Techies, Junkies, and Hackers: Computers in the Agribusiness Industry

A recent courtroom experience and a popular magazine article, together, generated the courage to write this piece. The incentive to do so had long been latent. I had suppressed the urge to address the subject out of a combined fear of professional rejection and no small amount of personal insecurity. Computers have long been an acceptable component of academic life. Desktop PCs, portables, mainframes, and their multiple-location linked terminals have become almost as common to campus office surroundings as file cabinets and credenzas. Their use by faculty and graduate students in research activities has grown to a level judged "expensive" by administration and "indispensable" by the researchers themselves. Having once crunched numbers on an old manual calculator during my graduate training, I welcomed the advent of the electronic data processing age. This fact notwithstanding, it was not by accident that computers appeared first on the desks of our secretarial personnel and only much later in the offices of our faculty. Computer proficiency in word processing was the key to this prioritization. Private industry followed a similar pattern as staff (not management) was often the first to gain access to electronic hardware. Staff personnel, therefore, first developed computer use skills, while upper level management remained aloof. Since staff was normally responsible for routine, repetitive, and procedural matters, the adoption of computers was judged logical and, after a period of introduction, they proved highly beneficial to the office place. But as noted, their greatest use was in the performance of routine, repetitive, or data-heavy activities. Once the hardware was in place and procedural programs were written, both speed and efficiency were enhanced. Gradually, however, computers found their way onto the desks of decision makers — those who were responsible for thinking, contemplating, and innovating. And it was at this point that some interesting problems began to arise.