RE: interview for LAN Magazine
sal (sals@coyote.rain.org)
Fri, 15 Sep 95 12:41:45 PDT
On Fri, 15 Sep 95 11:04:32 PST McMullen, Melanie wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I got your name from Warren Clark, who has helped me with a story I'm
> doing for LAN Magazine on how technology/the Internet is being used in
> farming and agriculture. Could you answer a few questions for me?
>
> What is your farming history, and how did you decide to launch a Web
> site? What do you the Internet for? How do you and other farmers use
> computers/technology to improve their businesses? How has
> technology/the Internet changed the farming business? How often do you
> use the Internet? Any other trends you see in farming and technology?
> I have been an CCOF organic farmer for years. I use to run a bbs called Noah's Ark. In the days of the trs80 so I already had a good background just from tinkering and playing with computers. . I heard about this internet and I knew from everything I heard that this was for me. On the bbs's you use to have to pay a long distance fee and people that feel the way I feel about organic farmer don't have the extra money to call around. The internet was made for me. Rain.org is my on ramp and they have been very good to me. They sold me a shell account with easy menus to get around and back then it was mostly gopher stuff. I was in heaven. All this information about farming. Jill Alburn from SANS up there in Davis gave a talk on the internet and I was hooked. The internet just had so much stuff even back then because all the big ag. reacher were using the internet before it was open to the rest of us.So from the word say go the internet had lots of stuff about farming and
gophers like Lary London's sunsit gopher and( not just for cows) a great gopher sight.It all made the $10 a month well worth it. SANS was a big help and my first Usent mail list was Sanet-mg@amani.ces.ncsu.edu. Their theme is sustainable agriculture. Their were many mail lists on the internet even back then. There is a garden mail list I think it was called rec.garden there was agriculture science which I read but don't mix it up there because I'm organic. There is a fruit and herb mail list so the internet came with maillist to help farmers. There is even a old tractors homepage. Feel free to ignore my bad spelling and bad grammar . Then came the world wide web. This was so much nicer than a bbs. I had to have one.
http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html
I found a place to check the market . It was a gopher where you can check the market and see what your product is selling for. I use to check lemons and avocado prices and now even cherimoya prices to see if I could find a place to fit in. Now I check what the price of fruit from Chile will be selling for. All of this of interest to me as a farmers. You pick up so much information on the net. Every one is sharing information. Everyone is sharing information and that way we all get something more important than money we get understanding. Its easy to make the right choices when you have the collective minds of the internet all testifying to what they know and putting their piece of the puzzles on the table. It use to be" what you don't know will not hurt you" . Wrong !Its better to know. Everyone is a book and you get to read so many books on the internet. On the mail list someone sets a line and everyone adds to it and you get to here the pros and cons. You get to take the stu
ff you think you know and test it in a fire. See how the rest of mankind feels about it. You can get burned or tempered but either way you gain . Some things I say on the internet even makes me laugh. I don't just get flamed I get melted. But what a good place to test what you think you know and in doing so you get to hear what everyone else thinks they know and from all over the world. It's the old everyone is a teacher and everyone is a student. There are so many ways to use the internet and its getting better everyday. You can download software,information,chat. There is even a program that will let you talk to anyone anywhere in the world that also has a slip or ppp account free for as long as you like. A voice call , that's right real voice call . I can talk voice with a farmer in New Zeland about organic farming and not pay one cent.. There are also chat irc lines where you can join in chats. Globle chats . World wide Chats. You can here sound and see movies on the we
b. Did you see the bee movie at Iowa State. Have
you heard the bird calls or have you seen the handbook with pictures of beneficial insects .Its all out there now and getting better. . There is so much information out there on the information Hiway
way if you have the time. And now most of it is free. So if anyone has a homepage that may of help an organic farmer pass me the link I'm collecting them . If I can be of help.-------------------------------------
Name: Sal Schettino
E-mail: sals@rain.org
homepage of an organic farmer:
http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html
Date: 09/15/95
Time: 14:13:15
-------------------------------------
Thanks in advance for your insights.
> Melanie McMullen, Editor-in-chief, LAN Magazine, San Francisco, CA
>