What's happening with the Center for Rural Affairs? Find the latest on rural America and our work here.
At the Center for Rural Affairs, we often talk about the financial consequences of Medicaid expansion from the perspective of the greater community. We focus on savings to hospitals, businesses, and state and local budgets. But how does it affect the bank account of those paying the bills?
- Policy
Sitting in the office of his auto body shop, Max Wilson brings up satellite photographs of his land on Google Earth. Clicking through a decade of images, a dramatic change unfolds. “We’re getting back...
- Farm and Food
Wind energy has grown a lot over the last few years. Energy produced from wind farms has become competitive with fossil fuels, and development of new wind projects continues across the country.
- Policy
The Nebraska legislature voted in February to end the state’s ban on packer ownership of hogs. Long-time readers will remember that legal challenges led the courts to strike down Nebraska’s broader...
- Farm and Food
On March 8, the Center for Rural Affairs released a Rural Policy Brief examining the basic economic and income issues for all Nebraskans connected to expanding Medicaid.
- Policy
A day doesn’t go by when I don’t read an article or hear from some expert on the news about the importance of “making yourself a priority” and “taking care of you.” I imagine the people who come up with this stuff live a very different lifestyle than myself and others residing on a farm or ranch and in rural America.
- Farm and Food
The Beel brothers are third-generation stewards of their family ranch located on the Brown and Cherry County line in the Nebraska Sandhills. Started in 1937 by Henry O. Beel, ranch records reveal...
- Farm and Food
Rural hospitals have been closing at a rate of nearly 1 per month since 2010. The Southeast has been especially hard hit, as the map below shows. A rural hospital closure can leave a permanent gap in...
- Policy
On March 11, 2016, the Center for Rural Affairs will host Map of my Kingdom, a play commissioned by Practical Farmers of Iowa and written by Iowa’s Poet Laureate Mary Swander. The event is coming to Central Community College in Columbus, Nebraska. Admittance is free.
- Farm and Food
Over the past decade, high commodities prices have encouraged and accelerated the conversion of our native grasslands to cultivated cropland. According to the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA), between 2011 and 2012, nearly 400,000 acres of grassland and other non-cropland across the United States were plowed up or otherwise converted to cropland.
- Farm and Food
Every year we recognize entrepreneurs and individuals who have worked with us to strengthen small towns and rural communities through small, self-employed business development. This year the awards will be given on March 11, 2016, at our annual awards banquet.
- Lending
On Tuesday, February 9 the President released his budget, which includes $25.5 billion in discretionary funding for the US Department of Agriculture for the next fiscal year. The release of the budget serves as a guide to the Congressional Appropriations process, signaling where the administration would like to focus discretionary funding.
- Farm and Food
March marks the six year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act being signed into law. The uninsured rate is now at 11.9%, the lowest ever recorded. Approximately 17 million more Americans have health insurance today than before the law was passed. Hospitals across the nation have saved tens of billions of dollars on uncompensated care.
- Policy
Leaders are the life-blood of small towns and rural communities. The success or failure of community development efforts often rests with the degree of leadership local citizens are willing to provide.
- Small Towns
USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) announced this year’s deadline for producer applications for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) is March 31.
- Farm and Food
Who grows our nation’s food and how they grow it continues to gain new national prominence. Now more than ever, there is a national interest in building an agricultural system that benefits family farms and rural communities, and a system that is not controlled by large, corporate interests.
- Farm and Food
On Feb. 10, 2016, debate began in the Nebraska Unicameral over LB 1032, the Transitional Health Insurance Program. The Health and Human Services Committee conducted a hearing and took public testimony on the bill.
- Policy
On Feb 5, 2016, the Nebraska Unicameral voted for final passage of LB 176, legislation to rescind Nebraska’s statute prohibiting meatpacking corporations from owning hogs prior to slaughter. The bill will now be sent to the governor for his consideration.
- Farm and Food
As Nebraska lawmakers debate the state’s ban on meatpacker ownership of hogs, opponents of the law are raising a new argument about the constitutionality of the ban. We believe the present law is...
- Farm and Food
Last week, a bipartisan group of state senators – Sen. John McCollister, Sen. Kathy Campbell, and Sen. Heath Mello – unveiled a new health coverage bill. It would make affordable health coverage accessible to 77,000 uninsured Nebraskans who cannot afford insurance.
- Policy
