May 6, 2019
On April 30, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) unveiled A Case for Rural Broadband: Insights on Rural Broadband Infrastructure and Next Generation Precision Agriculture Technologies.This latest chapter in the Trump Administration’s American Broadband Initiative finds that the deployment of broadband networks and adoption of new agricultural technologies could result in approximately $47–$65 billion annually in additional gross benefit for the U.S. economy. The USDA has been investing in rural telecommunications infrastructure for decades. But approximately 80 percent of the American households who lack reliable, affordable, high-speed Internet access are in rural areas.