|
How To Build A Better Rural America? Start With Vision And Infrastructure
SARA WYANT
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Whether you are talking about roadways, broadband, rural hospitals or waterways, a diverse group of stakeholders are on the lookout for infrastructure enhancements that can keep American agriculture competitive and rural America more attractive for the next generation.
Those were some of the key messages from the first ever Rural Infrastructure Summit, hosted by Agri-Pulse in Ames, Iowa recently and sponsored by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM). A range of experts linked to rural finance, electronic engineering, communications, transportation, agricultural production and more offered their ideas on the challenges ahead for rural infrastructure, advancements on the horizon and ideas for improvement.
This is an important conversation,” said Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, who kicked off the summit. “We don’t want to miss our turn to invest competitively in our infrastructure.”
Why? Part of it comes down to simple math. Northey said his state produces more corn than most countries and seven pigs for each person. Iowa has two new pork processing plants, 42 ethanol plants and a dozen biodiesel plants, “these are all infrastructure pieces that allow agriculture to be successful,” said Northey.
“We’ve got more corn and soybeans than we have markets for right now, so we’ve got to keep moving it,” he said.
But trying to move large volumes of commodities and goods through our current surface transportation system is not easy or inexpensive.
“Rural infrastructure is woefully inadequate in a lot of areas, and the roads and bridges need substantial improvement in our area,” noted Bert Farrish, CEO of Big River Rice and Grain. He’s part of Agspring, a holding company which owns 11 facilities in rural Louisiana and Arkansas and is financed by private equity.
“Our corporate motto is that we are feeding a changing world and part of our corporate mission is to bring technology and efficiency down to the farm,” Farrish emphasized.
“But just think about improving yields 70 percent to feed the world, think of how much more traffic will going down little two-lane roads that are already moving hundreds of millions of dollars of product all year long,” Farrish said. “It’s going to take a revolution in policy and thinking about infrastructure if we are going to be part of the global game.”
Bob Fox, Vice Chair, Ag & Rural Affairs Steering Committee for the National Association of Counties and a County Commissioner in Renville, County, Minn., said road repair and rebuilding costs are quickly rising while rural counties like his, with a current population of about 15,000, have witnessed declines in population and a similar decline in the tax base needed to support infrastructure projects.
“A few years ago, we could totally rebuild one mile of road for less than $300,000,” he told participants attending the Summit. “Last year, we finished four miles of rebuilt road at a cost just shy of $1 million per mile.
“When federal and state partners push the can down the road and do not provide adequate funding, the more damage our infrastructure sustains, the more expensive projects become and some rural counties just can’t afford it,” Fox explained.
Quality of life infrastructure
Of course, infrastructure is a much broader concept than transportation, and it takes in all of a country's essential operating systems that can move and connect rural America to places around the globe. Newcomers include the Internet and Big Data, which will more and more become part of the essential infrastructure of farm operations.
Infrastructure also includes gas, water, sewer, energy transmission lines, day care centers, hospitals, and a host of other interrelated assets that Amanda De Jong recently described as “quality of life infrastructure.”
“We want our rural communities to be strong, we want them to grow and we want people to want to live in rural areas,” De Jong, a senior policy advisor with the Iowa Corn Growers Association told attendees at the Rural Infrastructure Summit. So in addition to good roads, rails and waterways, “My husband needs good, reliable broadband because he works from home. I need good daycare for our children and I need good schools.”
Andrew Jacob, CoBank’s chief regulatory and compliance officer, who also spoke at the Summit, agreed.
“We look at not only the movement of commodities but supporting the communities where people live, work and play,” Jacob said about CoBank, national cooperative bank serving industries across rural America and a member of the Farm Credit System. “We look at rural infrastructure in a broad sense and we look for business partners that can help serve these very complex needs. At the end of the day, we look at ways to really make rural communities vibrant.”
Doug Boone, President, the Rural Broadband Association and CEO of Premier Communications in Sioux Center, Iowa discussed the investments his company has made to enhance connectivity to schools, hospitals and numerous health care clinics in northwest Iowa.
“Over last 10 years, we have invested over $100 million dollars, primarily in fiber optics and electronics, and increased our staff from 25 to 75,” Boone said. Yet, when you hear statistics like 14.1 million people who don’t have access to broadband - primarily in rural areas- it just highlights how far we need to go yet.”
New high tech tools
Speakers offered their outlooks on increasing operating autonomy for both machinery in the field and vehicles on the highways.
Kevin Kimle, director of ISU’s Agricultural Entrepreneurship Initiative, says motorized grain cars operating autonomously are on the way, and, in fact, some grain cars “will be operating without drivers” in some fields, collecting this fall’s harvest.
Darryl Matthews, senior vice president of Trimble, in charge of agriculture, forestry and positioning services, says 80 percent of Iowa’s tractors of greater than 100 horsepower are already “steered by satellite (GPS systems).” But as autonomous control systems are perfected, he said, they will be accepted on highways, where vehicles will be driven both closer together and more safely. That means increasing the capacity of the roads for more vehicles, he said, and building roads with the latest technology and smart connectivity.
“I suspect the cost of a road in the future is going to go up, but I suspect we will be building fewer of them and putting higher capacity on them,” he said.
Advances in another slice of U.S. manufacturing technology, 3-D printing, will improve the farm and rural businesses infrastructure, Mathews said, because the printers will build parts for farm machinery and equipment locally and quickly at low cost. Already, 3-D printers are making parts at rural locations, he says. “What they can do is download the specs on how to produce the part and the farmer or rural client comes and picks that part up.” That also reduces a need for delivery vehicles on highways. Plus, he says, “Amazon is testing delivery of orders by drone today.” ∆
Editor’s note: Agri-Pulse Contributing Editor Ed Maixner contributed to this report.
SARA WYANT: Editor of Agri-Pulse, a weekly e-newsletter covering farm and rural policy. To contact her, go to: http://www.agri-pulse.com/
|
|