By Will Wright for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Illinois News Connection reporting for The Daily Yonder-Public News Service Collaboration

As the federal government distributes $42.5 billion to expand broadband internet access across America and its territories, some local leaders are asking themselves: How much economic impact could faster internet create?

The true dollar figure would be spread across the economy, from agriculture and small businesses to harder-to-track impacts like an increased willingness for families to relocate to rural areas.

But a report by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society estimates that, across 15 agricultural counties in Illinois, faster internet speeds could boost production of corn and soybeans by over $100 million annually. 

The report argues that faster internet will allow farmers to more precisely plant, fertilize and harvest crops — a method called “precision agriculture.” In areas with slow internet speeds, the ability to utilize precision agriculture methods are more limited, the report says. 

A tool included in the report provides estimates of increased corn and soybean revenue in each of the 15 counties.

In Bond County, Illinois, the model estimates the county could have boosted corn and soybean production by a combined $4.8 million in 2021 if they had expanded broadband internet access. 

The model relies on a paper that compares crop production data and internet speeds from 2007, 2012 and 2017, to see if better internet leads to increased farm output. The paper finds a substantial benefit to faster internet.

Relying on the projected production increases described in that paper, the Benton model suggests a possibility of millions of dollars a year in increased crop yields.

A researcher who is not affiliated with the study, Grant Gardner, an agriculture economist at the University of Kentucky, said he was skeptical of the hard-dollar projections. He said the study on which the tool is based does not account for other factors that could affect changes in yield, such as equipment improvements.

The designer of the tool, geography Professor John Kostelnick at Illinois State University, said that the model has limitations but that it can help rural leaders evaluate the broader economic gains that come with broadband expansion. Having a rational basis for including gains from agriculture could help rural communities compete for funding that will flow to states from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

“A lot of times rural areas don’t have high priority because they don’t have the population threshold,” Kostelnick said. “It’s easy to say, well, there’s just not a lot of people living there.” 

Estimating the economic gains that broadband access would bring to farmers could give some rural communities an edge in competing for funding, he said.

Bryan Stevens, a corn and soybean farmer and board president of the Hancock County Farm Bureau, who participated in the Broadband Breakthrough program, said he sees increased broadband access as a serious factor for farmers’ pocketbooks. 

“I can see how they can come up with these numbers based on efficiency,” Stevens said. “The less time I waste in the spring or in the fall … the better off I am.”

Local leaders also told the Daily Yonder access to telehealth and remote schooling also play into rural communities’ need for better internet. 

Peggy Braffet, who operates a pick-your-own orchard with her husband in Carlock, Illinois, said the internet running to her property isn’t fast enough to allow clients to pay with credit cards. 

As cash becomes less popular and more people arrive without it, Braffet said she’s worried about the amount of money she could miss out on. Increased revenue to businesses like the Braffet Berry Farm & Orchard aren’t included in the agricultural tool from the Benton Institute but nonetheless would add to the county’s increased economic output. 

The Benton Institute’s Broadband Breakthrough program, which pulled together local leaders hoping to access federal broadband expansion dollars, also provided communities with a tool to find points of higher elevation in their home counties. Those high points can be identified as important locations when making a plan of how, and where, to lay new internet connections. 

In flat regions, high points like grain elevators, water towers, and silos can be important nodes for various forms of wireless broadband technology.

Kostelnick said the economic estimate tool would likely need to be adjusted for other crops in areas less dominated by corn and soybeans. But, he said, the elevation tool should work in “just about any place.” 


Will Wright wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.

Some Iowa farmers are putting a new spin on an age-old animal behavior.

They're using goats to remove weeds, overgrown brush, and non-native grasses - while helping some landowners restore native habitat to their acres at the same time.

Goats are pretty well known for producing milk and cheese. They're even used to help practice yoga these days.

Matt Vermeersch is a member of Practical Farmers of Iowa who farms about 170 acres near Red Oak - near the Nebraska state line - and operates Goats-On-The-Go, a side business stocked with herds of goats hungry for woody vegetation.

