Posted on 07/07/2009 4:10:50 PM PDT by SJackson
Did you know you can be a farmer without even getting a single crumb of dirt under your fingernails?
Several months ago, I was introduced to and somewhat reluctantly joined the social-networking Web site Facebook.
I signed up to keep in touch with my colleagues in the Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program (now Leadership Wisconsin).
Realizing that this Facebook stuff could quickly eat up a lot of time if I allowed it to, I made a pact with myself not to explore the site very much or even log in every day.
It seems a couple of Facebook friends of mine have developed a small addiction to a game called Farm Town.
Feeling inspired to be more tech-savvy by my recent Leadership Wisconsin seminar on technology and thinking that this might provide some entertaining and, probably, highly amusing reading for our agricultural audience - especially those who do actual farm work - I moved to Farm Town last week.
Of course, my participation in Farm Town is purely in the interest of research, and I'm making a conscious effort not to enjoy it at all.
Farm Town is an interactive online world in which you can design and manage your own farm, all from the comfort of your desk chair.
A friend of mine in Leadership Wisconsin has developed a quite successful farm next to mine, although she admits she has extremely limited knowledge of farming.
She's the director of a chamber of commerce by day, but online she's the proud owner of a successful cabbage farm.
She caught a little flak for checking in on her farm during breaks at our recent seminar, but I've been around enough farmers when they're on vacation or away at conferences to know they're compelled to check in often too.
When I first logged on to Farm Town, the "mayor" asked me to create and name my avatar. Huh?
I don't want to seem completely tech-ignorant, but, until a couple of weeks ago, I didn't know what that was. When I've heard the term in the past, I thought it was a kids' game, but apparently, it's an online caricature of myself, which actually is kind of cool.
That earned me my first 500 coins, which I could spend at the store for seed and supplies such as a water hose and gloves. It didn't take long to fritter away those 500 coins.
Although I have dairy tendencies and would've liked a barn full of cows, Farm Town automatically dubbed me a potato grower with about a half-dozen fields at various stages of maturity.
The mayor gifted me an apple tree to put on my farm, and I plowed up some new land to plant corn and grapes.
When I arrived, one potato field was already ripe, so I clicked on the tiny "scythe" in the corner of my screen to harvest it. You can either take your harvest to the market right away or put it in storage and wait for a better price, which I did.
You can gain experience points, although I'm not sure yet what you do with those, and you can hire other little avatars to work in your fields.
You also can earn money by helping neighbors with their chores. One of my friends called me over to clean up their farm after a tornado blew through, and another asked me to pull weeds when they were away.
It turns out one of them has a rather large operation, with several corn and onion fields, an assortment of fruit trees and a variety of animals.
Although I haven't been able to afford it yet, you can send gifts of crops or livestock to your friends' farms.
Considering how often I check my Facebook page (for a couple of minutes about twice a week), I wouldn't be surprised if my farm rapidly falls into decline.
The computer apparently will notify you when your crops are ready to harvest, although, within just a day, my two grape fields and one potato field went to waste, and the computer never said a peep.
Your cattle can escape from their pens and eat the crops, and your plants will die if you go away for a while and don't care for them.
While I certainly don't encourage anyone to waste an entire afternoon sitting around playing Farm Town, it occurred to me that it might be a fun and fairly effective (if simplistic) way for Facebook users who don't know much about agriculture to learn about some of the risks and rewards.
But, as hard as they try, computers will never be able to replicate real life for us. There's nothing like being on a working farm, and there are some things even an avatar just can't do.
If you’d like to be on or off this Upper Midwest/outdoors/rural list please FR mail me. And ping me is you see articles of interest.
Michelle’s got that beat.
Uh, scythe and ripe aren’t words normally associated with potatoes...
I know a few people addicted to Farm-crack on Face-crack. It looks stupid to me.
I play Mafia Wars, anyone want to join my Mafia?
I 'spose Farm Town doesn't factor in soil lead content?
That’s the kind of stuff I find annoying.I try to ignore the request that I’m bombarded with from friends who spend too much time on Facebook.I’m more the Fallout3 or Gears of War type that likes to blow stuff up,not play the silly kiddie games on there.
How about 70 mph winds, hail, scorching heat, no rain, no market and no storage. I wonder if you have to work on the tractor or set the cultivator.
But what do I know? In my former engineering profession folks have a new problem: "By the time I have shepherded my design using this brand-new integrated circuit chip into production, the supplier is announcing 'end of lifetime' purchasing." Buy what you want *now* or it's all gone forever.
Husband, kids and I used to play SIM City. We’d set up a city and get it cookin’, then we’d set the controls for every disaster imaginable; floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, riots, etc. and let the computer run all night on our little ‘ant farm’ experiments.
It’s good to be the King. :)
Farm Town resident here.
It’s a lot easier than the Real World farm I’ve inhabited for the past 40 years.
Are you allowed to light smudgepots to keep the oranges from freezing, or does the virtual gov’t over-ride common sense there, too?
I enjoy Farm Town. There’s also myFarm, Barn Buddy and FarmVille. LOL! By the way, I do not bombard people with requests for stuff. I don’t mind being bombarded because they have this neat little button called “Ignore”. Very quick and easy! :o)
Don't hit the IGNORE button,,,, accept the stuff and SELL IT!!
I'm still mouring the things I ignored early, when I didn't understand the game. I swear somebody sent me a John Deere tractor!!! I am now at level 21, and I still haven't reached the point where those tractors are available to buy.
I don’t ignore stuff from the farming games. I ignore the ismile app and the food fling app and the mafia wars app and the ‘support this cause’ app, etc. ;0)
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