The rapid growth of the Internet is giving the world of agriculture new options for information and trading. Agriculture is shifting to the World Wide Web, and people within the business are able to access markets, agricultural news and weather on their home computers. I think farmers will use it to buy and sell just like they do on the phone right now. There is a tremendous shift taking place.
Farmers use the net to buy rather than just for information.
Babcock said there are no actual numbers showing how many farmers are trading over the Internet, but he said it is estimated that about 50 percent of farm families have access to the Internet. This is all new, so it is not really happening a lot yet, but I think that it will continue to grow. Thayne Cozart, former employee of the National Farmers Organization, is the director of commerce and marketing for AgriOne, a local agricultural Internet marketing company. He said the company links farmers and buyers. Our plan is to link the producers with the buyers by using the Internet.