BBC | September 10, 2010

A tractor has been "pimped up" in police livery - complete with blue flashing light - to help fight criminals in rural Lincolnshire.

The John Deere 6630 will be a star attraction at farmers' markets, where it will be used to raise awareness of crime prevention techniques.

It will help promote the use of Smartwater DNA marking and the Farm and Country Business Watch scheme.

Police said the tractor was a bit of fun but carries a serious message. Read more about Lincolnshire Police tractor fights rural crime

USA Today | By Wendy Koch | September 7, 2010

Read more about Is organic produce better? Study finds dramatic results

NPR, All Things Considered | By Sarah Varney | August 19, 2010

EnlargeSarah Varney/KQED

Modoc County is in the remote northeastern corner of California. Residents there will soon vote on whether to tax themselves to save their local hospital.

Residents in Modoc County, in the remote northeastern corner of California, will soon vote on whether to tax themselves to save their local hospital.

The county has gone broke trying to keep the hospital open, and a fractious debate has erupted in this proudly conservative frontier community over the best way forward.

A Lifeline

The hospital hallways at the Modoc Medical Center, like the nights, are quiet. It's been years since pregnant women could deliver their babies here. A surgeon comes just twice a month to do simple procedures. Even the helicopter pad is sprouting weeds.

But it's no exaggeration to say that the county hospital in Alturas — even with its limited services — is a lifeline to the people who live here. The closest full-service hospitals are hours away, and the nearby medical centers over the mountains are often unreachable during winter storms.

"They gotta have something," says Vicky Smith, 61, who moved to the area as a young girl. She now owns the Main Street Family Diner. "There's a lot of retired people here, a lot of 'em. And if they don't have medical, they'll have to leave.

The talk of the diner, and elsewhere in the remote Pit River Valley, is the fiscal calamity that could force the hospital to close and the county to go bankrupt.

An outside audit found that county supervisors improperly used restricted funds to bail out the hospital, which was losing millions of dollars a year. Now, the county has to pay back some $12.5 million in federal and state grants. And the hospital is on its own to make ends meet.

"It's almost living paycheck to paycheck basically," says Monica Derner, the hospital's interim chief executive. She's the seventh CEO in the past four years. "And some months are better than others. And sometimes the payables are more current than other times. And it's kind of just juggling the finances around to make it work right," she says Read more about In Rural Calif., A Debate On How To Save A Hospital

NPR | By Laura Sydell | August 17, 2010

University of.California, Davis Health System via NPR Dr. James Marcin, a pediatric critical care physician in the University of California, Davis Health System, consults remotely with rural health care professionals.

Millions of Americans who live in rural areas travel long distances to get health care. Or they may go without it. But high-speed Internet connections now make it possible to bring a doctor's expertise to patients in far-off places, if those places are connected.

As part of its National Broadband Plan, the Federal Communications Commission has pledged $400 million a year to connect nearly 12,000 rural health care providers.

Overstretched Clinics, Hurting Patients

Redway, Calif., is more than 200 miles north of San Francisco — a pit stop on the way for tourists heading to see the giant redwoods more than an hour up the road. The town of 1,200 has one health clinic. And Wendi Joiner is the only doctor at the Redwoods Rural Health Center.

There are 4,000 people from Redway and the surrounding area who use this clinic, so Joiner is one busy physician.

"It's a great job. It's a special challenge. I love it, but sometimes I feel like there should be two or three of me," she says. "It happens a lot where we're asked to do things that we're not specialists in."

Patients come in with skin problems, cancers, diabetes, hepatitis — all diseases that require expertise Joiner may not have. So she has to send patients to doctors in cities 100 or more miles away. That can be hard on many of them, both physically and financially. Read more about Healing Rural Patients With A Dose Of Broadband

 Blog for Iowa | By Paul Denton | August 14, 2010

"...the management of network discrimination (how packets of data are prioritized) on routers owned by large corporations is a matter in the public interest. Most of us have not questioned how this has been done and hold a view that there is Net Neutrality. The truth is that Net Neutrality, for those who have access, has never been neutral..."

The age of home computers dawned in 1995 at our house with the purchase of an Acer desktop computer and a subscription to dial up internet service. The computer cost more than a thousand dollars, and we felt we could afford it. In fact, we felt we needed the computer to help with our daughter's education in an increasingly computerized world. We fondly remember our small family gathering in the kitchen, listening to the modem squawk and watching the screen as we dialed into the internet for the first time.

