LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Indiana Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch in recent days participated in a roundtable discussing the need for broadband connection in the rural portion of the state, stressing how expansion is an important step to power the future of the agriculture industry.
“The purpose of the event was to demonstrate how innovation is changing the outcome we’ve seen in agricultural, and those innovations can only happen if we have broadband connection,” Crouch said.
“It was kind of a dual-purpose. Understand that we have cutting-edge technology out there that is transforming how agriculture is doing and the outcomes we get, but it’s not possible if we don’t have broadband connection.”
Within the state, there are several companies innovating in the field of agriculture, trying to incorporate technology into the field.
One of those companies, Solinftec, an agriculture technology company based in West Lafayette, spoke about their newest invention, Solix Sprayer, a state-of-the-art autonomous robotic agricultural sprayer.
Unlike the traditional farming method, which would see farmers spray their entire field of crops with pesticides in hopes of killing any invasive insects, the Solix Sprayer can remotely and autonomously scan a farmer’s crop to identify which specific portions of their field need to be treated with pesticides.
Solinftec claimed that farmers that used the Solix Sprayer on their corps saw an almost 80% reduction in the use of pesticides.
To many of the farmers that were participating in the roundtable discussion, this news came as a surprise and led to murmuring about how to incorporate this new technology into their practices.
But there was one major hurdle that Solinftec ran into when trying to market this invention for large-scale implementation in Indiana agriculture, and that was the lack of broadband connection in most of the state’s agricultural-focused counties.
For the Solix Sprayer to function correctly, it requires a strong internet connection to be present throughout a farmer’s field.
Seeking solutions to weak internet in rural areas
But within Montgomery County, where the event was being held, farmers shared how the internet was so weak in the area that it could barely handle streaming Netflix or even connect to a Zoom call.
Although farmers were intrigued by the new technology, without a real commitment from the state to expand high-speed internet into the area, it felt more like an interesting display piece rather than a future tool they could harness.
That’s where Crouch reassured the people of the area that the state was looking into expanding broadband into every part of Indiana.
“As of today, the state has awarded $268 million in grants for broadband, many of them have come here into Montgomery County,” Crouch said.
“The $268 million that we have invested will connect Montgomery and when it is fully deployed, it will connect 75,000 Hoosier families and businesses.
“But the $868 million that we’re going to get from the federal infrastructure bill, should go a long way in getting every Hoosier connected to the last mile. And that will allow that kind of technology to really transform agriculture.”
Crouch spoke about how Indiana is in a position to revolutionize the agricultural industry by incorporating these new technological advancements into the field.
But that would only be possible if Indiana ensured that the state was in a technological position in order to take advantage of those new innovations.
The discussion was held at the WCI Family Farms in Linden Ind., and hosted by the Wabash Heartland Innovation Network, which is a non-profit organization aimed at developing 10 counties in north-central Indiana that have been under-invested in when it comes to the digitalization needs of modern industry.
The 10 counties that WHIN focuses on are Pulaski, White, Cass, Benton, Carroll, Tippecanoe, Warren, Fountain, Montgomery, and Clinton County.
