{"id":2584,"date":"2024-08-16T14:04:22","date_gmt":"2024-08-16T18:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.cals.ncsu.edu\/?p=2584"},"modified":"2024-08-16T16:31:43","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T20:31:43","slug":"agricultural-technology-future-proof-farming-starts-with-fiber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.cals.ncsu.edu\/agricultural-technology-future-proof-farming-starts-with-fiber\/","title":{"rendered":"Future-proof Farming Starts with Fiber"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

‘Twas a week before Christmas, when all across the state, not a creature was stirring \u2026 except the CALS Research Computing Team at NC State University. Armed with tractors, excavators and spools of fiber optic cable, Jevon Smith, Brendan Riddle and Trevor Quick spent a chilly weekend in December of 2023 building fiber optic pathways to bring high-speed internet to the Horticultural Crops Research Station in Castle Hayne, North Carolina.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A trench that the CALS Research Computing Team helped dig in order to lay fiber optic cables underground. Photo credit: Trevor Quick.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cThe technology we\u2019re installing isn\u2019t commonly found on farms, it is much more likely to be seen in a Google data center,\u201d Smith says. \u201cOur work has novel applications in many ways \u2014 it\u2019s very experimental for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal of the Research Computing Team: lay critical tech infrastructure necessary to future-proof farming in North Carolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Look Back on Moving Forward<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Had Smith, Riddle and Quick stopped to contemplate how they came to be installing fiber at a research farm on a weekend before Christmas, they may have had to think back to the 1800s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n