Farmers, especially big operators, may be slightly more wired into the internet than rural Americans overall, and the urban-rural digital divide is narrowing, says a USDA report that provides a comparison with other measurements of the United States online. Based on a biennial survey of farmers, the USDA said 71 percent of U.S. farms have internet access.
By comparison, 63 percent of rural Americans said they had broadband at home in a Pew Research Center survey in fall 2016, 10 percentage points behind the 73 percent nationwide. The 10-point gap is smaller than the 16 points recorded in 2007, when 35 percent of rural Americans had broadband vs. 51 percent of all U.S. adults. The Pew figure for broadband access nationwide, 73 percent, was similar to a Commerce Department estimate that 75 percent of Americans used the internet in July 2015.
Producers with the largest volume of sales led the way in owning computers, having internet access and using their computers as a business tool, said the USDA report. Some 85 percent of operations with more than $250,000 in sales — the largest sales class in the report — have a computer and 75 percent use it for business. Sixty-three percent of the largest operators said they use their smartphone or tablets for business as well. By comparison, one-third to one-half of smaller operators used their computers for business, and 40 percent or fewer use a smartphone or tablet for business.
The West had the highest rate of business usage by large operators, at 86 percent. For the country overall, 47 percent of farmers said they used their computers for business. Rates were fairly similar in most regions, except the South, where it was 42 percent.
This year’s report was the first time that the USDA asked about the use of mobile internet service; 17 percent of respondents said they used the technology for their cellphone or other device. The most common modes of connecting to the internet were DSL (29 percent) and satellite (21 percent). Cable modem access was used by 15 percent of farms.
Rural Americans are increasingly likely to own smartphones and tablet computers, but in smaller proportions than suburban or city residents, according to Pew. “Rural adults also are less likely to own multiple devices that allow them to go online … Rural residents also go online less frequently than their urban and suburban counterparts.” Roughly one-fifth of rural Americans say they never go online, compared to about one-tenth of people in town, said Pew.
“Even though rural areas are more wired today than in the past, substantial segments of rural America still lack the infrastructure to needed for high-speed internet, and what access these areas do have tends to be slower than that of non-rural areas,” said Pew.