You know how much farmers like to be studied don’t you? Yeah. You’ve got that right. Well now the National Association of Farm Broadcasting is conducting a new survey of how farmers use the internet and what types of information they get from it and how. Most recently we saw results of a similar study by Nicholson Kovac and of course there’s lots of data in the USDA NASS survey. And if you contact your Successful Farming representative they’ll share data from their study that was available earlier this year.
More information is always better and with a lot of information circulating about how marketers are moving their budgets online, this should be good information for ag media planners to have. I do hope questions are asked about social networking mechanisms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. We know from other studies that farmers are reading blogs and listening to podcasts while even producing their own. The social networking phenomenon is taking place in ag and I have no doubts we’ll see that verified by this new study.
NAFB is initiating its third major national research study in four years, with the Internet Ag Information Usage Study commissioned with Ag Media Research, Sioux Falls, S.D.
Building on the National Producer Media-Use Wave Study of 2008, the new project is asking large farmers and ranchers about their Internet access practices and preferences for agribusiness information, including use of the mobile Web. The survey, to query 1,200 national producers, also asks about the relative value of different types of agribusiness information as delivered via the Web.
Media veteran Ted Haller has consulted on the project, including seeking input toward the questionnaire from leading industry marketers and agencies. With most industry research closely held or proprietary, NAFB again will make public the outcomes of this new survey.
Results are to be introduced during the November Annual Convention, Nov. 11-13 in Kansas City.