Smart Farmer

Object Oriented Pty Ltd, Innovative Farming's parent company has taken an innovative look at how emerging new technologies will affect our everyday lives in the near future - SmartWorld. Seven different scenarios have been created including a day in the life of a farmer.

To read about future days in the lives of a child, traveller, teacher, shopper, director and travel agent visit the smartworld section of Object's website.

 

It didn't matter how much George Franklin had modernised, it didn't matter what technology he utilised on a day to day basis, he still got up before dawn every day of the year. By the clear light of a sunless sky he always got his best work done; before the phone started ringing and his people started needing him. He'd gotten up even earlier today; it was always hard to sleep the night before a Market Report came in. It was even harder to work. He went about his morning routine alone, watching as the sun rose and the farm gradually came to life. The first reports would come in around midday, that left six eternal hours before he knew. Market feed-back was a constant process for Franklin Farms, each crop having its cycle of account summaries and analysis. But once per year his primary harvest shipped... And waiting for those reports was a new world of torture. If they were bad he was in trouble, if they were good he'd buy himself another year on the land. But if they were great... Well, that was the dream wasn't it? The first phone call of the day was at nine-thirty, the irritating ring disturbing his mid-morning coffee. It was probably one of his partners calling to see if any early info was in. He picked it up. "Nothing yet..." He answered. "Mister Franklin?" a timid voice he didn't recognise. He got a sudden sinking feeling in his gut, it did that sometimes... And it was never good news. "Speaking..." "Mister Franklin, my name is Jason Dunleavy, I'm from National Commonwealth Bank..." George knew what was coming, the bastards just never let go... "I've just been consulting our records and the cash flow on your overdraft has fallen below our tolerance levels." "You want to say that in English..." George knew exactly what Jason was talking about but he sure as hell didn't want to make his job any easier. "You need to make a payment on your over-draft."
Banks
This had been the story for a few years now. ALL THE MAIN BANKS HAD BEEN DE-STAFFING THEIR COUNTRY OFFICES. When he went into town these days, they expected him to do his business with a teller machine or an eighteen year old saving for a backpacking holiday. The bank manager that had worked with him for fifteen years was gone. And gone with him any understanding of the farmer's lot. Drought, low market prices, foreign trade subsidies, the Asian dollar... All these things affected the amount George payed the banks any given year. His old manager knew that, and trusted that George Franklin, whose family had worked the same land for three generations, wasn't about to let the whole thing slide... But try telling that to Jason.		AS BANKS BECAME MORE AUTOMATED THEY HAD LESS NEED FOR JUNIOR AND CLERICAL STAFF. INTHE COUNTRY THIS MEANT THAT THE STAFF NUMBERS COULDN’T SUPPORT AN EXPERIENCED MANAGER. COUPLED WITH DOWNTURNS IN SOME COUNTRY CENTRES AND THE BANKS OFTEN SIMPLY CLOSED, WHICH WASN’T THE SMARTEST WAY TO DEAL WITH THEIR CUSTOMERS.
"Your cash flow has fallen below our
TOLERANCES. George imagined for a moment the sound of leathery knuckles on jaw bone. "Let me get onto my agent. She'll give you a call and let you know what the deal is..." The Agent George's agent was his life line, and he didn't mind saying so. She'd pulled the business into the twenty-first century (George fighting her all the way) and had established a reliable information network that he and his partners couldn't live without. He remembered the times when he just used to say good-bye to his produce at the front gate and wait for the cheque to arrive. In those days the big money wasn't in being a producer; it was in being a middle man. And regardless of how the year went, they always got their slice of the pie; a BIG slice...		A FANCY WAY OF SAYING THAT COMPUTER PROGRAMS HAD BEEN SET UP TO MONITOR ALL OF YOUR TRANSACTIONS AND THEY NOW FELL OUTSIDE SOME POSSIBLY ARBITRARY LIMITS THAT ONLY A FEW ACTUARIES UNDERSTOOD.
But his agent had changed all that. Shelley Finley was her name, the oldest daughter of mango farmers in the North of Queensland. She'd done some
SORT OF DEGREE but unlike most intellectuals she wasn't stupid. She founded her agency in 1999 and in a few years boasted a fair few clients.		OFTEN THE ACTUAL TYPE OF COMPUTER DEGREE MATTERS LESS THAN ACTUALLY HAVING DONE ONE.
Basically she talked George into thinking of his produce not only as a box of fruit, but as the
PACKAGE OF INFORMATION around that box of fruit. Things such as storage times, travel times, who's transporting it, how it's getting marketed at the sales point, what state it's in on the food shelves... All this information drastically affected the amount of money George was likely to make. If he had access to this "shell" of information he could make sure his fruit was being dealt with at its best, every step of its journey from his pickers hands to the consumers mouth. And she also knew how to deal with banks. "Shelley?" George called her as soon as he hung up from Jason. "George... No news yet." "Yeah I know... I'm not actually calling about that. This joker from NCB has just called me. There's a cash flow problem." "Idiots." George could hear how angry this stuff made her, "Don't they know what day it is?" "Apparently not."		ALL OF THE INFORMATION RELATING TO HOW THE BOX OF FRUIT CAME INTO BEING, WHAT IT CONSISTS OF, AND WHAT ITS HISTORY. THIS CAN INCLUDE ALL OF THE CHEMICALS USED IN GROWING THE CROP, THE WEATHER WHILE IT WAS GROWING, AND ANY TEST MEASUREMENTS DONE.
"Look George, leave it to me. I'll
