Broadband aid - The $2 billion-plus effort to close Virginia’s digital divide

"A couple of Holstein cows poke their heads through the metal gates of the barn as Mark Sowers fiddles with one of his most important pieces of farm equipment — a smartphone.

Sowers opens an app on his phone that gives him real-time information from the nearly 300 milking cows that roam Huckleberry Dairy, the 700-acre family farm in Floyd County he co-owns with his brother Curtis. The monitoring system, made by Israeli dairy tech company Afimilk, connects wirelessly to sensors strapped to each cow’s leg and relays information such as the number of steps a cow has taken, the animal’s body temperature and other health facts that help Sowers know when a cow might be ready to breed or give birth.

“It’s a Fitbit for cows,” Sowers says."

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