The Consequences of Information: Institutional Implications of Technological Change,by Jannis Kallinikos. Cheltenham,UK: Edward Elgar, 2006. $35.00 paper/$95.00 cloth. ISBN 978-1-84720-500-1 paper/978-1-84542-328-5 cloth

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been mandated to “acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word. …” With this authority the department has taken advantage of continuing advances of communications and computer technologies by initiating several programs related to the electronic dissemination of agricultural information. For example, the Foreign Agricultural Service has begun testing the release of agricultural trade leads through the University of Nebraska's AGNET computer‐based network. The Agricultural Marketing Service disseminates updated market data on more than 150 farm commodities over its leased wire market news network; the system has 140 terminals linked by some 14,500 miles of leased wires. Additional projects described in the article include a pilot project to deliver market news information to farmers via public television, programs testing the electronic marketing of livestock, and the electronic mail network operated by the department's Office of Governmental and Public Affairs.