get the data off the AGENCY NETWORK and compile it in a form that even they will understand. When the figures come in today I'll format them and send them through to him as well." "Will it make any difference?" "Yeah, all they want is the information in a form they can understand. I could teach you to do it if you want..." She'd been trying to get him to do this for months. " No thanks, wait till Joey's a bit older... tell him." Joey always talked about working the farm and continuing the family tradition. His daughter Chelsea had moved to the city and worked at some big shot company. But the boy's eyes still glittered when he looked at the land. And the Internet school he used meant he could cope with all the new technology.		ANY REFERENCE TO A PARTICULAR NETWORK IS NORMALLY REFERRING TO PARTICULAR INFORMATION HELD ON ITS SERVERS. IN SOME CASES IT DOESN’T EVEN PHYSICALLY EXIST, BUT IT IS CONVENIENT FOR PEOPLE TO CONSIDER IT AS A SPECIFIC THING.
He hung up with a smile on his face. Shelley was always trying to make him enthusiastic about all the new things technology could do. And while he acknowledged its
usefulness (hell, HE WAS ON THE WEB WASN'T HE? ), he couldn't seem to explain to her that he was a farmer. He grew things. That's what he was good at, that's what he loved. He really only wanted to learn those things that made his job easier... Plus if he learnt everything she wanted him to, he wouldn't need her, would he? George checked his watch... 12:01. Midday. The Moment of Truth As he trudged towards his office, steaming coffee in hand, he knew that on the other side of that door, waiting on his computer were the sales reports for his last shipment. It was his main crop of the year and if the figures were bad it didn't matter how clever the information Shelley sent the banks was... You have new e-mail , flashed on and off in the centre of the screen. Deep breath. Click the mouse button. The first thing he saw was the cancellation of his supply contract with a Malaysian Supermarket chain. Dammit! The other reports were good, good enough that he could keep the wolves from the door, but the cancellation made him really angry. Why? He accessed the agency information network via it s Web Site. The reason for the cancellation - Deteriorated Stock. Somewhere along the supply line his fruit had been damaged.		ONE IS “ON” THE WEB WHEN ONE CAN CONNECT TO IT – OFTEN AS JUST A STANDARD USER.
EACH CRATE WAS MARKED WITH A SMARTCARD INSERT which held all of the pertinent transport and storage information for that particular unit. He found the series of crates that were bound for Malaysia and traced back their supply route. At every stage of the way quality tests were made to assess the fruit. He logged onto the Information Network and clicked on the link to Sun Couriers - the transport company he and most of his partners used to take the fruit from their farms up to storage on the coast.		IN FACT IT ISN’T A SMARTCARD AT ALL, BUT PEOPLE THINK OF IT THAT WAY. A CHIP SIMILAR TO THOSE USED IN SMARTCARDS IS INSERTED INTO THE CRATE SO IT CAN’T BE REMOVED. IT IS POWERED BY AN RF FIELD WHEN NEEDED.
AT THE WEB-SITE HE TYPED IN HIS USER PASSWORD AND ENTERED THE SMARTCARD NUMBERS FOR THE RELEVANT CRATES. All had been checked and the assessor had given them the all clear. That meant no damage had occurred in transit. Sun Couriers had done their job. Lucky for them... He checked the same information for the airline that freighted them to Malaysia. Once again the assessors had given his fruit the thumbs up. George had personally checked the airline storage facilities three years ago, but now he accessed their Web Site and made sure everything was as it should be. His fruit had been refrigerated for one day then loaded onto the plane. Checks on the SmartCard numbers at both ends of the trip led him to believe the fruit was still intact when it hit Malaysia. George knew every one of the agency testers, he'd met them at Shelley's offices a year ago. If they said the fruit was all right, he believed them. That meant only one thing. Either the Malaysian Supermarket was trying to scam him, or the storage site at Malaysian customs was where the damage occurred. A final check revealed the truth. The capacity of the storage area had been exceeded by the sudden influx of Australian fruit. His crates had been some of the unlucky ones to be left out in the sun. George was angry now. Sure he could claim the cost of the crates off Malaysian Customs but his reputation had been damaged and he'd lost a valuable client.		THE NUMBERS UNIQUELY IDENTIFY EACH CRATE, WHICH MEANS THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO FIND OUT ABOUT ANY CRATE .
HE BUNDLED THE INFORMATION HE'D GATHERED INTO A PACKAGE AND E-MAILED IT TO SHELLEY. She was on the phone an hour later. "I think we need another agency inspector at the marker site." Was George's suggestion. "Damn right," she said, "I'll see to it when I'm over there." "You're going to Malaysia?" George asked. "I've got to re-sign that Supermarket, don't I? Once they know it wasn't our fault and we've put a solution in place, how can they say no?" Shelley always surprised him. He liked that. It felt good to have someone in your corner who was adding value to the enterprise, not just taking the cream from your hard work. Day's End It had been an okay season, the Malaysian problem not withstanding. Okay enough to continue for another year and do the whole thing again. But that was the joy wasn't it? Growth, re-growth, the cycle of life... The phone interrupted George's philosophising. "Franklin Farms." "Mister Franklin?" It was Jason again. "Speaking." "We've just received the information from your agent, everything seems to be in order, so we'll expect a cheque with the next few weeks." "Fine." "I always wanted to be a farmer..." "That right?" George asked. "What's it like?" He was surprised by the question, wondered how to answer it truthfully... It was beautiful but painful, difficult but rewarding... "What's it like?" George repeated, knowing he had the perfect answer; "Mate, it's better then your job."		A PACKAGE OF INFORMATION CAN INCLUDE EXTRACTS FROM DATABASES, IMAGES, COMMENTS, AND REFERENCES TO OTHER INFORMATION. THIS MAKES IT EASY TO E-MAIL AND EASY FOR THE RECIPIENT TO UNDERSTAND AND WORK WITH.