The author had been using personal computers at work since 1989, but home use, with Netscape and Internet Explorer web browsers, was exploding. The revolution that was dial-up internet service, where we could access web pages at businesses, colleges, universities and government sites, was remarkable. One of the innovative features of Netscape was that it allowed the pages to load text and graphics to appear on the screen as they downloaded. We did not understand why a page loaded the way it did, and were more interested in content than the technology behind receiving it. We understood that something was behind slow-loading web pages, but not exactly what.

We live in rural Iowa, and high speed internet was slow coming to us. While we now have three choices of service providers, for what seemed like the longest time, dial-up was our slow-moving standard. This is true throughout much of rural Iowa. Many believe high speed internet should be a utility available to all, just like electricity. 

NPR.org | By Gail Banzet | August 1, 2010

Gail Banzet/NPR Creek County in Oklahoma is so big, responding to a call can sometimes take a bit of research for Cpl. Allen Harwood.

People who live in sparsely populated areas understand that a call to 911 doesn't always mean a quick response. But no reply at all? The difficult economy has forced police departments in a growing number of small towns to close.

"The economy here is so bad," says Mylora Tuttle, the mayor of Depew, a community outside Tulsa, Okla. The town gave up its two police officers more than a year ago because of money. "It's just, we have no possibility for generating income."

In Oklahoma, two-thirds of all law enforcement agencies have five or fewer officers. At least 10 police departments in the state have closed in the past year.

Now the policing of Depew falls to the Creek County Sheriff's Department. It's a big county — about 950 square miles — but its population is small, just 70,000. Cpl. Allen Harwood patrols its open roads. Stray dogs, domestic disturbances, even the occasional murder — they're all part of the cases he handles. He's one of only a handful of deputies on duty at a time, and even in emergency situations, it can take a half-hour to respond to a call. Though his department is newly responsible for Depew's safety, Harwood says no extra deputies have been added. Read more about Tight Times Force Small Towns To Cut Police Services

Associated Press via MSN Money | August 1, 2010

DOVER, N.H. (AP) - In 1632, John Tuttle arrived from England to a settlement near the Maine-New Hampshire border, using a small land grant from King Charles I to start a farm.

Eleven generations and 378 years later, his field-weary descendants — arthritic from picking fruits and vegetables and battered by competition from supermarkets and pick-it-yourself farms — are selling their spread, which is among the oldest continuously operated family farms in America.

"We've been here for 40 years, doing what we love to do," said Lucy Tuttle, 65, who runs the 134-acre farm with brother Will. "But we're not able to work to our full capacity any longer, unfortunately." Read more about After 378 years, NH family farm goes up for sale

Evansville Courier & Press (Ind.) | By Ella Johnson | July 17, 2010

ROCKPORT, Ind. — Having grown up in a small town, Dr. Lloyd "Pat" McGinnis was happy to open a private medical practice in Rockport 10 years ago when he retired from the military after nearly 30 years as an Air Force physician.

As one of only five doctors in Spencer County, a rural area of Southwestern Indiana with about 20,000 people, his caseload quickly grew to 3,000 patients.

McGinnis, a family medicine and geriatrics specialist, was excited about being able to continue to practice medicine — unlike some of his colleagues who grew tired of seeing patients toward the end of their military careers.

What he wasn't prepared for were the extra time and hassles that came with treating patients who had little or no health insurance to cover the cost.

Doctors throughout the country are struggling with the same issues of providing quality care to patients with limited incomes in an environment of uncertainly as major provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are phased in over the next five years. Read more about Small number of doctors face unique challenges in rural America

The Denver Post | By Karen Auge | June 27, 2010

Osborne's Supermarket checker Dorothy Osborne, left, sacker Roger Trainer and customer Betty Hamilton puzzle over a price at the Hugo store that's been open for nearly 35 years. | Photo by Judy DeHaas, The Denver Post

HUGO — The instant she saw Virginia Petersen propelling her motorized scooter between aisles, a heaping basket of groceries teetering on her lap and oxygen tank rolling alongside her, Megan Hohl moved in.

