Implementation and Impact of Modern Electronic Technologies in Extension (Russ Tronstad, University of Arizona, presiding) THE USE OF ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING FARM RECORD KEEPING

An emphasis on farm record keeping is evi-dent in the early issues of the Journal of Farm Economics: “We believe that 30–50 actual farm records in every county every year furnish a helpful guide to the county agent... This should be the ultimate goal toward which farm management extension should be directed” (Dixon, p. 378). “Without records of their own or of other farms to guide them, farmers are apt to specialize in that phase of their business in which they are already the most expert ” (Case, p. 9). “No other method of securing figures or analyzing the farm management problems car-ries the local proof, the local interest, and the local confidence which are found in the results of the farm accounting work ” (Arnold, p. 64). Nearly 100 years later, extension is still help-ing producers better manage on-farm infor-mation. Increased adoption of computers by producers and access to the Internet provide new opportunities for delivering farm record-keeping instruction. Key objectives of this ar-ticle are to highlight the literature on farmer’s adoption and use of computers and the Inter-net and describe the experience at Oklahoma State University (OSU) in developing materi-als to teach computerized record keeping on the Internet