Farming News - Arable farmers biggest users of mobile technology
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Arable farmers biggest users of mobile technology
The results from a recent Poll of farmers, conducted by the National Farm Research Unit (NFRU), indicate that 94% of all farmers interviewed had a mobile phone and that 19% had Internet access via this phone. Arable farmers interviewed appeared to have adopted mobile phone technology to a greater extent with 97% saying they had a mobile and 27% using a mobile phone with Internet access. Fewer sheep farmers had Internet access via their mobile, just 11%, compared with beef farmers (13%) and dairy farmers (15%), says Jim Williams of the NFRU. This perhaps reflects the more isolated location of many livestock farms rather than arable farms.
Enterprise type | % farmers who had a mobile phone | % of farmers who had Internet access via mobile phone |
All farmers | 94% | 19% |
Arable farmers | 97% | 27% |
Dairy farmers | 91% | 15% |
Beef farmers | 91% | 13% |
Sheep farmers | 88% | 11% |
The most popular type of mobile phone used by farmers in this survey was Nokia, which was easily the most frequently selected phone type for all enterprises. The Apple iPhone was the second most popular with arable farmers (18%) and dairy farmers (13%), closely followed by Blackberry. For beef farmers the second most popular mobile was Samsung and for sheep farmers Blackberry. Android systems and HTC mobiles appeared to be less popular with farmers in this survey.
Enterprise type | % with an Android | % with an Apple iPhone | % with a Blackberry | % with a HTC | % with a Nokia | % with a Samsung | % with a Sony Ericsson |
Arable farmers | 1% | 18% | 17% | 5% | 26% | 8% | 3% |
Dairy farmers | 1% | 13% | 13% | 3% | 29% | 11% | 4% |
Beef farmers | 0% | 11% | 11% | 2% | 30% | 14% | 3% |
Sheep farmers | 0% | 7% | 17% | 3% | 37% | 16% | 6% |
“The survey also asked farmers in addition to calls and texts what else they used their mobile for?
The top answer given for all enterprise types was accessing the Internet, followed by sending and receiving emails,” says Jim Williams.
Arable Farmers main users
“The survey indicated that it was arable farmers who were mostly using mobile technology for a wider number of activities, with 44% of arable farmers saying that they used their mobiles for accessing the Internet and a further 42% saying they used it for emailing in addition to calls and texts. This group also used their phones more for Apps (8%), but few, as yet, were using social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter on their mobiles. This doesn’t mean to say that more weren’t using social networking on their computer, however.” reports Jim.
Internet, Apps and e-mail use.
Enterprise type | % farmers who use mobile phone for the Internet | % who use mobile for emails | % who use mobile for Apps | % who use mobile for social networking |
Arable farmers | 44% | 42% | 8% | 2% |
Dairy farmers | 25% | 18% | 4% | 2% |
Beef farmers | 27% | 18% | 3% | 3% |
Sheep farmers | 22% | 19% | 1% | 3% |
“We also looked at profiling the farmers who participated and the average number of years they have been farming was 37 years for the arable sector and 40 years for the sheep sector.”
“This is probably the widest farmer survey on mobile technology ever done in the UK, involving 1952 arable farmers, 3096 dairy farmers, 2477 beef farmers and 933 sheep farmers throughout the UK. In my view, because of the large sample size and the random sampling, it more accurately reflects what farmers are really doing with this technology and indicates where new developments, technology and applications should focus on in the future,” says Jim Williams.