Telecompetitor reports…

Rural broadband would get a boost if a precision agriculture bill introduced in the Senate were to be adopted.

The Linking Access to Spur Technology for Agriculture Connectivity in Rural Environments (LAST ACRE) Act, introduced by U.S. Senator Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), would create a competitive grant and loan program in the USDA focused on the “last acre.”

As a fact sheet explains, existing broadband programs support connectivity to households but don’t address connectivity across farmland and ranchland. That “last acre” connectivity would be important to support precision agriculture applications such as soil mapping and aerial imaging.

Precision Agriculture Bill

The LAST ACRE Act would:

• Enable eligible producers to work with eligible service providers to apply for broadband service and to secure network offers across farm and ranch sites. Multipoint connectivity would be supported to enable data transmission between structures and devices. Funding also could be used for wireless infrastructure construction, including retrofitting existing vertical structures.
• Update the USDA’s Agriculture Census to include questions about broadband adoption, including the subscribers’ speeds and the purposes of the connections.

The LAST ACRE Act is part of a broader package of three precision agriculture bills. The other two bills are the PRECISE Act, which would provide financial tools to help boost farmer and rancher adoption of precision agriculture technologies through existing USDA conservation programs. The Precision Agriculture Loan (PAL) Act would develop a USDA program to finance farmers and ranchers interested in purchasing precision agriculture equipment.