Rural Internet for the Unconnected Farmer
June 14th, 2021 | Rural Broadband by Gravity
In 2020, 50% of dairy farmers surveyed in the Dairy NZ ‘View from the Cow Shed’ survey still didn’t have access to broadband. 50%! For 50% of dairy farmers, the simple act of ordering online is anything but simple. Can you get broadband in your cow shed?
The amount of time saving online farm tech currently offers can only be accessed by half the people that need it. Farm tech is designed to make your life on the farm easier. It is supposed to free up your time so you can focus on the land. However, if you are part of the great unconnected masses, farming apps or other online activities are useless to you. It’s like opening your toys on Christmas morning, but no one gave you any batteries.
Rural NZ has been let down by rural broadband initiatives and there are too many farmers still left in the dark. If you are asking ‘can I get broadband on my farm?’, then keep reading.
New Zealand Farmers Want Broadband Access
Farm life is busy. If you are streaming, you are probably riparian planting, not watching Netflix. Download speeds are more to do with how fast the farm hand takes to unload a trailer of hay bales and Ping is the old set of golf clubs you have but never get the time to use. Because you are busy.
In the past twenty or thirty years, what is done on a farm hasn’t changed all that much, but the way farming is done is definitely changing –and it’s changing fast.
Greg runs a 350 herd dairy farm on the edge of Waikato. Getting access to an internet connection in the cowshed office enables him to keep livestock records updated digitally through his laptop.
Rural Internet Boost Farm Productivity
If you were online, all the time, there’s no stopping how productive you could be. When you are in the cow shed, the top paddock, or mustering those steers that haven’t seen yards for over a year…can you get online to check what the stock numbers should be? Or are you just guessing? Of course, you can write that kind of information down, but you’d have to wait till you got back to the house to update anything. Self-updating paper hasn’t been invented yet and it must be nice to have a farm without any mud, right? Yeah, right.
Having access to the internet won’t solve all your farming needs but it sure will help you out. One trip to Fieldays and you will be exposed to countless agritech companies. At the time of writing there are over 100 in New Zealand alone and that number is growing every day. Don’t believe us? Just take a walk around the Fieldays ‘Pavilion’ and you will have collected enough brochures to start the fire every night for the whole winter.
If you are online on the farm, you can get real time information to solve real time problems. Think about the benefits of being able to connect to broadband in the cow shed, or those other remote spots on your farm.
With a broadband connection setup in his cowshed, Greg is able to get internet access on his smartphone which enables him to use farming and productivity apps.
That’s Great, But I Can’t Get Internet Where I am
But if you can’t get connected, because you’re part of the 50% or so of the backbone of New Zealand that live nowhere near phone lines or a junction box or a cell tower, then none of this is going to matter. Right?
No, its actually good news for you because you found Gravity Satellite Broadband. It’s good news, because you don’t need any wires. It’s good news, because you don’t need to see a cell phone tower and you don’t need to worry about missing out on anything because you actually can get connected to decent internet and get connected today. See, good news.
Connecting the Unconnected Farmer
Farmers need a broadband connection in this day and age and Gravity Unlimited Satellite Broadband unlocks connected technology, farming productivity and profitability. Thankfully, there is Satellite technology, which can get beamed anywhere. Even your cowshed, workshop, that old barn down the bottom of the farm – yes, down there too.
Satellite is different to 4G and Wireless Broadband. You don’t need to be near a tower. It connects to space! This unlocks the ability to use an internet connected computer/laptop, or even wirelessly connect your smartphone and access real time data via the countless agritech apps out there.
Gravity will connect you, no matter how long the gravel road is to access your property. Even if the postie only makes it to your farm once a week, with a Gravity Satellite connection you will be connected 24/7. Take a gander at some of our plans and start thinking about what you could be doing online.