Center for Rural Affairs Newsletter

We have joined Health Care for America Now, a national grassroots campaign to win a guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all. As part of the campaign, we are collecting stories about people’s health care to help demonstrate the need for health care reform. Can you send us yours?

Nebraska’s long-standing anti-corporate farming law, Initiative 300, was struck down by the courts in 2007. In 2008 the Nebraska Legislature rejected a legislative replacement for the law. As we evaluate the next steps to protect Nebraska’s farmers and ranchers, we need your eyes and ears.

Early reformers in the post-Soviet era in Russia hoped to see the collective farms of the Soviet years broken up into family farms. However, agriculture in Russia has been slow to change. Now, a decade after the transformation of the Russian government, new forces are encouraging the rise of corporate mega-farms in the country.

On August 29 the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that USDA has the right to restrict meatpackers’ testing of slaughter cattle for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), the degenerative neurological disease in cattle known as “mad cow disease.” Since 2006 Creekstone Farms Premium Beef has sought permission to conduct BSE tests, at their expense, on all the cattle they slaughter instead of a sampling to ensure product safety and preserve export markets they have established. USDA refused to allow the additional testing. In March 2006 Creekstone sued in federal court for access to BSE test kits.

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows there are few differences in rural and urban child poverty rates. Based on the 2007 American Community Survey, 22 percent of rural children live below the poverty line, compared to 13 percent of suburban children and 25 percent of central city children. Over time, however, the gap between rural children and those in central cities has narrowed.

A strong majority of rural Nebraskans believe the climate is changing as a result of human activities. Most also believe climate change requires immediate action by government, that we need to change our lifestyles to reduce energy consumption, and that we have a personal responsibility to help reduce the impact of climate change.

Louisiana: $10 million has been allocated by the Louisiana legislature to assist rural school districts in attracting staff. Funding restrictions have limited rural districts in the state from offering competitive salaries. Often rural schools pay thousands less than neighboring districts, and this is cited as a barrier to recruiting and retaining qualified and effective teachers.

The first in a four-part series on leadership and what it means to our communities

I’m always on a quest to figure out the characteristics of successful rural community leaders. We’ve long recognized the need to find and develop leaders in a community, looking from the quiet folks who have the ability to lead but have not had an opportunity to our younger, emerging leaders to develop their leadership skills in hopes we can eventually bring them home.

If your rural community has a grocery store, you know what a convenience it is not to have to travel many miles every time you forget an ingredient for dinner. Grocery stores serve a critical function for rural communities because without access to healthy, affordable food more people are at risk for food insecurity.

We have written before how public access to natural space can be a development asset for communities. The 2008 Farm Bill includes a conservation provision, the Cooperative Conservation Partnerships Initiative (CCPI), that can support both conservation and rural community development by encouraging farmers and ranchers to work together to solve natural resource concerns on a local, state or regional scale.

Self-employment and small businesses are key to economic vitality in rural America. But many rural entrepreneurs who have an idea for a business don’t have the resources or tools to get started or develop a business plan. How can we change that?

Thirty-five years is a long time. That’s how long the Center for Rural Affairs has been standing up for rural America. In fact, our official birthday was Sep. 5. And like anything that’s been around that long, we’ve changed some.

Lately, we have written about what the Center has accomplished over the last 35 years with your help and that of thousands of others. However, shouldn’t we also consider the next 35 years?

A caller took me to task for failing to credit the farmer members and directors of Organic Valley Cooperative for their role in ending the cooperative’s temporary milk purchases from a large industrial Texas dairy. I stand corrected.

September evokes myriad images: the turn towards autumn, the approaching harvest, a new school year. Perhaps it was growing up on a farm, perhaps it was those years I played football, or all those years that I attended school, but September has always seemed like a time to pause for a moment, take stock of where we have been, and forge ahead into another season.

Only 38 percent of rural Americans have access to a high-speed internet connection, while in urban areas 58 percent of people have access to a high-speed connection. In fact, living in a rural area is a greater indicator than either race or income in predicting access to a high-speed connection. A vibrant future for rural America will require public policy that rectifies this situation.