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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Sunday, October 20, 2024
USDA has directed crop insurance companies to expedite loss adjustments necessary to make payments to producers impacted by Hurricane Helene, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Friday.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is working its way through state-level proposals that seek grants from a $42.45 billion program aimed at building out broadband networks in underserved areas.
The Federal Communications Commission is upping its benchmark for high-speed fixed broadband to download speeds of 100 megabits per second and upload speeds of 20 megabits per second, the first major change the standard has seen since 2015.
Lawmakers want to use the farm bill to make the Agriculture Department's ReConnect loan and grant program for rural broadband permanent, but they still need to settle a debate about whether to ease the required service speeds.
The top Republican on the Senate Ag Committee, John Boozman, says he doesn’t know whether the extra money Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow has identified for the next farm bill will be enough to bolster commodity programs and crop insurance.
Groups and lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle are scrambling to save a popular broadband affordability program before it runs out of funding.
USDA is distributing almost $714 million for broadband connectivity projects through the fourth round of the ReConnect Program, an announcement that will direct loan and grant funding to 33 projects across the country.
State broadband offices and researchers say new maps from the Federal Communications Commission that will be used to allocate billions of dollars in funding have failed to catch large swaths of the population without adequate internet speeds.