"Virginia! Are you finished shopping? Let me take this up to the front for you," Hohl said, and walked the basket up to one of the two checkout stands in Osborne's Supermarket, which her grandparents opened 35 years ago.

This is grocery shopping, Hugo-style, and it hasn't changed much since Creighton and Dorothy Osborne opened the store in 1975. Nor will it, if Hohl and her husband, Lucas, have anything to say about it.

It's more about keeping Hugo — population 771 — going than selling milk and bread, Hohl said. "We have a great responsibility."

The idea that getting healthy food or staying fit can be a problem in the hinterlands contradicts most everyone's idealized image of rural life: fresh air, hard work, wheat rippling in the breeze.

The truth is, rural counties, especially on the Eastern Plains, have some of the state's highest rates of obesity and diabetes, along with lower rates of exercise and healthy eating. That's just part of the reason small communities in eastern Colorado, in Kansas, in Nebraska and across the nation are fighting hard to hang onto stores like Osborne's Supermarket, which serve as vital links between rural residents and nutrition and provide economic and social sustenance, too.

"It's an issue, first, of food access, and secondly, of economic development," said David Procter, director of Kansas State University's Center of Engagement and Community Development.

The New York Times | By Patricia Leigh Brown | July 4, 2010

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times Volunteers have been helping make small theaters like the Roxy centers of their communities.

LANGDON, N. D. — Every Friday through Monday night, from her perch behind the Skittles and the M&M’s, Amy Freier awaits the faithful at the historic Roxy Theater. There is Dale Klein, the school bus driver (large Diet Pepsi with a refill). And there is Jeannette Schefter, the social worker (large plain popcorn, medium Diet).

“You know who comes,” said Ms. Freier, one of 200 volunteers in this town of roughly 2,000 who are keeping the Roxy’s neon glowing. “They’re part of the theater.”

In an age of streaming videos and DVDs, the small town Main Street movie theater is thriving in North Dakota, the result of a grass-roots movement to keep storefront movie houses, with their jewel-like marquees and facades of careworn utility, at the center of community life.

From Crosby (population 1,000), near the Saskatchewan border, to Mayville, in the Red River Valley, tickets are about $5, the buttered popcorn $1.25 and the companionship free.

“If we were in Los Angeles or Phoenix, the only reason to go to a movie would be to see it,” said Cecile Wehrman, a newspaper editor who, with members of the nonprofit Meadowlark Arts Councilresuscitated the Dakota in Crosby, its plush interiors now a chic black, red and silver. “But in a small town, the theater is like a neighborhood. It’s the see-and-be-seen, bring everyone and sit together kind of place.”

Read more about Old Movie Houses Find Audience in the Plains

The Internet and Non-Profit Organizations Have Aided Rural Businesspeople With Start-Ups

by Leslie Wollack | National League of Cities and Towns

Rural road in Montana. Photo by Jimmy Emerson and used here under Creative Commons. Click here to see more of Emerson's work.

Federal transportation officials continued their national listening tour with a meeting last week in Bismarck, N.D. Headlined by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, the multi-state tour is seeking perspectives on reauthorization of the federal surface transportation program, which expired last September and remains in limbo due to a lack of national consensus on a new direction for transportation programs and a shortage of transportation revenues.

Secretary LaHood emphasized his interest in hearing about the needs of rural America during his visit to Bismarck and his commitment to enacting a new transportation law, but warned that with limited resources, all states will need to set priorities.

“There’s going to be limited resources. In some cases, some people are going to have to set aside this issue or that issue,” said LaHood.

Connie Sprynczynatyk, executive director of the North Dakota League of Cities, provided the welcome for the federal, state and local officials invited to attend the meeting and provided input on the next surface transportation legislation and expressed satisfaction that LaHood came to hear about rural issues.

“This meeting was a great opportunity to discuss with Secretary LaHood and his key staff the strong interest among local leaders in America’s investment in transportation systems,” noted Sprynczynatyk. “The other stops on this reauthorization tour have been metropolitan cities, so it was particularly important to talk about the issues in rural America. The need to maintain connectivity and the need for the longer planning horizon that we get with a multi-year highway bill were two recurrent themes throughout the afternoon.” Read more about DOT Gets Earful On Rural Transportation

Omaha World-Herald | Story by Leslie Reed, Photo by Kent Sievers | May 31, 2010

PENDER, Neb. — Eric Beckman never wanted to be anything but a farmer.

