Cattlemen's association calls on municipalities to improve rural internet access

John Solecki has been a cattle rancherfor more than 20 years. But because of poor internet availability in his rural location of Southside about 30 kilometres south of Burns Lake, B.C. he has trouble keeping up with the technology needed to help his business grow.

It's because of stories like Solecki's that the B.C. Cattlemen's Association has sent letters to 96 municipalities across the province asking them to improve internet access for rural communities, by applying for grants from theCRTC Broadband Fund.

The letter notes that the topography of rural areas used by cattle farmers limits signal quality, so even if ranchers have paid the relatively high fees for satellite internet, they're unable to use it efficiently.

Additionally, the association says,the province is moving toward a paperless, digital system, and without internet access, ranchers can't do their jobs.

"Technology is changing and government regulations require us to fill out a lot of their forms online," Solecki told Daybreak North host Carolina de Ryk. "We need that high speed internet in order to comply with regulation and stay up to date with whatever information that we need to get."

Better internet access would not only allow farmers to get forms filed, but it would also give them more opportunities to work on their businesses they could buy and sell cattle online, track cattle on range, and monitor soil moisture.

"We're all in the business. It's competitive and we need to keep our costs as low as possible and produce a good product and that requires whatever tools that are available, and this is a tool that we need."

As it stands, Soleckican't even watch instructional videos on the B.C. Cattlemen's Associationwebsite because of poor internet services.

Instead, hetravels one hour each way to Burns Lake to use his son's internet when he needs to submit regulatory forms. For other ranchers in his community, the journey can be much longer, andthe farther people live fromareas with good internet access, the worse the signal can be, he added.

"I'd love to have [high-speed internet]tomorrow," Solecki said."The sooner the better, and I'm sure that's true for every every other rancher out here."