BEAD Non-Deployment Funds Could Fund Precision Ag. States Are Still Waiting to Find Out

ORLANDO, May 18, 2026 — Eighty-six percent of American farms are family-owned and generate less than $350,000 a year in revenue, making the managed services and information technology infrastructure that precision agriculture requires economically out of reach for most of the farms that grow the country's food supply.

Fiber operators and agricultural technology advocates gathered here Monday argued that closing that gap requires not just connectivity but a subsidized service model, a federal funding framework, and an education pipeline that does not yet exist at scale.