BLOOMINGTON, Ill.—The era of autonomous farm machinery is nigh, and the Illinois Soybean Association (ISA) wants to make sure that rural producers are equipped with the high speed broadband they will need to tap into the emerging technology. Through the state’s Accelerate broadband program, ISA and key partners are working to ensure local community leaders will have the tools necessary to achieve statewide broadband and digital equity. 

“Coming out of the pandemic it was exposed how poor, at best, broadband is in most of rural Illinois. In most places, it’s non-existent. ISA started looking at this around two years ago, and soon realized that the whole way people are talking about the broadband issue was never going to solve the problem for our farmers,” said Todd Main, ISA director of market development.

“Agriculture is on the cusp of a big paradigm shift. We are looking at 15 to 30 percent increase in productivity over the next decade because of precision agriculture and other new technologies including data gathering. To make all of that work, we have to have good broadband.”

Modern farm operations require not only home and office internet capabilities, but also on the tractors, combines and other machinery that now rely on broadband to operate at full utility, Main added.

According to an ISA media advisory, Accelerate is a new program designed to increase leaders’ ability to stimulate broadband infrastructure investments that support community goals such as economic development, telehealth delivery, distance learning, and civic engagement. Delivering the Accelerate process to multiple communities or counties simultaneously through a cohort approach, Illinois broadband officials can provide high-quality education and guidance that empowers communities to effectively spur broadband deployment through a variety of deployment models, including public-private partnerships.

By empowering local leaders with knowledge, information, and a plan, rural community leaders will be well positioned to make progress on the challenge of providing broadband improvement, according to Main. “In Illinois, ag is the number-one economic sector. There’s a lot of federal money set aside that’s going to be coming to Illinois in 2023 and 2024, and we want to make sure rural Illinois gets their fair share of that,” he said. 

Current net provider models focus on cities and subscriptions, Main said, with lines going down where the most potential subscribers are located. By utilizing federal tax dollars to invest in broadband rather than relying on broadband companies to increase their own rural investments, Main feels that rural areas of Illinois have much better odds of acquiring high speed broadband for farmers, schools, health care facilities, first responders and other citizens.

“These are tax dollars, and we should have some input in saying where that funding gets spent. And ag is the strongest financial sector of this state -— by far,” he said. “This will allow rural people to participate in the information economy, which means that young people can live in rural communities where the quality of life is better.”

The Accelerate program is underwritten by the United Soybean Board. Partners include the Illinois Soybean Association, the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, Illinois Office of Broadband, University of Illinois Extension, and Illinois Innovation Network. The program is being rolled out in January 2023 in five pilot counties in Illinois, with the goal of equipping rural leaders with the knowledge and tools necessary to write applications and receive grants. 

“Looking at acres under production instead of population, we’ve developed a new metric for looking at this problem. We know that rural counties don’t always have the people and the resources needed to put plans together in order to get in line for that money. We’ve developed a methodology that counties can use for developing their plans and that gives them the skills to put together the grants to make them competitive,” Main said. “We’ve got to enable these rural counties, and give them the power and the support they need.”

Research and thought leadership for the program was provided by the Chicago-based Benton Institute for Broadband and Society. Plans are underway to provide the state-funded Accelerate program free of charge to community planners in all 102 Illinois counties by 2024, according to Main.