Monday, January 5, 2009

Giving credit where credit is due

I was fortunate to be one of four Alabamians joining Governor Bob Riley via video conference during an event at which he announced a vendor to lead the state's rural broadband access expansion effort. There's a nice news story about the event on the Alabama Farmers Federation's website.

My job was pretty simple...just talk about why farmers and the agricultural industry need broadband. I basically rehashed what I had typed in an earlier blog post, "Creeping down the information superhighway". I was also able to work in a mention that many of us involved in our state's number one industry could use broadband access to help spread the truth about agriculture, and how production and the stewardship of our environment and animals goes hand-in-hand.

If you read the online story linked above, you might notice I also mentioned that a person using dial-up could make and drink a cup of coffee before a website was even half loaded. That thought, I must confess, was not one of my own. Earlier this morning I had a telephone conversation with Jesse Hobbs, a good friend and row-crop farmer from Elkmont, Alabama. I asked him about his farm's internet connection and he shared the "coffee example" while expressing his dial-up frustrations. So here's to you Jesse...you gave me a good line and I'm giving credit where credit is due.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You deserve lots of credit for trying to help farmers get online. For those who can and see this -- we must join together for fair milk prices in these hard financial times! Please go to http://farmersforfairdairyprices.com and help our cause!