An economist with CoBank views access to rural broadband as an important infrastructure issue for agriculture that needs similar investment to the U.S. transportation system.
Tanner Ehmke says as the ag sector becomes more dependent on wireless technology, policy makers need to understand the need for high-speed internet capabilities on the farm.
“Like the lock and dam systems and roads; those are all very important structural issues that have a lot of importance to the ag economy. (Rural broadband) is one of them that will have to be on the table as well. We’re going to have to be making investments for our long-term viability of agriculture in the U.S.”
Ehmke recently published a report titled “Farmers Harvest Gigabytes with Broadband and Wireless Technology” that looked at how the use of data is impacting farm operations.
“From crop yields, fertility plans, seed populations, you name it. It’s becoming so intensive on data collection that could create potential challenges for the industry down the road in terms of transferring that data and managing that data.”
He says more investment is needed to handle the technology boom in agriculture.
Ehmke says current broadband service is generally good and meeting most data usage needs, but there remain remote areas where network connectivity is lacking that could cause problems.
Source: www.brownfieldagnews.com