WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2015 - Senators on
the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee last week heard just how
crucial expanding broadband infrastructure into the country’s most remote, and
least populous areas is to bolstering the economic potential of rural America
and sustaining advances in precision agriculture.
“Large swaths of agricultural land in
the United States – where people do not reside, but where they work and
contribute to the rural and national economy – are wholly lacking broadband
coverage,” testified Cory Reed, senior vice president of intelligent solutions
for John Deere.
More than half (53 percent) of rural Americans
don’t have access to Internet with at least 25 megabits per second (Mbps)
download/3 Mbps upload speeds – the slowest speeds the Federal Communications
Commission say qualify as “broadband” – when only 9 percent of urbanites go
without.
“The rapid adoption of information
technologies and services across the agricultural economy today is no less
significant than was the introduction of mechanization to farming almost 100
years ago,” Reed said. The most important technologies to modern, precision
agriculture are wireless data transfer systems and GPS-enabled machinery – both
of which need reliable broadband access to function, he said.
Wireless Internet access allows farmers
access to data communications both on and off the tractor, Reed said. For
instance on the tractor, farmers can receive real-time information on field
conditions, weather and other environmental factors, and manage fleets and
collect data needed for regulatory compliance. Off the tractor, data collected
on the field can be sent to another machine, a database housed on the farm, to
John Deere or other companies and be aggregated and analyzed alongside millions
of other data points collected across the country.
By using a Global Positioning System
(GPS) that allows for sub-inch level accuracy in the planting of seed and the
application of fertilizer and pesticides, farmers can reduce their fuel, labor
and water costs. Accenture, a company that provides a precision ag service, estimates the benefits
of using these systems together could add up to $55 to $110 per acre in
increased profit and 15 percent greater overall improved crop productivity.
On a macro-scale, these technologies
allow farmers to tackle the “growing challenges” of environmental
sustainability and conservation compliance, said Reed, by reducing the amount
of nutrient and sediment runoff from their land that could otherwise impair
waterways. They also help farmers increase yields in an era where a dramatic
increase in the world’s population – estimated to exceed 9 billion people by 2050
from just over 7 billion now – is
approaching, and “the supply of skilled labor for agriculture is not enough to
meet (that) demand.”
“The things that are automated today
are possible to do manually, but they aren’t scalable” without these technologies,
Reed said. John Deere outfits all of its new
tractors with third generation (3G) modems for mobile computing,
and plans to increase their machines’ capacity to 4G and greater down the road.
But in order to get the most of modern
farm machinery, farmers need faster Internet access – and that takes more
infrastructure. That’s why John Deere supports expanding the FCC’s Mobility Fund,
the wireless component of the Connect America Fund,
that provides wireless carriers one-time or ongoing support to accelerate the
deployment of mobile broadband and voice service infrastructure – like cell
towers and broadband fiber – in unserved or high-cost areas.
The chairman of the Commerce, Science
and Transportation Committee, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., noted that land
procurement for cell towers in rural areas shouldn’t be as difficult as in
urban areas where witnesses said permitting can take up to 10 years. Thune also
indicated interest in tapping federal lands as potential sites for installing
infrastructure. Currently, the White House’s Broadband Opportunity Council
is inventorying federal assets that could be used for broadband build-out.
John Deere also supports expanding the
scope of the FCC’s Universal Service Fund
to include broadband infrastructure expansion. Currently, the USF only supports
the expansion of telephone infrastructure with contributions solely from
telecom carriers. If broadband carriers were also required to contribute, rural stakeholders say
critical broadband expansion could happen rapidly.
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