-Farm News photos by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Josh Peschel, an assistant professor in agricultural and biosystems engineering at Iowa State University, (above and left) is linking agriculture and technology together in a nationwide research project funded by the National Science Foundation. He and a team at ISU are developing new, wireless networking tools that would serve remote areas.

State-of-the-art technology continues to evolve each year to help farmers work more efficiently, from the field to the barn, but much of that technology requires data — and reliable, high-speed internet access.

Still, many rural areas are still struggling to connect with the outside world via the internet. These remote areas are hotspots for agriculture, however. That’s why Josh Peschel, an assistant professor in agricultural and biosystems engineering at Iowa State University, is linking agriculture and technology together in a nationwide research project funded by the National Science Foundation.

The team, led by Hongwei Zhang, a professor in electrical and computer engineering, is launching a test bed for experimentation to develop new, wireless networking tools that would serve remote areas — especially ones here in Iowa. The test bed takes place in the form of a wireless living lab across Iowa State University, the city of Ames and surrounding farms and rural areas.

With this new wireless infrastructure, the team is also launching an application with a focus on agriculture — and that’s where Peschel comes in.

“A lot of agriculture as we know it is very remote and disconnected,” Peschel said. “If we want to have better wireless connectivity for these remote outposts of agriculture, we need something as powerful as this.”

-Farm News photos by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Josh Peschel, an assistant professor in agricultural and biosystems engineering at Iowa State University, (above and left) is linking agriculture and technology together in a nationwide research project funded by the National Science Foundation. He and a team at ISU are developing new, wireless networking tools that would serve remote areas.

Peschel is installing cameras that are connected to the wireless test bed in pig barns and cattle pens around the area.

“When we put cameras in pig barns and cattle pens to monitor their behavior in real-time, those videos can be electronically transported back from very remote locations,” Peschel said. “Whereas now, you wouldn’t even be able to get a text message at those remote locations. But with this project, you could perhaps have streaming, high-definition video coming from those places, from the cameras.”

The cameras, intentionally linked to the team’s wireless network, wirelessly transmit information back to the team using their experimental technologies to help them better understand bandwidth requirements, minimum video quality and more.

How disconnected

is rural America?

The global COVID-19 pandemic that erupted in 2020 highlighted the importance — and lack of availability in many rural areas — of reliable, high-speed, online connectivity in some areas, as millions of people transitioned online for remote work, school, health care, government services and regular communication with family and friends.

This wasn’t news to farmers. A 2019 study conducted by the United Soybean Board (USB) found that nearly 60 percent of U.S. farmers and ranchers surveyed did not believe they have adequate internet connectivity to run their businesses. Only 32 percent considered their office internet reliable. More than 50 percent said they wanted to incorporate more data in their operations but lacked the connectivity to do it.

A May 2021 study by BroadBand Now revealed that an estimated 42 million Americans don’t have access to wired or fixed wireless broadband, the vast majority of them in rural areas. That same year, the Greater Des Moines Partnership commissioned a study examining internet accessibility in 11 counties in central Iowa. This study found that 40% of homes in central Iowa had download speeds of less than 25 megabits per second, below the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) definition of high-speed broadband. The problem is even bigger in rural communities, where connection speeds were up to three times slower than in urban areas.

Investing in solutions

There are sound financial reasons to invest in improved rural internet connectivity, according to ag industry observers.

Increased connectivity would enable technology like remote crop and livestock monitoring, drone farming and autonomous farm machinery with the potential to improve North America’s agricultural output by 8.7% and unlock $500 billion in global gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030, according to an October 2020 McKinsey report. 

“There is amazing technology available to farm families and ranch families to be more efficient and extremely precise with their inputs, but that takes data — and not just shoddy internet access,” said Sam Kieffer, vice president of public policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation. “It takes reliable and high-speed internet access to utilize these tools, to store the data and to leverage the information that’s available to help make informed decisions.”

Some steps are being taken to improve internet connectivity in rural Iowa, although the process can be slow and limited to specific areas. When USDA Rural Development invested nearly $730 million in obligated funding in Iowa for fiscal year 2022, more than $34.5 million of that went to telecommunications programs. This money provides funds for the costs of construction, improvement or acquisition of facilities and equipment needed to provide broadband service and telephone service in eligible rural areas.

Complete Communication Services Corporation in Stratford, for example, is receiving a $3,797,296 loan to bring high-speed internet to 2,827 people, 77 businesses, five farms and three educational facilities in Hamilton County, according to USDA Rural Development.

While this is useful for people in a specific area, more needs to be done to bridge the digital divide across rural Iowa. That’s why ISU is focusing on new wireless infrastructure and is launching an application with a focus on agriculture.

The potential is exciting, according to project leaders. The ability to utilize cameras in livestock barns and access streaming, high-definition video, even in remote areas, could offer farmers a valuable tool to work more efficiently and effectively.

“This is what Iowa State University’s land-grant mission is all about — bringing to bear our research and innovation to meet the needs of Iowans,” said Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen. “Rural broadband has become an essential need. Iowa State is very excited to work with our partners to develop affordable wireless technologies that will help connect and create opportunities for families, schools, farms and communities across the state.”