After getting an associate degree in agriculture, he married a young woman from Lyons, just down the road. They moved onto the homeplace south of Pender and he started farming with his dad and uncle. He and his wife, Dana, had two children.

Then came the accident that changed everything for this northeast Nebraska farmer.

On a rainy night three years ago this month, Beckman drove two buddies over to Bancroft, Neb., about 10 miles away, to watch an Oscar De La Hoya fight on pay-per-view at a local bar.

Driving back, his truck hydroplaned on a curve and skidded into a ditch, where it caught a tree stump and flipped.

His friends walked away from the crash, but Beckman, who wasn't using a seat belt, was thrown partway out of the truck. He broke his neck and was left paralyzed from the collarbone down.

He was 31, and his life would never be the same.

But with assistance from a program that helps disabled farmers get back to work, Beckman once again is experiencing some of the simple joys of farm life. Read more about Farmer paralyzed but not out

The New York Times | By Ashely Southall | May 25, 2010

On a recent Sunday in rural Macon, N.C., John W. Boyd Jr., the president of the National Black Farmers Association, went to his fourth funeral in a week.

Mr. Boyd has been burying his group’s members with bitter frequency, attending two or three funerals most weeks. Each death makes him feel as if he is running out of time.

Wrangling over the federal budget in Washington has delayed payouts from a $1.25 billion settlement that Mr. Boyd and several others helped negotiate with the federal government to compensate black farmers who claimed that the Agriculture Department had discriminated against them in making loans.

“I thought that the elderly farmers would get their money and get to live a few happy days of their lives,” Mr. Boyd, a Virginia farmer who is not a plaintiff in the settlement, said in an interview. “They deserve the money before they leave God’s earth.” Read more about Bias Payments Come Too Late for Some Farmers

EpriseNow.com | May 19, 2010

No down payment home financing is available through USDA Rural Development to qualifying applicants in rural areas.

Through this home loan program, potential homebuyers may purchase a new or existing home, build a home or make improvements to an existing home. The current interest rate is 4.875 percent.

“Home ownership is still the American Dream, and it continues to be realized by many rural Alabamians using our housing programs,” said Ronnie Davis, state director of USDA Rural Development in Alabama.

“Our mission and goal at USDA Rural Development in Alabama is to provide every qualified applicant the opportunity to become a successful home owner,” Davis said. Read more about New USDA program offers 100 percent financing on homes

StarTribune.com | By RICHARD MERYHEW | May 18, 2010

Jake Rajewsky, Associated Pres This was the scene of the April crash on County Road 20 near Altura, Minn., where three teenage girls were killed and a fourth was injured. The three who died were not wearing seat belts; the survivor said she was wearing a lap belt. All four were thrown from the truck.

The sky was clear and the spring afternoon was filled with promise as four girls from Lewiston-Altura High School piled into a pickup and headed off to start their weekend. A half-hour later, Shauna Ruhoff, 16, Morgan Zeller, 13 and Katie Hornberg, 14, were dead and Cydney Maker, 12, was clinging to life after the truck veered off a two-lane county road in southeastern Minnesota and flipped in a grassy ditch. Three of the girls were not wearing seat belts; the survivor said she was wearing a lap belt. All four were thrown from the truck.

"It shouldn't have happened," said Winona County Sheriff Dave Brand, who was called to the horrific scene that April afternoon. "It was a flat road. It was dry. Everything was visible."

It may be quieter and less congested on the roads of rural America, but don't be deceived: They can be deadly.

While the seven-county Twin Cities metro area has more than half of the state's population, roughly two out of three traffic deaths statewide -- and nationwide -- occur in rural areas. Read more about Rural roads: Two lanes and treacherous

 The New York Times | By SINDYA N. BHANOO | April 26, 2010

The smog in California’s San Joaquin Valley has puzzled scientists for years. Even though the region is largely rural and agricultural, its smog levels exceed those of densely populated cities like Los Angeles.

Some have speculated that animal waste or pesticides are the cause: both emit ozone, a primary ingredient in smog. But a recent study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology suggests that the primary culprit is actually cattle feed.

Researchers found that animal feed is the largest emitter of ozone in the valley, at 25 tons per day, followed by motor vehicles at 14 tons. Read more about Smog in a Rural Valley? Mystery Is Solved