Internet Strategies to Improve Farm Business Management - Module 1: The Internet and the Manager

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Module 1: The Internet and the Manager

So, you're interested in learning more about how you might be able to use the Internet to manage your business better. No matter how Internet-savvy you may be, or think you are, we hope that you'll pick up at least a few ideas to add to your managerial toolkit. Our purpose is to teach you how to apply Internet applications to manage better. Therefore, the focus will be squarely on improving your management efficiency and effectiveness. If you are hoping to find out whether you should be using ASP or PHP for your shopping cart technology, this is not the course for you. We'll help you decide how an on-line shopping cart might fit into your marketing plan, though. Plus, we'll show you how some real farmers are using shopping carts and many other Internet technologies to manage their businesses better.

This module provides an introduction to:

growth of Internet use in the U.S. and in the agricultural sector,
five farm business owners who use the Internet as an important management tool. We'll get to know these managers better throughout this course,
some special Internet vocabulary that you'll need to understand, and
finding what you are looking for on the Internet.

The Internet Down on the Farm

Throughout this course, we'll introduce you to five farm business owners who share their thoughts and experiences in managing using the Internet. They also provide some advice to you as a fellow farm business owner. Here's what two of them said about the Internet's overall impact on their businesses.

Joe Phillips – Boer goat producer
“With today's technology, this is where you need to be. My product can be sold anywhere in the world. Someone can look at it, evaluate it, and make a purchase.”

“No matter what kind of product you are trying to sell, e-commerce is the way things are being done. You can move your product faster. You can get people out there to see your product, to know the quality of your product, and to investigate and learn about the product you produce.”

Brad Hollabaugh – fruit grower
“As our computer-literate segment continues to grow, I see our website as an essential part of what we do in terms of keeping ourselves accessible to our customers who want us to ship things to them as well as who want to come onto our farm.”

“If I were advising any other agricultural business, if they're not connected to the Internet, they're already behind. It's not something that you want; it's something that you have to have. It's time to do it and learn how to use its features because the world is going by you very rapidly.”

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These materials were developed as part of the Southern Rural Development Center’s National e-Commerce Extension Initiative. They are based upon work supported by the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Award No. 2005-45064-03212

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Southern Rural Development Center.