Rural areas feel migration pressures the most, says FAO leader
With migration at a high level worldwide, rural areas feel the greatest burden related to forced displacement, whether in loss of population or influx of newcomers, said the head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Monday. Food security, along with climate change and armed conflict, is a main driver of human migration.
After years of decline, rural population shows modest growth
For the first time in six years, rural America is gaining population rather than losing it, although the increase was a slender 0.1 percent, or 33,000 people, said the annual USDA report Rural America at a Glance.
Most ‘hard-to-count’ counties in U.S. census are in rural areas
The bulk of “hard-to-count” counties for the upcoming 2020 census — 251 out of the total of 316 counties that qualify — are in rural America, according to a briefing paper from the Carsey School of Public Policy in New Hampshire.
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.
As farms get bigger, must small towns get smaller?
Since the Great Depression, there have been fewer and fewer U.S. farms, thanks to mechanization, hybrid crops and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides that have boosted productivity and allowed each farmer to cover more acres. A side effect, says Harvest Public Media, is the draining of the rural population and the drop in demand for services of all sorts - schools, health care, food or equipment - in the small towns across the countryside.
Rural population drops for fifth year in a row, a record
The recession of 2008–09 “continues to reverberate in rural America and is the most likely cause of a slight decline in population from 2005–16,” says the Daily Yonder. It was a record fifth consecutive year of decline.