rural America
Urban–rural polarization grows in Virginia election
Rural Virginia has trended Republican in the past two decades, and the statewide election this week underlined its political divergence from the state’s metropolitan areas, said the Daily Yonder.
Rural population growth fueled by foreign-born residents
The population of rural America grew just one-tenth of the national total of 3.1 percent from 2010 to 2015, and foreign-born residents accounted for three-fourths of the rural gain, says the Daily Yonder.
Rural America has 770,000 fewer jobs than a decade ago
In rural America, “two-thirds of counties had fewer jobs in October than in 2007,” says the Daily Yonder after examining data from the U.S. Labor Department.
Will rural Virginia decide the governor’s election today?
A year ago, rural America voted two-to-one to put Donald Trump in the White House. Rural Virginians are certain to vote heavily for Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie in today’s election, and “the margin ... may affect the statewide result,” says the Daily Yonder.
More farmers expect bad times in the year ahead
The Ag Economy Barometer dropped to its second-lowest reading of 2017, pulled down by pessimism about conditions in the coming year, says Purdue University.
Opioid crisis hits agriculture harder than rest of rural America
Three out of four farmers and farmworkers say they have been affected directly by opioid abuse, according to a survey commissioned by the two largest U.S. farm groups.
Farm income stabilizes after steep decline that began in 2013
U.S. farm income will tick upward this year, a sign of stability three years after the collapse of the commodity boom pushed income into a nosedive. Still, even with this year’s upturns, income will be a fraction of 2013’s peak, said the USDA.
USDA kicks off twice-a-decade Census of Agriculture
The USDA will begin mailing questionnaires for the 2017 Census of Agriculture to producers this week, the first step in a survey conducted every five years to create what is the most complete USDA picture of the farm and ranch sector.
Drug-abuse deaths contribute to shrinking rural population
Rural mortality rates are up, spurred by drug abuse, and it's dragging down the rural population and draining rural America of its workforce, according to a USDA report that listed grim conditions in a portion of the country perennially coping with lower wages and higher poverty rates than in cities. "Long-term population loss continued in counties dependent on agriculture, in the Great Plains, Midwest and southern Coastal Plains," said the annual "Rural America at a Glance."
Action on farm runoff is needed to protect quality of rural tap water, says EWG
"Simple and familiar conservation practices, if applied in the right places," are key to reducing worrisome levels of nitrates and other types of farm runoff in the drinking water of rural communities, says the Environmental Working Group. In a report, "Trouble in farm country," the green group said stewardship of all working land should be a requirement for growers who want farm and crop insurance subsidies.
Rural areas may need partners for infrastructure improvements
The think tank Bipartisan Policy Center says public–private partnerships are a viable way for rural communities to pursue infrastructure projects but that this approach may require strategies such as bundling projects into a package that is attractive to investors. “While robust public funding is essential to meeting these urgent needs, rural areas, like their urban counterparts, should be empowered to tap into the financial and technical expertise of the private sector to help deliver infrastructure projects more quickly and at less cost,” says the center.
Shorthanded USDA lax on enforcing law on farmland ownership by foreigners
Since 1978, foreign entities and individuals have been required to report it to the USDA if they have at least a 10 percent interest in parcels of U.S. farmland totaling 10 acres or more. Yet the USDA does not review the reports for accuracy or completeness and, for lack of resources, does not even investigate if foreign investors are filing the required reports, says the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.
Rural Americans use seat belts less, have higher death rate
In Trump era, colleges intensify student recruitment in rural areas
Following Donald Trump's election as president, "a sizable share of college admission directors say they have intensified efforts to recruit in rural areas and find more white students from low-income families," says the Washington Post, based on a survey by Inside Higher Ed. "His campaign capitalized on heavy support from rural America and from white voters without college degrees — sectors of the population many colleges historically have struggled to reach."
Perdue announces new steps in USDA reorganization
Building on a controversial USDA reorganization rolled out in May, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced further steps to realign “a number of offices within the U.S. Department of Agriculture in order to improve customer service and maximize efficiency.”
Documenting the struggles on a Nebraska family farm
In FERN’s latest story, produced in collaboration with Harper’s Magazine, Ted Genoways documents the struggles of a fifth-generation Nebraska farm. The article, “Bringing Home the Beans,” details the everyday difficulties that a farm family faces as it tries to harvest its crop, deal with a generational transition, and not lose money in the fluctuating commodity markets.
GAO says ‘significant savings’ possible in crop insurance costs
The government could pare as much as $464 million annually from the cost of running the taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance system if it set more stringent terms with insurers, said a congressional watchdog agency. The recommendations hit different areas than the White House has targeted, or that lawmakers are expected to pursue in writing the 2018 farm bill.
Study: Rural America helps poor kids earn more money later in life
Poor children growing up in three out of four rural counties — especially in the Great Plains — are more likely to earn more than the national average by the age of 26 than their counterparts in cities, says a national study by Stanford economist Raj Chetty. Just 29 percent of kids in densely populated urban centers earn more than the national average as adults.