HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1984-03-21, Page 40Videotest system
Instant market news• crests 10 cents a minute
The Farm Edition, Week of March 21, 1984 - 9
About 50 Ontario farmers are pioneering
one of Canada's newest technological won-
ders, the Telidon agricultural videotext
system called Grassroots.
Despite its folksy name, Grassroots is high
technology - a system that connects a
computer data base with an in-home
modified TV set or a personal computer with
a display screen.
For 10 cents a minute, Grassroots subscri-
bers can, access 60,000 pages of information,
from detailed weather forecasts to commod-
ity reports, farm management programs
and agricultural news.
Grassroots, launched in Manitoba in 1981,
now has about 2,000 subscribers in Western
Canada 17t was only last year, however, that
the U tversity of Guelph established Univer-
sitel, which had adapted and expanded
Grassroots for Ontario conditions.
Ian Easterbrook of the University of
Guelph says the farmers subscribing to the
farm videotext package "are probably
JOHN C. PRESTON
P.O. Box 492 61 Mary St.
Clinton, Ontario NOM 1LO
482-3678
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Life
concerned with the futures market and
commodity prices. These are the people of
whom the system will pay for itself."
The Grassroots pages which Ontario sub-
scribers are accessing most are those
carrying regional weather reports, which are
updated four times a day, and commodity
prices, says Easterbrook. A farmer, for
example, can find out the price of frozen
pork bellies on the Chicago Commodity
Exchange within 10 minutes of trading, he
adds.
If farmers are seriously dealing in cash
grain and futures contracts, for an additional
fee they can gain access to up to the minute
reports from Canadian and American ex-
changes.
Ontario farmers now have the option of
subscribing to a second farm videotext
service, called AgriStar, which originates in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and markets its soft-
ware through Radio Shack outlets.
AgriStar concentrates on financial and
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commodity information and market analysis
for farmers, grain dealers and speculators.
Although it's a U.S. based service, there
is a local tie in since the University of
Western Ontario's school of journalism
provides a daily package of Canadian farm
news for AgriStar.
The journalism school, in an experimental
program started in April, 1982, "has been
producing an agricultural news package,
called Westex News, for Grassroots sub-
scribers. Westext News senior editor Henry
Overduin says the school has funding to
continue this project for another half year.
But Overduin adds that the recent Agri -
Star connection is particularly exciting
"because we are one of the first Canadian
informationproviders" on the system."
"It's an interesting experiment from our
point of- view because we can update (news)
instantly on AgriStar," Overduin says.
The news for Grassroots subscribers is
transmitted only once a day, and can't be
updated as a story develops.
Program available to beginning farmers
The Beginning Farmer Assistance Pro- five-year fixed rate loan with an approved
gram has become retroactive to January 1, lender:
1983. A farmer who has arranged a loan at Brochures on the program are available
terms other than a five year fixed rate or has from some banks, Farm Credit Corporation,
a loan with a non -approved lender, is still and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and
eligible for the rebate. The applicant must Food office, Clinton.
indicate his/her intent to enroll in the Don Pullen,
program prior to April 30, 1984. He/she will 'Agricultural Rep.
then have until August 31. 1984 to arrange a for Huron County.
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