Crouch dons ag hat to talk about connection

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Suzanne Crouch, the lieutenant governor and Indiana secretary of agriculture and rural development, first wanted to make it clear she wasn’t sending any kind of signal.

“As a Boilermaker, I want to apologize for the red. Boiler up!” she joked about her bright red dress, to laughter and cheers from the audience at Randy Kron’s farm on the second day of the 2021 Purdue Farm Management Tour.

But Crouch, whom Kron introduced as “a friend of agriculture, a friend of rural communities,” wanted to talk to the farmers and rural residents gathered in Kron’s machine shed in this southwest corner of the state about a different kind of signal — rural broadband.

“Expanding broadband is so important to Indiana,” Crouch said.

Crouch even brought the effort to identify what areas of the state lack connectivity, with her, in the form of a whiteboard with a website, www.indianabroadbandmap, written in big letters.

“One of the agencies I oversee is the Office of Community and Rural Affairs. That office has put together a program where you can check the speed of your internet — if you have internet. You can go online from any computer anywhere, enter your address and see if you have adequate speed. Then my office will be able to access that information and we’ll be able to look at those pockets throughout Indiana where the speed is not adequate and be able to go in and help increase the speed,” Crouch said.

Crouch said the effort to expand broadband throughout the state started as a result of a 2018 Purdue University study that found over 400,000 residents were in “internet darkness.”

“If we could connect them all, over the next 20 years, that would result in an additional $12 billion to our state’s economy. At that time, we invested $100 million to expand broadband around Indiana,” Crouch said.

She added that in the most recent budget session, the Indiana General Assembly appropriated another $250 million to continue the effort to expand broadband access across the state.

Crouch said that for farmers and rural businesses, adding broadband access provides opportunities.

“You can increase your yields, you can increase the technology you have on your farms and we can end up doing more, in terms of feeding Hoosiers, feeding the nation and feeding the world,” she said.

In her introduction, Crouch touted the current productivity of Indiana’s agriculture sector.

“Agriculture is big business in Indiana, as you all know. It contributes over $31 billion to our state’s economy and we are the 10th largest farming state. We rank in the top five in so many areas. Being able to bring agriculture together, to look at new and innovative ways to be able to produce crops and to feed not just Hoosiers, but the country and the world, is how we continue to move forward,” Crouch said.