Feeling Disconnected on the Farm? New Broadband Map Shows You’re Not Alone
The American Farm Bureau Federation recently reported that a new digital map from the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) provides more detail about broadband needs across the country than any other publicly available resource, writes Frank Giles at Growing Produce. Tapping into data aggregated at the county, census tract, and census block level from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), M-Lab, Ookla, and Microsoft, the map shows (in red) the many parts of the country reporting connection speeds that fall below the FCC’s current benchmark for fixed broadband service of 25 Mbps download, 3 Mbps upload.
Farmers, ranchers, and others who live in rural communities struggle every day with poor connection speeds, which slow down their work on the business end of the farm, schoolwork, and their ability to download and share important documents.
“A reliable and speedy broadband connection is also critical to farmers’ use of precision agriculture to farm as sustainably and efficiently as possible. Without high-speed internet, farmers cannot collect key data or analyze it to determine the exact amount of fertilizer to apply, how much water their crops need, or the precise amount of herbicides or pesticides they should use,” says Ryan Yates, Managing Director of Public Policy at the American Farm Bureau Federation.
NTIA’s new map can help officials determine where to focus government funding and public-private partnership efforts to enhance broadband.
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