On-farm computing software in the United Kingdom — a brief review

Since 1980 there has been huge growth in the commercial use of computers in relation to daily farming activities in the U.K. Three main types of application are involved, Bureau services, stand-alone computers on the farm, and on-line services such as Prestel Farmlink through the farmer's television set.Over 120 companies offer computer services to farmers, and 88 were surveyed for this study. Between them they offered 253 different packages of which the most common are for dairy and pig herd management, financial management, arable crops management and other livestock applications.There are no hard data on the number of farmers who use computers, but the proportion is greater than in most other countries. At present at least a third of the companies in the sector have formed joint ventures to market existing packages or develop new applications, and the recent rapid pace of change in the sector is expected to continue.