Finally! After months of waiting, USDA announced the availability of $45 million for the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program.

Small businesses dominate the rural economy. In fact, they dominate the American economy in terms of the number of business firms. So it’s important to know, understand, and accurately portray the effects of the newly adopted health care reform law, on small businesses.

President Barack Obama visited rural Iowa, Missouri and Illinois on April 27 and 28 to talk about small town America’s role in the nation’s economic recovery.

Northeast United States: Fruit farmers in the northeast can’t remember a year when fruit trees bloomed so early in the spring. They are hoping the weather stays warm. A freeze on blooming cherries, apples, blueberries and plums could be disastrous.

Folks in their 30s and new retirees are in the prime ages to start businesses that grow the local economy. Communities that help by sponsoring business training, loans and technical assistance or providing quality and affordable business space with high-speed Internet can draw those with entrepreneurial dreams.

It’s that time of year when people who live in small towns across the country celebrate and mourn at the same time. We celebrate our high school seniors reaching a milestone of adulthood as they graduate and move on to that next phase of their lives. We mourn the fact that many may be gone for good, with little chance of returning.

On April 27, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in their first genetically modified crop case in history. Three years ago, a federal court banned the planting of genetically modified alfalfa until further studies of potential negative impacts could be conducted.

From Idaho to Georgia and points between, U.S. House members have been holding field hearings in advance of the 2012 farm bill. The hearings ran through the end of May.

Farmers and ranchers who want to get into the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) this year now have until June 25, 2010, to file their basic application.

If you have land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and you are trying to decide what to do with it when the contract comes to a close, consider the benefits of transferring that land to a beginning or socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher. As an incentive, a new federal program – the Conservation Reserve Program Transition Option – will provide you two years of additional payments.

The Center for Rural Affairs has promoted wind electric generation to create good jobs and income opportunities in the rural Great Plains and Midwest. One of our readers raised a valid concern with the discrepancy in payments to landowners forced to accept power lines versus those paid $5,000 annually for a wind turbine.

The Center for Rural Affairs and Nebraska Renewable Energy Systems will host the Nebraska Renewable Energy Fair in Lyons, Nebraska, on July 23 and 24, 2010. The Energy Fair returns after a brief hiatus to bring you two days packed full of usable information and tools to use immediately and in the future.

Center for Rural Affairs staffer Adriana Dungan left her position as Hispanic Business Center Director with the Center’s Rural Enterprise Assistance Project (REAP) on June 1, 2010. She and her family will be moving to Mexico later this year.