1. What is Your Farm?
Your Farm is the premier online member community for Agriculture. The site was designed by farmers with the singular objective of serving and looking out for the interest of other farmers.
Your Farm is a destination where the best in agriculture--producers, agribusinesses, professors, agri-marketers, grower associations, and members of the farm media—interact, contribute and benefit.
For additional information take a look around our site.
2. Why do you call it "Your Farm"?
Because in the end, your farm--your business-- is what matters.
3. How much does it cost to register, set up a profile, or otherwise utilize Your Farm?
There is NO COST. We suspect if your farm is anything like ours you've got plenty of things to spend your money on already.
4. What is an online member Community?
A place where individuals go to create a rich profile of who they are and interact with others of similar interest. Other terminology such as Social Network or Virtual Community are often used interchangeably.
5. What are some example of an Online Member Community Outside of Agriculture?
Facebook. MySpace. Linked In. That's just to name a few. Online member communities have significantly impacted other industries. Your FarmSM was created to bring these opportunities to the agriculture.
6. What can I do on Your Farm?
Currently, Your Farm has five major components:
- Your Farm community, an online social network of farmers
- New and expanded farm subsidy database
- Agricultural news from leading media outlets
- Market information
- Weather information
You are welcome to use any of these features. Regarding the Your Farm Community there are a number of things you can do.
- Create a profile of your farm detailing information about yourself and your operation.
- Establish or join groups focused on specific topics of interest.
- Interact with top farmers from across the country.
- Or just see what others are thinking and talking about.
7. Is Your Farm open to the public?
Yes. This is your site. Your destination. We merely administer it.
8. Do I have to register?
No. You are welcome to use the site without registering. There are numerous advantages to registering and creating a profile such as being able to participate in online forums, create (or participate in) groups within Your Farm, etc. No strings attached. (We promise.)
9. How do I register?
Click here and we'll walk you through it.
10. What are your future plans for Your Farm?
Your Farm will evolve over time, and what it becomes will be a direct reflection of the interaction and feedback we receive from users.
11. What do you sell?
No products or service are for sale on Your Farm. The site was established to be a service to farmers and to provide a platform for dissemination of information and interaction between Producers and others involved in the industry. To put it simply - an online destination for those that participate in Production Agriculture.
12. What is the Farm Subsidy/1614 Database?
The 1614 Database is a collection of information, compiled by USDA and the Farm Service Agency (FSA), that quantifies farm subsidy payments and outlines the individual recipients of those payments. The preparation of the database was mandated in the 2002 Farm Bill and the completion of the database was announced by FSA in a press release dated 12/19/2006.
The database contains approximately 65 million records and provides information related to $56 billion of transactions. The database information is publicly available, but until now has not been available on the Internet. The farm subsidy database is available here.
13. Why did you publish the Farm Subsidy Database online?
For better or worse, information contained in the 1614 Database impacts discussions (and ultimately legislation) surrounding Farm Policy. Moreover, the information is about you, the farmer. For these reasons we thought it was something to which you should have access. So we published it online.
14. Why does it seem to take so long when I search the Database?
Try using advanced search--name county, for example, rather than just name. This will reduce the amount of data that must be processed and your search results will appear much more quickly.
Please note, the amount of data in the database is massive. FSA, in their press release announcing the completion of the database, suggested the database was to large to put on the Internet. We felt the information was too important not to put on the Internet where you can access it. So we figured out how to get it online.