined to developed countries. Increasingly, ag information is flowing to farmers electronically in places where you wouldn't have thought possible. The best example of this relates to Nokia, the cell phone manufacturer, and a far-reaching initiative it launched a couple of years ago.

Maybe you've owned a Nokia phone in the past. Lately, though, it has been overshadowed in the U.S. by Research In Motion, maker of the Blackberry product line, and Apple, which cemented its place in America with the iPhone.

But in other parts of the world, Nokia is the market leader. One estimate puts its global market share of handset sales at 37.7%. Nokia is big in emerging markets, catering to low-income customers with apps that fit into local needs, and the company identified farming as a segment hungry for information.

So far, Nokia has set up projects to distribute timely information to farmers in parts of Africa and India. The idea is that these farmers will never own a computer, maybe not even a smart phone. But key information - Extension-type bulletins, weather forecasts, pest alerts and marketing tips - could be transmitted to farmers' phones as text messages or simplified web content.

Nokia calls this its "Life Tools" service, and the premium plan costs Indian farmers less than $1.50 a month. A basic plan is half that. It's ag communications taken to the simplest level.

- Owen Taylor

Mississippi State University Looks At Eliminating Underutilized Programs, Including Several In Ag

Agriculture education will take a hit at Mississippi State University if recommendations by a campus-based committee become a reality. The committee, charged with finding cost-cutting measures for the cash-strapped institution, called for eliminating several ag degrees, including:

• The undergrad degree in integrated pest management.
• Master's degrees in horticulture and food sciences.
• The doctorates in weed science.

The degree programs are considered "underutilized," meaning only a handful of students follow those paths of study.

Several ag-related department mergers also were recommended. Those include merging:

• The ag econ program into MSU's main economics department.
• Placing animal and dairy sciences and poultry sciences under one department
• Folding entomology, plant sciences and plant pathology into a single department.

To be fair, few disciplines appeared to be spared in a long list of recommendations.

In all, 17 degree programs would be eliminated. Specific types of degrees were cited for elimination in architecture, biological engineering, computer sciences, engineering and education. Recommended mergers included combining the accounting and finance programs.

The group making the recommendations - the Select Committee on Efficiencies and Innovations - also called for incentives that would encourage 800 faculty and staff members to retire early. The committee is composed of faculty, staff, administrative and student representatives and was formed by MSU President Mark Keenum.

The recommendations are not binding.

State revenues have fallen short of expectations for 16 straight months. Governor Haley Barbour has called for an 8.2% cut in most state agencies' budgets by the end of June. The state's eight public universities are facing a potential 23% budget reduction over the next two years, according to one estimate.

Any form of tax increase to save programs - on or off university campuses - seems unlikely. Barbour, a Republican, is quietly moving toward a run for President, political observers in Mississippi believe, and pushing for increased taxes would blow his standing as a physical conservative.

- Owen Taylor

Peaches: California Growers Take Out 1,400 Acres Of Clings

From California Farm Burea's e-letter today:

"Cling peach farmers have removed more than 1,400 acres of trees from production this winter. That is part of an effort by farmers to bring supply and demand for cling peaches into balance. Cling peaches are mainly used for canning, and oversupply has been a drag on farmer earnings. The removal brings the bearing acreage of cling peaches in California to about 23,000. That's the lowest it has been in modern history and represents a 16-percent decrease from 2009 acreage."

Mid-Atlantic Blizzard From Farmers' Perspective

Several farmers in Deleware, Maryland and Pennsylvania posted blizzard reports on NewAgTalk.Com, my favorate forum.

It makes the weather here in Mississippi seem far less complicated. Here's the link:

http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=148799&posts=30&start=1

- Owen Taylor

Three (out of six) ideas that are changing the world - and agriculture.

Just before the end of the year and right on the cusp of a new decade, the Christian Science Monitor's editors published an insightful group of articles: 6 Ideas That Will Change The World.

Of the six main items -- several lesser trends also were noted -- half either directly or indirectly affected agriculture. They were:

Africa's agricultural expansion. We've had items about this in the past on our web site and in this blog, but this trend goes largely unreported in U.S. ag magazines. In short, other countries -- Saudi Arabia, China and South Korea among them -- have bought up or leased hundreds of thousands of acres of land in various African nations, then invested in infrastructure needed to grow and transport crops. As examples, the Monitor noted that:

• Saudie Arabia has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into production sites in Ethiopia.
• China has invested $800 million in rice farms in Mozambique.
• South Korea announced it will develop a quarter of a million acres of grain production in Tanzania.

