Farmers eye broadband in stimulus package

With the nation in the grip of the Great Depression, then-President Franklin Roosevelt used rural electrification as part of his New Deal relief package — gambling that supplying isolated farmsteads with inexpensive power would modernize agriculture, create jobs and stimulate the rural economy. Decades later, President Barack Obama is placing the same bet by setting aside billions in the stimulus package for rural broadband Internet access — a move farming advocates say will help farmers work more efficiently, manage their operations and connect growers who work on land many miles from the nearest town. "There are people in Kansas who are alive today who can remember what it was like when rural electrification came to their home," said Mike Matson, spokesman for the Kansas Farm Bureau. "It was a game changer in terms of the way they lived their life and the way they operated their farm. ... The broadband component has that same potential to have that same level of change."