There are still a surprising number of producers, at 21.3 percent, who don’t have access to the internet, according to data released from the 2022 Census of Agriculture. Many of the available options for internet access aren’t adequate for accessing precision agriculture in rural America.
Census of Agriculture data says American producers saw moderate improvement in internet access from 2017 to 2022. Across rural America, the percentage of farm operations or operator residences with internet access increased from 75.4 percent in 2017 to 78.7 percent in 2022. While many of the southeastern states still lag behind the U.S. average, most of them had significant increases in producers’ internet access over that period.
An FCC task force recommends a minimum performance of 100 megabits per second for downloading and 20 megabits per second for uploading to support precision agriculture.