Think about it. All three nations need more farm production than their land will allow, and they have capital to "off-shore" their farming interests. All manner of questions are being raised about whether these developments are good or bad for Africa. China has a spotty record in terms of propping up some oppressive governments when it has developed other raw materials in Africa. Questions also have been raised about the long-term effect on the encironment.

But two things are certain. Africa still has vast stretches of aerable land that either isn't farmed or is tended at only subsistence levels. And every time an acre of African farmland goes into this kind of production, it will compete with U.S. producers, either directly or indirectly, for global market share.

Japan and the rise of computers. With a rapidly aging population and an abhorrence for foreign workers, Japan spends billions every year on robotic research. The research also has moved well past the assembly line and into public areas. At some hospitals, a robotic greeter waits at the door to direct visitors to the right location. Another helps patients with physical rehabilitation. Another robot under development fights fires. The research tends to focus on dirty, menial tasks, including rice planting, a hands-on chore that involves transplanting seedlings into paddies. The cost of a GPS-guided rice-planting robot is still high - about $90,000. But that's less than half what it was just a few years ago.

The emphasis is on autonomy, putting robots into an environment and giving them some ability for sizing up situations and making decisions.

Which brings us to the U.S. citrus industry. Grower organizations in both California and Florida have funded long-term projects aimed at developing robots that can move through orchards, recognize ripe fruit and then pick it. That sounds at first like a simple chore, but vast amounts of programming are required just so a robot's visual sensors can detect the shape of an orange and then detect its color in various lighting conditions. By comparison, it's probably easier to fire a cruise missile from 500 miles away and have it enter a building through a specific side window.

Any strides the Japanese make in robotic autonomy will eventually affect how machines operate on U.S. farms. Maybe not next year, but the technology continues to evolve.

Coming soon: more Chinese? For three decades, China's one-child-per-family dictate spurred economic growth. But China has now reached the point that, at least in some areas, it is encouraging families to have two children. The reason: China's population is aging twice as fast as ours, and the nation faces the prospect that by 2050 there will only be 1.7 active workers for every pensioner. Beyond that, couples limited to one child have long-preferred sons, so abortions have left the country with a higher ratio of male to female babies - 120 to 100, on average, which is the highest in the world. At that rate, the Monitor noted, 15% of Chinese men will be unable to find brides within 30 years.

Lifting of the one-baby restriction has taken place only in limited locations. But 70% of Chinese women would have two or more children, given the chance, according to one survey.

If China loosens this limitation further - and demographers say the country probably has no choice - the effect will be even more mouths to feed in the future, meaning more demand for ag commodities. Beyond that, a larger population could push at least some farmland out of production, further limiting China's ability to produce its own food.

- Owen Taylor

Cotton - Thoughts on a Week of Losses

Cotton isn't just a crop. For those who grow it, it's a member of the family. Lately, it's the errant cousin who has been pushed to the outside, the one who shows up now and then for reunions. The one we roll our eyes at when he's not looking.

I have never grown one stalk of cotton. But for years, I have made a living photographing the people and crops of agriculture. Cotton is the one that stays in my heart. I have witnessed the euphoria of a grower standing in a glorious field of 4-bale cotton. And, I've listened to a misty eyed farmer explain, as much to himself as to me, how he had to give up on cotton.

Recently, I came across Red Hills and Cotton - An Upcountry Memory by Ben Robertson, originally published in 1942. Robertson shares stories of his family's life in the Blue Ridge section of South Carolina, and how cotton was always present in their lives. His words from almost 60 years ago still ring true, no matter the market ups or downs, or the latest weed technology developments.

From: Red Hills and Cotton - An Upcountry Memory Ben Robertson, 1942

"Thirty years ago our Great-Aunt Narcissa began telling us the cotton kingdom was doomed--the world market was slipping irrevocably from us, we should begin substituting other crops. For at least fifteen years all of us have been fully aware that our reckoning day for cotton would inevitably come to hand, but even under these circumstances we have not turned away from cotton. We have gone right on plowing and planting. It is never easy for a people to give up a hundred-year-old tradition -- our lives and our fathers' fathers' lives have been built around cotton. We have bought our clothes with a bale of cotton; we have built our houses with cotton money; we have sold a bale of cotton to pay our way through school. We have even campaigned in politics atop a cotton bale. And even our Great-Aunt Narcissa stated once in public that she did not care what anybody in Washington or anyone else in the world said about cotton, it still was the greatest crop that heaven ever gave to any country."

- Debra Ferguson