Washington’s $600M Push To Build Better Rural Internet
6/2/18 Farm Journal Report: Rural Broadband
There are a plethora of topics surrounding the agricultural community in Washington D.C.: trade negotiations, the farm bill, Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), and the other usual topics.
The issue of rural broadband is picking up speed in the nation’s capital and at home as millions of Americans still don’t have a reliable connection to high speed internet.
“Farmers are creative people—they’re innovators and they are marketers in a way that if we gave them the connectivity to the world, it’s amazing what you could see being created not just in the garages in Silicon Valley, but in the farm sheds and barns across America,” said Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue in an interview with AgDay host Clinton Griffiths in March.
Roughly 34 million American’s don’t have adequate access to high speed internet, and 80 percent of those live in rural areas. Resources to help are pouring in. Included in the 2018 budget bill is $600 million for rural broadband.
Griffiths reports on how Washington lawmakers are pushing for more online connectivity and some of the possible technological solutions that may be coming to your farm on U.S. Farm Report above.
