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Small towns and ordinary rural people are receiving short shrift in federal policy.

Our recent study found that USDA spent twice as much on subsidies to just the 20 biggest farms in each of 13 leading farm states – 260 mega farms – as it spent on rural development programs to create strong communities and economic opportunity for millions of rural people in 260 struggling rural counties in those same 13 states.

The Rock Island transmission line will enable a new generation of wind farms across the upper Midwest and Great Plains by collaborating with landowners and local businesses in a quest to tap some of the best wind resources in the nation. And along with it come rural economic development opportunities and jobs.

Developed by Clean Line Energy, this project will deliver 3,500 megawatts of wind energy from Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota to large cities in Illinois and eastward. Once completed, Rock Island will power 1.4 million homes in the Midwest with clean, safe and renewable energy.

Across the board, rural programs are being dismantled. The steepest cuts have been in grants and loans to small towns for community facilities and community development, which have been slashed by two-thirds. Small business development and funding for small town water and sewer systems have also taken deep cuts.

February 15-22, 2012

The Center for Rural Affairs and sponsors are hosting our first, dedicated youth day as an independent, separate event prior to the 6th Annual Nebraska MarketPlace Conference during Entrepreneurship Week in Kearney!

Check out other Entrepreneurship Week Celebrations, and plan to participate!

The New York Times | By Jim Robbins | January 29, 2012

Amber Leetch, 11, returning to the one-room school where she is the only student after recess.

GREENOUGH, Mont. — At a time when many schools are concerned about overcrowded classrooms, the Sunset school in this ranching community has a different problem — keeping its lone student at her desk so it can remain open.

There are other schools in remote rural areas around the West that have only one teacher and one student, but the situation is even starker here. Amber Leetch, age 11, makes up the entire Sunset School District 30.

And while many one-student schools elsewhere in the West are in far-flung, impoverished areas, the Sunset district — whose entire annual budget is about $83,000 — is in a prosperous, ranching corner of the state. One of the reasons there is only one student is that the cost of the scenic landscape here has risen so high that young, aspiring ranchers, the kind who would be likely to have school-age children, cannot afford to buy the land.

by Paul Mansoor, Energy Policy Intern

Determining where wind turbines are placed, or sited, is a major component of wind energy development, and clear communication within communities, and between communities, landowners and energy developers, is vital for project success. 

Market Watch | By Robert Mahaffey | January 10, 2012

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Rural School and Community Trust releases Why Rural Matters 2011-12

Nearly one in four American children attend rural schools and enrollment is growing at a faster rate in rural school districts than in all other places combined, according to Why Rural Matters 2011-12 a biennial report by the Rural School and Community Trust. In addition, rural schools show increasing rates of poverty, diversity, and students with special needs. These widespread trends are most evident in the South, Southwest, and parts of Appalachia.

"As the evidence mounts that rural education is becoming a bigger and even more complex part of our national educational landscape, it is becoming impossible to ignore in the quest to improve achievement and narrow achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. The day of closing our eyes and hoping rural education will just go away are ending," said Jerry Johnson, a co-author of Why Rural Matters 2011-12.

The Financial Times - United Kingdom | By Chris Tighe | January 3, 2012

Efforts to preserve a picture postcard image of the British countryside are turning rural villages into rich people’s ghettoes where poorer people are driven out by spiralling house prices, an expert on rural housing has warned.

Professor Mark Shucksmith of Newcastle University, who has studied rural housing trends for 30 years, says average house prices in rural areas exceed urban areas of England by about 25 per cent. The smaller the village, the higher the price; in these locations houses cost nearly 11 times average household income.

PRI's The World | Jason Margolis | December 28, 2011

Downtown Newton (Photo: Jason Margolis)

On paper, the economics of Iowa look pretty good. It has the seventh lowest unemployment rate in the nation. Corn has been fetching record prices in recent years. Des Moines and the other metropolitan areas are thriving. (In fact, Forbes Magazine recently ranked Des Moines the number one city in America for young professionals.)

But not everywhere in Iowa is prospering. Rural manufacturing towns continue to struggle. Young people have been leaving these small communities in droves since the 1980’s.

Take the case of Netwon in central Iowa, population 15,000. It was the quintessential one-company town – Fred Maytag began building his washing machines here in 1893. It was a good run: company and town prospered together for more than a century.

In the past decade though, the company shifted jobs to southern states and Mexico. By 2007, Maytag, which was acquired by Whirlpool, closed its doors in Iowa for good.

“Definitely that was a demoralizing blow to the town,” said Darrell Sarmento, who directs the Greater Newton Area Chamber of Commerce. “Not just from an economic standpoint, but at one point in its heyday, Newton was the washing machine capital of the world. So that was a lot of the town’s identity.”

The Verge | By Bryan Bishop | December 19, 2011

Regional carrier Pioneer Cellular has completed data testing of its new LTE network, which will be launching in Oklahoma next year as part of Verizon's LTE in Rural America program. Under the initiative, Big Red partners with carriers in rural areas where it doesn't have a strong network presence itself. Infrastructure and hardware are built out by the regional company, and Verizon shares access to its 700MHz LTE network. Verizon users get to take advantage of the new coverage, and customers of the regional carrier gain access to Verizon's nationwide LTE network in return. Pioneer is one of 13 participants in the program, with nearly 2.6 million people in 10 states serviced by the partner companies. It's seemingly a win-win: companies like Pioneer specialize in rural wireless deployments, places where Verizon traditionally can't be bothered to offer great broadband coverage.

Associated Press via the Chicago Tribune | By Kristi Eaton | December 11, 2011

Today, Cozad is the only lawyer left in Martin, a community of about 1,000 people 150 miles southeast of Rapid City, and when the 85-year-old eventually closes his firm, there will be none. 

It's a problem seen more and more in rural communities -- one that means people must travel farther for legal advice, slowing down the process and bogging down an already-crowded court system. Cash-strapped communities are spending more money to bring in lawyers from nearby towns for board and commission meetings, while businesses and estates that used to turn to one person for legal guidance are now forced to use firms with multiple specialists -- making the process much less personal.  

Public News Service | By Tim Morrissey, Public News Service - WI | December 12, 2011

LYONS, Neb. - In a large area of the northwest part of Wisconsin, young adults continue to move away, leaving what the Center for Rural Affairs calls "bookend generations:" Only the youngest and oldest residents remain.

Center research director Jon Bailey has just written a report about this trend. It affects young adults in large areas of the Midwest and Great Plains, who stay home only while they're young, he says.

"When they turn 18, the population of rural places really starts to change. People in their 20s, 30s, 40s - working-age young adults and older adults - begin to move to the more urban places of their region."

As we discussed in an earlier article (see September 2011 newsletter), data from the 2010 Census show that rural areas in the Great Plains and Midwest continue to lose population, while smaller cities and metropolitan areas continue to expand.

A new proposal could improve federal farm bill programs that support local and regional farm and food systems. Called the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME-1) introduced the bill last month. Several other senate and house co-sponsors joined them.