Have you come across those online questionnaires that ask you to choose the greatest invention or development that has advanced farming? The three-point linkage, the big round bale and the milking machine are usually near the top. The electric fence, AI and plastic are never far behind. However, I think the internet and IT must really take the biscuit.

Just today, I called to the office of a GLAS planner to ask him to make an application for me. ‘Twas a quick call to remind him of a phone conversation of a few weeks ago. While we spoke he asked my herd number and keyed it into his computer. As I walked out of his office my phone sounded for a text message from DAFM. It said that the named planner was now registered as my GLAS planner. Wow – that was quick.

I had another wow experience a few days earlier. Last year, I came across a good-value, easy-to-use, do-it-yourself website builder called SimpleSite. I started building myself a farm website and I have been amazed with the results. It seems my farm website has had over 15,000 visitors in the last year. Thankfully, these are virtual visitors and don’t require tea and apple tart. However, last week one of the virtual visitors became incarnate.

‘Twas a real live lady farmer and food writer all the way from Wisconsin USA. Attracted by my little website, she flew into Dublin on Wednesday, bus/railed to my place and flew off to the UK on Friday evening. Sylvia Burgos Toftness – for it was she – is a well-known commentator on food and farming, hosts a weekly radio show and is on the boards of a variety of ag- and food-related organisations around Wisconsin and the twin cities. She is also fully involved with hubby Dave in running the family 80-acre organic pastured beef farm, selling all produce direct to a close community of consumer/supporters.

In the time she was here, we found a great deal of common ground to browse over. In fact, we picked each other’s brains like a pair of chickens on a cowpat. I learned that they keep a cattle breed called BueLingo that I had which was developed by a group of farmers looking for good range cattle with small easily born calves that grow on. She told me that she never has to house them, because they have snow or permafrost for five months of the year. They therefore do no harm to the soil so they keep them out. Their main challenge is to keep liquid water and hay to them. She was polite enough to praise my grass swards and my Angus cows and the overall experience was immensely useful and enjoyable.

If there was no internet, if SimpleSite hadn’t come on my horizon and if I didn’t take the time to reach out by building a farm website, this wonderful visit and the ongoing friendship and learning exchange that I am sure will follow, could never be possible. The internet has also allowed me to Google names such as Joel Salattin in USA or Darren Dogherty in Australia – both inspirational farmers bubbling with ideas.

The productive mind requires regular fertilising with new and diverse ideas and information. As farmers we can tend to get boxed into a group think, The internet gives us an opportunity to look outside the box and get a broader view. Yep! in my book, the internet and IT are the most revolutionary thing to hit my farm – ever.