Ag Task Force Members Say Work Must Continue as Charter Expires

As summations arrived from the working groups, it became clear “that agriculture was changing,” said Adelaine, also chief information officer emeritus at South Dakota State University. “Digital agriculture is how we move forward in the future, and it’s going to be extremely important for food security, for feeding” a growing population, “for dealing with climate change,” he said.

Task force members agreed “there’s more work to be done,” Adelaine said. “It’s extremely important that both the USDA and the FCC think about how that might occur,” he said. “That’s basically what’s in the executive summary.”

The report must include “a strong statement … that emphasizes a need to continue the work,” said Knodle Farms Vice President Heather Hampton-Knodle. “Don’t let it sit on a shelf -- take action on this.”

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel noted that during more than five years the task force made north of 150 “unique recommendations” with 10 reports. “You have been productive in a way that we perhaps we should have assumed folks who have a background in farming and ranching might be.”

Rosenworcel added, “The last few years have shown us that staying connected has never been more important.” Broadband connectivity is critical to agricultural and food systems, she said.

The task force has brought “to light and to the forefront the unique needs of rural communities and all of our communities where precision ag is taking place,” said Commissioner Brendan Carr, on tap to become FCC chair starting in January. The group has provided helpful insights on broadband mapping, speeds, bandwidth and latency, he said. Carr said he looked forward to reading the final report when it’s released.

Carr said as a commissioner he has tried to spend as much time as possible outside of Washington, D.C. “I hope that gets to continue,” he said: “I’ve seen firsthand the needs of precision ag.” Tractors and other farm equipment are “mini data centers,” he said. Farmers must be “not just experts in the weather and experts in the soil, but experts, basically, in data science.”

Andy Berke, administrator of the Rural Utilities Service, told the task force that the way people farm has changed markedly because of connectivity. Berke recalled a meeting in Missouri where he was approached by a farmer afterward. The man showed Berke a “fact-finder book” and said that was how his family used to record everything it did on its farm.

“We would write it down and that would be the information that we used to do our work” the man said, Berke related: “He said, ‘I wish my dad were still alive to see what is at my fingertips today when I’m driving around on a tractor and the amount of information that I can summon to do things that we never thought were possible.'”

For families that want to hold on to their farms from generation to generation, precision ag “is now the baseline for what we need in rural America,” Berke said. USDA wants to save smaller farms, he said. Family farmers “need an alternative to get big or get out” and precision ag offers an alternative. Family farmers also need other sources of income and broadband is critical to that, he added.

USDA’s ReConnect program is the department’s “signature" broadband effort and has made more than $4 billion in awards serving “some of the hardest to reach places in our country,” Berke said. They are places with “tremendous topographical challenges” that few providers serve.

Commissioner Anna Gomez said the task force's work “will help ensure that farmers and ranchers are connected to reliable high-speed internet, which is critical to advancing modern techniques.” They will help “improve the efficiency, profitability and sustainability of our country’s agricultural lands.”