Lentils and LightSquared

A whole mess of agricultural organizations including the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council, National Potato Council, National Sunflower Association, U.S. Canola Association, USA Rice Federation and American Soybean Association urged the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday to require more testing before start-up wireless broadband company LightSquared is allowed to deploy a network of 40,000 cell towers that could knock out GPS signals.

All these folks want the FCC and the rest of us to know that in the agricultural sector, GPS-based technologies are responsible for an estimated $19 billion in annual farm revenue, including crops of my favorite legume, the lentil.

None of us want to see the price of lentils soar due to bum GPS signals, so I guess LightSquared will need to conduct more tests.