FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr on Satellite-Powered Precision Farming
How important are precision agriculture and global food and water supply monitoring applications to our future? Via Satellite’s On Orbit podcast takes a look at the numbers: The world’s population will go from 7.5 billion to 9 billion people in 30 years. Because of this, American farmers alone will be tasked to increase food production by 80 percent to 100 percent over a very short period of time, and for purposes of sustainability, they have to use less seed, less land, and less water. The only way farmers will be able to meet those expectations is through technology – space-based technologies, such as GPS, Imagery and Sensing, alongside high-speed connectivity, which is stunningly absent, even in the United States. It’s a monumental issue – perhaps the most important of our generation — and to discuss this issue, we’re honored to host U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr, GPS Innovation Alliance (GPSIA) Executive Director David Grossman, and Jeff Jorgenson, director of the Iowa Soybean Association and owner and operator of one of Iowa’s largest soybean farms. The episode begins with an introduction by On Orbit host Jeffrey Hill and GPSIA Executive Director David Grossman about the connectivity resources needed to power precision agriculture businesses. We then sit down with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to talk about the FCC’s new Precision Agriculture task force, and how high-speed connectivity can help American farmers increase the efficiency of their day-to-day work, plan for the future, and most importantly, improve the sustainability of their businesses. The episode concludes with an interview with Iowa Soybean Association’s Jeff Jorgenson, who tells us how farmers are learning about new precision agriculture technologies and how the farming community is interacting with technology providers — a conversation that includes a stunning revelation about the amount of interactivity with the satellite industry.