how to utilize broadband to help the local economy thrive, this seems like the ideal sector to focus on. Generally, agribusiness and agriculture tend to be poor ways to expand an economy, however the room for potential growth in agribusiness within Morgan County is proven through the industry’s vast stake in the local economy. tools such as the location quotient and multipliers in regards to different industries allows us to make comparisons to similar regions for further depth. First, we compared the number of jobs in food and beverage manufacturing versus the total number of jobs in the county and then compared it to totals statewide. Morgan County’s food and beverage manufacturing location quotient tallies 19.965 (State Demography Website, Appendix III). For the location quotient to equal one, Morgan County must have roughly 138 jobs in the food and beverage manufacturing industry. This leaves the county with an excess of about 2,626 jobs in the industry--roughly 94.99% of the food and beverage manufacturing industry’s products are exported to different regions. In comparison to other counties across Colorado, it is evident that Morgan County exports substantially more in the agribusiness industry than any other county. Denver County, the Colorado county which holds more jobs than any other, yields a location quotient of 1.284 for agribusiness (State Demography Website). Eagle and Mesa Counties’ yield quotients that are both substantially below one, and thus import products from the food and beverage manufacturing industry. Unfortunately, some of the counties directly around Morgan County had their food and beverage manufacturing data suppressed, so the LQ’s for these counties could not be calculated. The food and beverage manufacturing location quotients for Yuma, Logan and Weld county were all available and had location quotients of 0.30, 0.59 and 5.99 respectively. These regions
Despite the fact that Morgan County already has a workforce that is well educated and specialized for the agri-manufacturing, a large portion of this workforce commutes out of the county. Although these commuters bring money back into the county, the coinciding brain drain of people from the county can damage the local economy. In 2014, Morgan County had roughly 5,700 commuters leaving the county daily, while only about 4,150 commuted from elsewhere to Morgan County (On The Map 2016). About 4,000 of these commuter’s head west toward the Front Range, where there is more reliable broadband (On the Map 2016). Within the county, 35% of jobs are held by citizens of different counties, and 42% of Morgan County’s citizens commute out of the county for work (Community Profiles 2016). If extended broadband services could be implemented into Morgan County, these commuters would stay in the county for work and begin their own businesses in Morgan County. While this would lead to less workers bringing dollars into the county from neighboring areas, these new businesses would create jobs within Morgan County. These jobs will supply more locals with work and encourage more workers to move to the county, thus leading to an increase in local revenue--and local spending. With broadband access, Morgan County will also draw in proprietors, location based neutral and location neutral employees from the more expensive Front Range, who would provide another boost in local spending and job growth. V. Conclusion