CNN.com has a nice story by John D. Sutter that covers how farmers are communicating today with their smartphones and Twitter. He spoke with my main man Steve Tucker, Nebraska farmer and Any Kleinschmidt, Ohio State University Extension Agriculture Educator and Assistant Professor and yours truly and also mentions AgChat. Here’s an excerpt:
As he rolls across the wheat fields of his Nebraska farm, Steve Tucker often has his hands not on the wheel of his tractor, but on a smartphone. Steve Tucker, a Twittering farmer, pauses in front of his tractor in Nebraska.
He sometimes posts a dozen messages per day on Twitter, commenting on everything from the weather to the state of his crops to his son’s first tractor ride and even last night’s cheeseburger.
He wants to bring urban Internet users along for the ride. And in doing so, he’s become a sort of text-happy evangelist for rural America.
I love the term, “twittering farmer.” We need more of them and there are a lot already. What’s your take on farmers using new social networking tools to communicate with each other and the general public?