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responsive to the moves on the board of trade. I have it
set up now that I get text alerts every half hour when the
market is open. Plus, I receive email notifications from
some marketing advice groups. That, and I have cell
phone capability to call my broker. All of those things are
now happening at the same time,” he said.
Does it make a difference Blankenship said if nothing
else, the connectivity keeps him focused on the idea that
marketing is a year-round endeavor.
“This is not the old days when, after harvest, you
counted your bushels and sold a contract or two. Now, it
is a 12-month plan,” he said.
Brit Ausman, who farms near Asotin, Wash., and is the
newest member of the Washington Grain Commission,
has had cell phones since the mid-1990s, and he agrees
they have helped make him more efficient. Accessing
the weather, the market, using the calendar function,
GPS and texting and emailing throughout the day has
provided him with a range of capabilities to stay on top
of an increasingly complicated operation.
And yet Ausman, 40, sees a dark side to all that productivity.
He feels it is rude and unproductive when he
goes to a meeting and 60 percent of the room is sending
or reading a text or on the internet Facebooking.
“We are losing the face-to-face contact of a meeting. It
is almost as if the world is becoming disconnected from
personal conversation, and I don’t think that is good,” he
said.
He admits he’s part of the problem. Like Berg, he likes
the text function because it’s quick and direct when he
doesn’t want to spare time for an actual conversation.
But removing face-to-face contact and now even voiceto-voice
contact can lead to conflicted “conversations”
that result in miscommunication due to a text or email
without an emotional connection.
For Ausman, the cell phone opened Pandora’s Box,
and the smart phone is just the latest iteration. On his
farm, the linkage will become even more sophisticated
next year when his sprayer is connected to the internet.
Thanks to new software from a precision ag company,
he will be able follow the sprayer in real time from his
phone. It’s not that he necessarily needs the ability to
know what his sprayer is doing at any given moment,
but by connecting its functions to the internet, he will
have an automatic record of all of his chemical applications,
something he believes will be more important as
time goes on.
Like most farmers, Ausman occasionally chooses to
turn his phone off. Reading bedtime stories to his young
children is one of those interludes. As for time to reflect
and plan without being disturbed by endless interruptions,
he has two intermissions. One is while he’s taking
a shower. The other is when he’s on an airplane.
Unfortunately, as airlines begin to offer high speed
internet connections on their flights, it appears that for
smart farmers like Ausman, the only respite from smart
phones and today’s 24/7 business of farming will be taking
longer showers.
WASHINGTON GRAIN COMMISSION
Email is one of Nicole Berg’s most used functions on her phone—and it’s
not all about the farm.
Some people like to dress up their phones, like Mary Palmer Sullivan,
program director for the Washington Grain Commission.
WHEAT LIFE JANUARY 2012 53