E-commerce support services

Participation in e-commerce requires that a firm be present on the web with its own site. For farmers and small businesses it often does not pay to have a sophisticated site and a modest home page may do. These users are served by Internet service providers focused on agriculture, who bundle Internet services with e-commerce information and market intermediation. For more demanding farmers and agribusinesses there are also programming houses that provide web sites for the agricultural industry.
The next:
Skimming the web for evidence of emerging patterns in agricultural e-commerce misses activities that are carried out in the privacy of extranets—networks that use Internet technology to link businesses directly to their suppliers, customers, or other businesses. In agriculture, where many farmers use less powerful technologies for accessing the Internet, this invisible part of e-commerce is arguably less important than in other industries. Nevertheless, more information is needed on this hidden section of agricultural e-commerce. In any case, the visible part alone provides ample evidence that e-commerce in agriculture is here to stay. Rather than disappear from agriculture, e-commerce will evolve—probably in unpredictable ways. The reason for the uncertainty is not the technology on which e-commerce is based.