News

Rural broadband a priority for Farm Bureau in Missouri legislature

The Missouri Farm Bureau is asking the state legislature to continue to fund rural broadband in the state.

The Missouri Farm Bureau’s director of public affairs and advocacy, Eric Bohl, tells Brownfield Missouri is one of the worst states in rural broadband reach.

“Unfortunately, there are over a million people in rural Missouri that do not have broadband internet access and there’s only two other states that have more than a million people, and those are California and Texas,” Bohl said.

Bohl said the lack of broadband in rural areas hinders rural community’s economic development and makes them less attractive for younger people to return to the farm.

He said the state’s broadband grant should be made permanent to help.

“Hopefully, we’ll also be able to remove a sunset that was in that initial bill that set up the office [grant] so that, that office can move forward indefinitely,” Bohl said. “Because it’s going to be something we need for the indefinite future.”

The current grant program’s sunset date is August 28, 2021.

Bohl said rural broadband is critical to making farming more efficient and improving the quality of life for rural residents.

For internet service to be considered broadband, it must have speeds of at least 25 megabits per second download and three megabits per second upload.

Missouri’s legislative session kicked off Wednesday.

Eric Bohl Interview

Add Comment

Your email address will not be published.


 

Stay Up to Date

Subscribe for our newsletter today and receive relevant news straight to your inbox!