I’ve been meaning to write about the National Association of Farm Broadcasting’s Wave Research Study. Looking at this month’s Agrimarketing Magazine prompted me to go ahead. I found it ironic that there’s an ad for Farm Journal Media early in the publication touting their position compared to other major ag pubs and quoting the NAFB study. Then NAFB has an ad later in the magazine which has information superimposed on a GPS unit (why?).

The bottom line from NAFB’s standpoint seems to be that farmers still turn to the radio as their main source of daily information and that makes sense to me. There’s a lot of information in the study which I’m sure you can obtain from the NAFB office if you haven’t seen it.

Some things that caught my eye in the summary information includes the fact that NAFB acknowledges the changing farm media landscape with the internet playing a key role. The study shows that 69 percent of Class 1A farmers have internet access. That’s even higher than the most recent USDA NASS Farm Computer Usage and Ownership study, “For farms with sales and government payments between $100,000 and $249,999, the figures are: 70 percent have access to a computer, 66 percent own or lease a computer, 51 percent are using a computer for their farm business, and 61 percent have Internet access. The number keeps growing and at a fast pace. The study also shows that almost half of these farmers have high speed internet access (44.2%). It also says that producers under 49 years old and with higher levels of income are heavier users of the internet.

I’m going to make an assumption that when the summary says that web site choices “are so abundant that fragmentation is occurring – there are no individual sites or categories that clearly are “most valuable” to farmers” they mean they didn’t get a consistent unaided answer from the surveys. I don’t see this as a weakness though. That’s the strength of the web and why it’s so important to be a part of the conversation. Farmers are all over the web for the same reasons any of us are (searching for information, entertainment, etc.). The web isn’t about “mass audience numbers” but “niche audience numbers.” If I’m looking for weather I’m going to focus on a weather site, for news, a news site, for equipment, equipment sites, and on and on it goes. The web gives farmers lots of choices and I think that’s what they want!

Your thoughts?