Taking Precision Agriculture Further with Fiber

Former Administrator of the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service and current Managing Member with Rural America Strategies Chad Rupe joined the Fiber Broadband Association’s Fiber for Breakfast to share how current broadband allocations are “a bridge halfway” to aiding family farms and the growing need for precision agriculture. According to Rupe, both the farmer and provider can build up rural economies and harvest profits with precision agriculture. Farmers in rural areas often do not have integrated systems and have not gained the full benefits of ever-increasing technology advances; additionally, those farmers are rarely connected at the farmhouse with the Federal Communications Commission's standard of 25/3 Mbps. “When Congress discussed and included $65 billion in the infrastructure bill for broadband, think of the return on investment when adding precision agriculture on-site equipment to the eligibility of these funds,” said Rupe. “If we stay on the current path, we are shutting out the economics of connecting 2 million farms and not closing the digital divide with a sustainable operating capacity to reach the least dense areas of the US.” Rupe also stressed that these buildouts do not have to stay on the farm. Rather, fiber broadband can be used to support grain silos, livestock feedlots, the rain and trucking industry to get produce to market, the traceability of food through blockchain, and more.