The future of…

Click here for contact details, other articles and personal details

The future of the countryside

Feb 1999

Our countryside is a place for farming and leisure. There is a significant perceived gap between the attitudes of those living in cities and those that live and work in the countryside. Those who pay high prices in supermarkets often see farmers as constantly whinging and over-subsidised by the EC taxpayers. Some farmers resent having their land used as a recreational area by town dwellers, while people campaign for more open access. Farmers are assumed to be constantly polluting their land with pesticides and fertilisers, but are criticised even more if they move towards more pest resistant varieties developed by genetic engineering. This battle between town and country dwellers has raged for decades.

But there are technology developments that might help. Information technology is already used to a point to keep track of farming administration, but can do more. Internet based rural databases could keep track of which crops are growing where, which fields are set-aside, what quotas and grants are available. Computer agents could manage quota exchanges. Farmers could concentrate on farming, outsourcing their administration across the network..

In the fields, accurate satellite/GSM tracking can be used for tractors for field maintenance, harvesting, crop spraying etc. More accurate farm positioning systems could be implemented using laser beacons to position tractors and robotics to millimetre accuracy. Real-time analysis of data from tractors is feasible - soil composition, fertiliser requirements, yield etc. Sensors may be liberally sprinkled onto the ground with seeds or fertiliser and keep in touch regularly throughout the day, requesting extra water when the ground becomes too dry. This could use computing on demand for analysis instead of farmer having to invest in equipment. The internet enables on-line auctions of farming equipment and produce.

With this degree of information availability and management, new farming practices become possible. Firstly, electronic commerce with each other and with customers could become routine. This commerce could stretch far beyond just electronic funds transfer. Virtual co-operatives between farmers could be set up to give greater negotiation power with supermarkets, suppliers etc. These co-operatives could co-purchase plant, and provide remote management of maintenance etc. Increasing size and intelligence enables better but cheaper logistics regarding use of equipment. Making everything electronic enables better management and policing of taxation, grants and so on. Satellite imaging systems could be integrated into this system too, to confirm that the crops declared are real.

Recently, there has been much media attention to the difference between farm prices and supermarket prices, with a single lamb chop costing more than an entire sheep at the farm gate. Direct sales to the public could be implemented via the internet in alliance with local meat processing and distribution companies. The whole process is thus linked in a virtual company. The supermarket could simply be cut out of the loop. In fact, this can go even further, with farming becoming an on-demand industry directly dealing with the end customer. We could effectively have vegetable patch outsourcing - crops could be grown on request from the public, who would order the produce before it is even planted and could control its subsequent treatment - organic, etc. With accurate positioning and database management, this would not be a problem, the customer would know exactly which part of the field their produce is growing in. People may enjoy having this more active involvement in the production of their food. Such a relationship might mean more effort from both parties but the gains would be proportionate. Large savings to the customer and better prices to the farmer would ensure higher co-operation. For those customers with less time to spare, intermediaries (even supermarkets) who take the risks for an increased price might still be appropriate. We might see a greatly improved relationship between the customer and the farmer. We would have a stakeholder (or even steak-holder) countryside.

People may even be willing to pay in return for rights of access, now that the farmer is more transparently accountable. Monitoring of public access to land is feasible using video surveillance. Farmers could transmit the most detailed local information for ramblers' portable tourist guides, while helping them navigate on the correct paths. Fields that are set aside may be earmarked for recreational purposes instead, and people could identify where such areas are by browsing the net. Since the community ultimately pays for these areas, perhaps the community could manage them much the same way as a community centre. Perhaps some suitable fields may be used as car parks for intermittent park and ride schemes, integrated into road traffic information systems. This could go some way to alleviating delays on roads at peak periods or during road works.

In animal husbandry, we could see network based animal registration and health record databases and even ID verification using IRIS scans or chip tags. Like the crops, animals may be bought early in their lives and controlled (feed, hormones etc) by their ultimate domestic consumer. We might even see ID based feed troughs in fields, with one sheep getting a feed supplement that another in the same field can't get access to?

Already in development, insect-like microbots may be used for crop pollination, pest control and disease control, perhaps also for data gathering, monitoring etc. Another small sideline for farmers might be in environmental monitors in fields, which could monitor the weather, pollution, pollen counts, and so on, and sell this data on the network.

What has been a very traditional industry could become one of the most technologically advanced. With the best of virtual company technologies and the growth of the internet, a new friendship between the city and the countryside may be just around the corner.