Wisconsin Farms Depend More and More on Reliable Internet Connection

Tuesday, September 12th, 2023 -- 8:01 AM

(By Hope Kirwan, Wisconsin Public Radio) Linda Ceylor said she has cell reception on her organic dairy farm in Price County. It just depends on where you're standing, according to Hope Kirwan with Wisconsin Public Radio.

"Sometimes I'll be having a conversation, even in my house where I have a booster, and if I move to the left or move to the right, somebody will say 'wait, you broke up,'" she said. "Then I've got to straighten up and try to get back into the position."

Ceylor said she uses the same cellular network for internet access on her computer. The connection is what she uses for everything from texting her cow breeder to searching Facebook Marketplace for a piece of equipment.

She frequently checks data about her milk quality that her processor posts online and stays up to date on proposed changes to organic certification requirements. Across the agriculture industry, online tools and cell phones have become an increasingly important part of how farms operate.

But a recent survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service found that only 83 percent of Wisconsin farms reported having internet access. That's one percentage point more than the same survey in 2021 and in 2019.

Two years ago, Wisconsin was in line with the national average for internet access. But the U.S. response surpassed the state this year, growing to 85 percent. John Shutske is a professor of biological systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied how the agriculture industry is adopting new technologies.

Shutske said he was surprised more farms weren't reporting internet access, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic forced children to learn from home and required everyone to start doing more things online.

"I do sort of feel for the people in the 17 percent (without access)," Shutske said. "Those tend to be older farmers. They may not be people who have kids at home, so this whole school child phenomenon may or may not have played a big role. But you know, there's so many things now in agriculture, where having a computer and having some form of Internet access is pretty important".

Ceylor said like any business, not having internet access when she needs it can not only be frustrating but also detrimental to her business. She said she needs the internet to be there whenever she goes to use it.

"All of that is totally essential, and it's essential at that moment," she said. "I may not be able to be sitting down and working things out at 7 p.m. but when I need to use it at 10 p.m., it really needs to be there, and it's very frustrating when it isn't. And I've had a lot of times like that."

Across the country, 75 percent of farms reported using cellular networks as a primary way to access the internet. In Wisconsin, only 65 percent of farms used cellular data. 56 percent of Wisconsin farms reported having broadband, slightly more than to the national level of 51 percent.

Three percent of Wisconsin farms reported that they still use dial-up internet, one percentage point higher than the national average. Some farms reported having multiple types of internet access.

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