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Farming with a mouse click"Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field," President Dwight D. Eisenhower. If virtual farming paid off in the real world, I could be a millionaire. You see I--like 18.5 million of my "friends"--have dipped my toes into the virtual world of agriculture via the Facebook gaming application "FarmTown." To update President Eisenhower's quote for the 21st century, farming sure is easy when your plow's a mouse button and you're a thousand miles from the corn field. The virtual farming craze has hit Facebook like a tornado on the High Plains in the past year or so. Besides the game FarmTown, there are also the competing games of "FarmVille" and "myFarm." FarmVille reported about 62 million users since its debut in June, and about 22 million logging on at least once a day to play, according to the game's creator Zynga. Meanwhile, myFarm lists about 700,000 monthly users. So that's about 81 million Facebook users--give or take a few who overlap--who all of a sudden have an interest in farming and ranching. A skewed interest, yes, but an interest all the same. I've gotten sucked into the phenomenon just like everyone else. After all, what could be more related to my career as an ag journalist than playing virtual farmer online? I can buy crops, trees, livestock, equipment and buildings with a click of the mouse. I harvest them, sell them, even send some as gifts to other friends online playing the game. I call it my social networking test plot. These farming games are popular among all segments of society, though. I have friends who farm online who wouldn't know the difference between a combine and a cotton stripper in real life. These same friends are boggled at real life production agriculture methods, and have definite opinions about conventional versus organic farming. Yet, they compare notes about which crops are more profitable to grow in their online plots of land like a group of farmers sitting around the coffee pot at the café. Some sociologists say this virtual farming craze has a lot to do with the state of the economy today and people's yearnings for simpler times and a gentler way of life. That may be true. But, I think it's a sign that people like the idea of that slower way of life--they just don't want to get their hands dirty doing it. Online farming has none of the perils of actual agriculture. Crops are planted and harvested in a fraction of the time it would take to grow one crop in real time. Plants like blueberries and pineapples grow equally as well as corn and wheat on the same cropland. There are few weather issues that can wipe out a crop, and everyone starts out on an even playing field with the same number of inputs. But, virtual farming does have some similarities. Players can hire themselves out to their neighbors to help plant and harvest crops for a little extra cash. If users ignore their plots of land, crops wither and die. If they don't pay attention to their marketing strategies, they can lose money. And, if they buy too many extraneous items, like a new house, more land or new equipment, they can bankrupt themselves. The difference is, online bankruptcy doesn't involve a farm auction and a banker. I say the games should up the ante and become more realistic--just like actual production agriculture. I want an avatar of an Extension agent coming to my farm with advice, or an online NRCS agent who helps me navigate conservation programs. How about adding a banker feature that calculates your investment risks and production plans? Or, even better, offering a crop consultant feature to help me apply inputs to help my farm be more productive. There should be storms, floods and droughts to endanger crops and livestock. Players should have to navigate a maze of farm payments, past due fertilizer bills and family financial emergencies. That's real farming, after all. It may seem insane to those of you actively involved in production agriculture that something as silly as online farming is an international craze. Look, I know and you know that agriculture is a lot more work than just planting a seed and waiting a couple days for it to mature and be harvested. But for these 81 million or so virtual farmers it is that simple. So, what does this bode for our attempts to educate our neighbors about farming and ranching in real life? Will it be more difficult to educate a generation who thinks that not only does milk come from the store, but pink cartoon cows give strawberry milk? Will it be easier to talk to someone about the need for federal crop and disaster payments who just spent five hours waiting on his raspberry crop to ripen online before going to dinner? I don't know. But, you'll have to excuse me for a minute. It's a quarter till five and my blueberry crop needs harvesting before it rots on the vine. Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached by phone at 620-227-1807, or by e-mail at jlatzke@hpj.com.
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