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Farm
decision-making site
made better
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[SEPT.
2, 2003]
URBANA -- A "remodeled" website geared toward providing
agricultural producers with timely information to help them in
decision-making has been unveiled by University of Illinois
Extension. "Farm Decision Outreach Central," or farmdoc, is located
at
http://www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu/.
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"When farmdoc was
launched a few years ago, the main goal was to improve farm
decision-making under risk through education and research," said
Scott Irwin, University of Illinois professor of agricultural
economics, one of the site's founders. "The mission remains the
same, but we've added new and improved features to fine-tune it."
Irwin noted that the
new farmdoc site has a number of enhancements.
"We've adopted a new
color scheme for enhanced readability," he said. "We've also made it
more user-friendly. For instance, those coming to the site will now
have direct access to all major farmdoc publications from any page
within the site. Users will also have the ability to search both the
farmdoc website and the Internet from the home page, powered by
Google™.
"There are also three
new content sections: "For Farmland Owners," "Prices and Weather,"
and "Ag Web Resources."
Among the new
features is live color weather radar. It is available in a format
that allows users to click in on a specific area for weather
information and for commodity price information as well.
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Irwin noted that the
new section "For Farmland Owners" will be especially helpful to
those who own farmland.
"Information in this
section provides owners of farmland with current information and
references in a number of key areas related to renting and buying
farmland," he said.
These include a land
value index, cash rents in Illinois, share rent characteristics,
leasing fact sheet and how Illinois farmland is taxed.
One of the site's
features is a tractor cost calculation tool that shows per-hour
costs for different sized tractors. There are similar tools for a
number of economic decisions involved in farming on the site.
The site also includes AgMAS reports.
These reports measure the performance of market advisory services
against market prices for corn, soybeans and wheat.
[University
of Illinois news release]
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