Computers, Smart Phones, and New Media Use by Illinois and Wisconsin Soybean Growers.

Agriculture and communication methods have rapidly changed over the last decade. Extension Specialists remain dedicated to developing high-quality educational materials and delivering them efficiently and effectively to our clientele base. Extension specialists must adapt to the technologies clientele use, and to do that, we must know what technologies that includes. To gather this information, a mail-card survey and an on-line survey were conducted simultaneously in late-July 2010 in Illinois and Wisconsin. The objective of this survey was to investigate the technology that soybean farmers and agronomists use to find and share soybean production and marketing information. Survey questionnaires were mailed to 47,000 Illinois and 10,000 Wisconsin soybean producers and association members. The mail survey asked producers and agronomic consultants to either complete the short post card survey, or, visit a website to complete a slightly longer on-line survey. The survey questions were targeted at understanding farm demographics, media technology usage including internet, e-mail, and social networking, as well as how they preferred and valued extension information. To date (8/3/10) we have received 1145 returned mail surveys (~2% response rate) and 198 internet responses. Preliminary results of the mail survey indicated that 85% of respondents use cell phones, 70% use computers, 58% have high-speed internet, 55% have e-mail, 35% use iPods, and 11% have smartphones. Preliminary results of the on-line survey showed greater than 90% of respondents use cell phones, computers, e-mail and high-speed internet. Interestingly, all of those technologies rated higher than television, radio, fax machines, yield monitors and GPS guidance systems. A major contrast between the surveys was that mail survey respondents indicated that print was the most important method and regional/state based meetings followed by the internet were the least important methods of receiving information. However, the internet was valued as the most important method and regional/state based meetings followed by print was the least important methods of receiving information by on-line respondents. University Extension was rated as the most important information source followed by seed and crop input dealers for on-line survey respondents, and seed and crop input dealers followed by University Extension was rated as the most important source for mail survey respondents. It is clear that the agricultural community is embracing technology, high-speed internet is readily available for growers to access information, and Extension must deliver information through these sources to remain relevant.