In a question asking farmers to characterize the quality of internet access at their farm, 12 percent of farmers said they did not have internet access. Sixteen percent characterized their access as “poor.” Three out of 10 respondents reported “high quality” internet access, and 41 percent chose “moderate.”

Each winter, surveyors ask farmers to project their annual growth rate over the next five years. Based on seven years of responses, researchers have found the percentage of producers who say they either have no plans to grow or plan to exit/retire in the next five years has been on the rise. In February 2016, 33 percent of survey respondents said they either planned to exit farming or had no plans to increase their operation’s size. This year, 53 percent said they fit into those categories.

Johnny Park, chief executive of the Indiana-based Wabash Heartland Innovation Network, or WHIN, told lawmakers he expects it to cost up to $150 billion to fill the gaps in internet coverage in rural America.

Todd Miller from member company Myers Spring serves on the Board of Directors for WHIN. The group recently completed a successful test flight with a tethered 80-foot-long balloon, known as an aerostat. The balloon provides a link between scattered households and broadband providers in the network’s 10-county region.

Park testified that in WHIN’s pursuit to build a regional ecosystem in Indiana to attract globally competitive businesses, it has adopted as its principal strategy the acceleration of digital technology, especially digital agriculture and smart manufacturing.

Park, Miller, and others with WHIN are fostering development of a living laboratory for IoT, or the Internet of Things, introducing technologies on farms and in manufacturing plants to drive innovation. The effort has led to the adoption of new technologies in both industries.

“But the spotty and inconsistent connectivity in our rural region was hindering our efforts,” Park said, “not to mention limiting all kinds of economic development and quality of life as we all know.”

That led the organization to launch aerostat.

The balloon is approved by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly 1,500 feet from a farm field in White County, Ind. It is tethered with fiber connection, and it has a payload capacity of 200 pounds that allows it to carry multiple wireless communication devices.

Park said he expects the aerostat to have a 50-mile radius of coverage suitable for IoT sensor connectivity and a 10- to 15-mile radius to provide high-speed broadband.

Park offered to share what WHIN has learned to help other rural regions in the U.S. more quickly and efficiently close the digital divide.

“That glaring gap of where you were able to access the technology really hit home,” said CEO Shirley Bloomfield. “When I talk to members of Congress, they would say it is the first thing that comes up in a townhall.”

The $900 billion COVID relief package passed by Congress in December included a $7 billion broadband internet investment. The bill sets aside funding to help low-income families pay for reliable internet service and included millions for telehealth and creating up-to-date broadband coverage maps.

Bloomfield said broadband has enjoyed bipartisan support through the ReConnect Program, which has invested more than a billion dollars since 2018. She expects the new administration to invest between $20 and $80 billion, based on preliminary discussions.

Source: Brownfield Ag News, scetv.com