rural America
Opinion: If Biden wants farmers to join his climate fight, he needs a better sales pitch
The president is betting the political farm that American farmers and ranchers are ready to help solve this global crisis. Now Biden and his team have to sell their strategy to farm country, and that will require that they abandon the feckless messaging that Democrats have used for too long, and develop a sales pitch that is more empowering than the GOP’s.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Covid-19 rates in meatpacking counties now mirror other rural counties
Rural counties dominated by meatpacking plants endured their second surge in coronavirus cases during this winter but the latest wave "does not appear to be driven by new outbreaks in the meatpacking industry," said the USDA. "Meatpacking-dependent counties have maintained an almost identical pattern to other rural counties for the last seven months."
Rural prosperity official becomes White House ag adviser
Kelliann Blazek, a former congressional staffer who was the first director of Wisconsin's Office of Rural Prosperity, will serve as the agriculture and rural policy adviser to President Biden, announced the White House.
Covid cases in meatpacking counties were 10 times those in other rural counties
During the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, rural meatpacking counties had infection rates 10 times higher than rates in other rural counties, said the USDA on Thursday. And despite improvements, the Covid-19 rate in the 49 U.S. counties that rely on meat plants for jobs remains somewhat higher than in the rest of rural America as the disease surges again.
Biden: Fast on broadband, slow on China
President-elect Joe Biden supports greater broadband access and more funding for rural healthcare, and says he will not immediately remove President Trump's tariffs on Chinese products, according to a column in the New York Times on Wednesday.
Once again, rural America votes for Trump
Rural America was key to Donald Trump's election in 2016 and rural voters backed him again this year, although by how much is unclear. While one exit poll reported that 54 percent of small city or rural residents voted for Trump, the Daily Yonder said the president's performance in Ohio, a battleground state, "looks a lot like 2016," when he rolled up huge margins in rural counties.
Trump runs in rural America on ethanol, tax cuts, regulatory relief
President Trump is ending his re-election campaign in rural America on the same issues that boosted him in 2016: Promises of tax cuts, fewer federal regulations and support for corn ethanol. In addition, farmers are wealthy from $23 billion in trade-war payments, said Trump in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday; "That's why you're all here and you're all happy."
Rural Covid rate exceeds rural share of U.S. population
Rural communities are bearing the brunt of new Covid-19 cases nationwide with the pandemic in its seventh month, said a report from the Center for American Progress on Wednesday. "Since the beginning of August, the rural share of new cases has exceeded the rural share of the U.S. population."
Coronavirus’ rural impact: Financial and medical trouble
More than four of every 10 rural households reported financial setbacks ranging from a shorter workweek to losing a business because of the coronavirus, said a poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health on Wednesday. The survey, conducted from July 1-Aug. 3, also found that a quarter of rural households were unable to get medical care for a serious problem when they needed it due to the pandemic.
Survey shows a drop in farmer support for Trump
Farmers, in overwhelming numbers, said they would vote to re-elect President Trump this fall, but the landslide margin was smaller than in April, according to a telephone survey by DTN/Progressive Farmer.
Pandemic pummels farm income in Midwest and Plains, say ag lenders
The government's coronavirus relief programs are an important shield for farmers and ranchers battling a sharp drop in income in the central Plains, ag lenders said in a Kansas City Fed survey released on Thursday. A similar survey of ag bankers in the Midwest by the Chicago Fed "revealed the broad financial distress from the Covid-19 pandemic in rural areas."
Rural advantages in coronavirus recovery
The coronavirus "dealt an economically devastating hand to nearly the whole country," but job losses were smaller and shutdowns were shorter in rural America, said rural lender CoBank in a quarterly report. "Economic recovery may now favor rural communities for the first time in many years."<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
For rural grocery stores, the pandemic is personal
Grocery delivery is nothing new, and it certainly has become much more common since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. But for stores like Michigan Hometown Foods, which is the lone grocery in a town of 275 people, the process looks a lot different than it does in a larger city, as Stephanie Parker reports in FERN latest story.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
More coronavirus tests, broadband needed in rural America, say Senate Democrats
Covid-19 cases have been reported in more than two-thirds of rural counties, said a report by Senate Democrats, who called for nationwide rapid-response testing for the coronavirus and for expansion of high-speed internet to maintain commerce and healthcare in rural areas. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
How much for ag relief? Trump says $16 billion.
The federal government could provide 40 percent of U.S. farm income this year, according to one analysis of the coronavirus relief funds. President Trump said at least $16 billion will be available "very quickly" for the farm sector.<strong>(No paywall)</strong
Rural jobs wiped out by coronavirus, says survey
Fifteen percent of rural Americans surveyed in the past week said they had either lost their job or were laid off because of the coronavirus pandemic, and an additional 14 percent said they were worried they would lose their jobs, according to the results of a survey released on Thursday. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
House Ag chair Peterson, a GOP target, runs for re-election
Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, a conservative Democrat in a Republican-leaning district, announced he would seek re-election in November, saying he was worried rural America is being left behind. President Trump has endorsed a Republican challenger against Peterson, who chairs the House Agriculture Committee, in a contest that is regarded as a toss-up.
Number of U.S. farms down 3 percent in five years
The USDA estimates there were 2.023 million farms in the nation in 2019, a tiny decline of 5,800 farms from the previous year. The change is more dramatic when the time frame is widened — there are 3 percent fewer farms now than there were in 2014, and the amount of farmland fell 1.3 percent during that five-year period.