"A lot of really what we refer to as weeds, or pain-in-the-butt plants," said Vermeersch. "Things that they love are things like poison ivy, nettles, wild berry species with their thorns - then more woody species like Honeysuckle or buckthorn."

Vermeersch estimated his three Goats-On-The-Go herds cleared about 120 acres of various vegetation this year, and could have done more had it not been for Iowa's severe spring and summer weather.

There are ecological benefits to the practice, too. People hire Vermeersch's goats to clear land where native species once grew, and where farmers want it to return.

Vermeersch said while Iowa landowners are often trying to clear overgrown brush and reintroduce native species, sometimes they just need stands of troublesome weeds and brambles removed.

At which, Vermeersch said, the goats have no equal.

"It almost looks like a wildfire went through there the day after you take the goats off," said Vermeersch. "We refer to it as a grazing line - and pretty much anything under 6 feet tall all that will be left are sticks and stems. All of the leafy material underneath that is usually consumed."

Vermeersch said the goats are used for different reasons across the country.

In western states, for example, they are dispatched to clear brush that can serve as wildfire fuel, reducing the chances that a fire can become catastrophic by keeping the underbrush down.

Advocates for a fair, sustainable and healthy food system have released a report showing increasing consolidation in Montana's agriculture sector.

Economists said such conditions can lead to market manipulation. The report from the advocacy group Farm Action showed 85% of the beef raised on U.S. farms, including in Montana, is produced by four companies: Cargill, JBS USA, National Beef and Tyson Foods.

Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action, said the concentration in the ag industry is happening all the way from farm fields to the consumer's plate, and she warned it creates the potential for artificial price controls.

"This is the scenario in almost every sector of the food supply chain," Huffman pointed out. "Seeds, fertilizer, farm equipment, beef, pork and poultry processing, and retail groceries; every one of those sectors I just named has upwards of 60% to even 85% of those markets are controlled by four corporations."

Consolidation in the livestock industry means more animals are raised in large confinement operations, where manure runoff can affect air quality, ground and surface water in rural Montana. Operators have said they are researching more efficient and environmentally friendly ways to raise livestock while trying to keep up with growing consumer demand.

Huffman argued monopolies can lead to collusion, price fixing and other types of market manipulation. Her group and others are urging lawmakers in Congress to address the issue in the pending Farm Bill.

"We're calling on the government to reclaim its role as an enforcer of our antitrust laws and break up these dominant corporations," Huffman explained. "In order to free our economy to start working for the people who are producing, processing and distributing our food."

The current Farm Bill, which officially expired last September, has been temporarily extended, although lawmakers have yet to agree on a new version of the major legislation.


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Some northeast Wisconsin residents are challenging a wastewater permit issued by the state to a large dairy operation.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reissued the wastewater permit to Pagel's Ponderosa Dairy in August. Petitioners are now requesting the State Division of Hearings and Appeals to review the terms for water monitoring and limits on the number of animals.

Adam Voskquil, attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates, said the DNR has the authority to protect communities.

"We've been pushing for a few years now to see them use that more often, and this is one of those instances where they didn't do enough," Voskquil contended.

A 2021 Supreme Court ruling allowed the DNR to include terms on groundwater monitoring and setting size limits on concentrated animal feeding operations. But with more than 330 of them across the state, Voskquil said the DNR has included the terms in only a handful of permits. A spokesperson for the agency said they cannot comment on ongoing litigation.

Pagel's Ponderosa Dairy owns about 20,000 animals between its two locations in Kewaunee County, and produces more than 100 million gallons of liquid manure it spreads across 10,000 acres of land. Voskquil argued the land is susceptible to contamination.

"Pagel's is kind of playing a shell game with transferring manure between their operations," Voskquil asserted. "There just needs to be some threshold, some limit, to the growth of this operation."

The DNR states concentrated animal feeding operations are required to spread manure on land set back from drinking water wells, sinkholes and fractured bedrock and cannot have any runoff to rivers and lakes, among other requirements.


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