Articles on Rural Development

Includes agriculture, broadband, education, factory farming, healthcare, job creation, and wind farms.

Rural Communities Have Strongest Reliance on Disability Benefits
Kansas City Star, January 29, 2012

The per-capita rates of disability beneficiaries were higher yet in the Missouri Bootheel and rural parts of Alabama, Arkansas and the Appalachians. The website Daily Yonder reported that Buchanan County, Va., led the nation with 27 percent of working-age people on federal disability benefits in 2009.

December 2011

Survey: Farmland in Iowa up 32.5% in Value
Des Moines Register, December 15, 2011

Iowa farmland owners are seeing a boom in land values that their city cousins can only gape at with envy.The annual Iowa State University farmland value survey released Wednesday showed a 32.5 percent increase over 2010 to a record $6,708 per acre.

High-paying Tech Jobs Await, but Few Step Up
Argus Leader, December 10, 2011
The state faces a shortage of workers interested in skilled trades such as manufacturing, electrical work, machining and welding. Community, education and business leaders say it’s because of a false perception and image problem that make work associated with technical schools seem inferior to four-year college degrees in business or history. In reality, the technical jobs often are more lucrative.

Minnesota's Farmland Bubble Continues to Inflate
Minnesota Post, December 8, 2011
Mark Steil of MPR says: “Minnesota farmland prices are rising at near record rates, according to the most recent estimate from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Federal Reserve officials say the higher prices reflect a strong agricultural economy. Some are concerned that land prices could be the next real estate bubble, but so far there's no sign of a downturn."

Potawatomi Tribe Plans $18.5 Million Biomass Energy Project
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 7, 2011
The tribe was awarded a $2.5 million grant for a variety of renewable energy projects from the U.S. Department of Energy. This project would be funded, as well as a recently completed solar installation at the tribe's administration building in Milwaukee and renewable energy projects that are in the planning stage on the tribe's reservation in northern Wisconsin.

Generations Bookend Rural America
Southwest Farm Press, December 2, 2011
A Center for Rural Affairs report finds that rural areas in the Great Plains and Midwest continue to lose population and are caught between “bookend generations” - the youngest and the oldest - with a demographic valley in between.

November 2011

Pockets of Vitality Flourish, but Statistics Remain Grim
Des Moines Register, November 26, 2011
Job losses threaten to exacerbate the burden of poverty. Lack of population to support recreational and cultural amenities degrades the quality of life for the remaining workers and their families — and the power of rural Iowa to draw tourism dollars.

October 2011

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Announces Economic Development Funding To Create Jobs in Rural Communities in 26 States
USDA, October 26, 2011
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the selection of 36 organizations in 26 states and the District of Columbia for grants to help rural cooperatives and small businesses expand, create jobs and strengthen their capacity to serve rural citizens and communities. Organizations in the Midwest receiving grants include the Indiana Cooperative Development Center, Iowa State University, Kent state University, and more.

Farmers Sense the End of Big Boom
Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2011
High crop prices that have helped to lift the U.S. farming sector's total profits to thet highest levels since 1973, on an inflation-adjusted basis, have contributed to market forces that economists say could take some air out of the lofty profits that many Midwest grain farmers have been reaping.  

Iowa Innovation: Embrace ag - or Lose a Chance to Grow
Des Moines Register, October 15, 2011
Instead of running from agriculture, Iowans — especially urban Iowans — need to wrap their arms and minds around it in a new, bold way. Because if we don’t, others will, and we will lose a huge opportunity. In fact, some areas are leaping ahead in the agricultural bioscience revolution.

A Look At Iowa's First Majority Hispanic Town
NPR, October 11, 2011
One place the Hispanic population is growing is in the overwhelmingly white state of Iowa. The latest census figures show the Hispanic population, while only 5 percent of the state, has almost doubled since 2000.

Midwest Migration Shows Net Gain in Indiana
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, October 2, 2011
Even without significant movement from surrounding states, more people moved to Indiana than moved out during the period of 2005-2009, according to U.S. Internal Revenue Service data.