The Clarion-Ledger | September 7, 2010

The nation's rural highway system needs significant improvement and Mississippi is an excellent example of why that's true.

A new study by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials concludes that more investment is needed in America's rural transportation system to keep agriculture, new energy products and freight moving; improve access for the travel, recreation, and tourism industries; connect new and emerging cities; and to ensure reliable access to key defense installations.

 NPR.org, Shots: The NPR Health Blog | By Scott Hensley | August 24, 2010

 

Less than 200 big companies — including Hillandale and Wright County Egg, the firms at the center of the current recalls — supply 95 percent of the eggs in this country, the Washington Post reports.

 

Now we're seeing the recall ripple effects of the massive egg contamination in Iowa.

Moark, an egg marketer in California, said it's recalling 291,600 eggs (or 24,300 dozen) sold under the brand-names Albertsons, Yucaipa Valley, Farmer’s Gems and Mountain Dairy.

New problem? Not exactly. We checked with a Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman who called this a "sub-recall." Huh?

It turns out that Moark gets eggs from Hillandale Farms of Iowa, which recalled 170 million eggs last Friday, repackages them and sells them under a bunch of different names. So the Moark recall is really an echo of the Hillandale problems.

Radio Iowa | By O.Kay Henderson | August 19, 2010

The general manager of a rural telephone company says extending “broadband” service is key to getting young people to live in rural Iowa.

“It’s a living, breathing network and it has to evolve as our needs evolve,” says Tom Conry, general manager of the Farmers Mutual Cooperative Telephone Company in Harlan. 

Broadband service is “essential” for entrepreneurs in rural Iowa, according to Conry. Having high-speed lines available can help attract “telecommuters” as well. 

 Boston Globe | By Darryl Fears |  August 15, 2010

ESMONT, Va. — Sarah Carricaburu slipped her sleek new iPhone into her purse for the day. With no signal here deep in the woods, it is useless. She swiveled away from her desktop computer, which cannot use the Internet, and glanced at the manila folders of patient records neatly stacked on a shelf by nurses.

“I grew up in the age of electronic medical records,’’ said Carricaburu, 33, a primary care physician who was raised in the Washington suburbs. “Coming here was like stepping back in time. I would like to stay in a community health care setting, but here I didn’t feel like I had the resources to do my job. You’re cut off.’’

Boston Globe | By Bonnie Tsui | August 15, 2010

Mellissa Denney, Auburn University Rural Studio Architecture Project The view from the top of the 100-foot birding tower at Perry Lakes Park in Newbern, Ala. It offers the public access to a protected woodland landscape that had been closed for 30 years.

NEWBERN, Ala. — I’m standing at the top of a 100-foot birding tower in Perry Lakes Park, the platform at eye level with the tree canopy and overlooking a magnificent topography of oxbow lakes and tupelo and cypress swamp.

NewarkAdvocate.com | By Ledyard King | July 26, 2010

WASHINGTON -- The plan to end Saturday mail delivery is hardly welcome news, but it could be particularly painful for rural customers who live far from post offices and depend on letter carriers for government checks, prescription medicines and parts for farming equipment.

With the U.S. Postal Service facing declining revenues and a business model suffering in the electronic age, Postmaster General John E. Potter is proposing to do away with six-day-a-week delivery as part of a plan to keep the Postal Service viable for the next decade. It would be a dramatic change for a country that since the 19th century has grown used to seeing letter carriers come to their door on Saturdays.

With the proposal, post offices would remain open Saturdays so people could access mailboxes. But that might be little solace to residents, especially the elderly, who live in remote areas underserved by the Internet.

"The very principle of the Postal Service is to give universal service to everybody. If they don't do it, the people will lose that benefit in the rural areas," said Paul Katzer, a letter carrier from Montrose, S.D. "The New York Citys, the Chicagos -- if there's a need for delivery service, there's a company that will do it in those areas, but not out here. Rural America will be hurt by this."

Few dispute something must be done.

The volume of mail has plummeted from 211 billion pieces in 2006 to 176 billion in 2009, and Potter projects it will decline to 150 billion by 2020, even though package deliveries are expected to increase.

Groups that rely heavily on six-day-a-week delivery, such as prescription mail-order companies and weekly newspapers, are protesting the idea as harmful to their businesses. But the most obvious alternative is a significant across-the-board increase in postal rates and that would anger other users, such as direct-mail companies that aren't as reliant on weekend delivery but would feel the sting of higher costs.

"It would be worse for rural areas if they were not provided with universal high-speed Internet access in the near future," said Chip Sawyer, program manager for the Center for Rural Studies at the University of Vermont. "If one is to assume that rural residents are using the mail primarily for paying bills and corresponding socially, then it would seem that those who would lose out the most with the removal of Saturday delivery are those who have the hardest time connecting to and using current Internet options."

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20100726/NEWS01/7260302/Postal-cut...

The New York Times | By Kristina Shevory | July 28, 2010

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times Amanda Keppert obtained a $6,500 loan that she has three years to pay back and that carries a 6.5 percent interest rate.

Amanda Keppert is convinced that she would have lost Mandy’s Korner, her hot dog stand in San Jose, Calif., if she had not received a type of loan that is more common in the third world than in the United States.

Last year, as fewer people ate out and layoffs mounted in Silicon Valley, sales plunged more than 60 percent at the once-thriving Mandy’s Korner. “My business was drowning and I was afraid it would go under,” Ms. Keppert said. While she picked up catering work at a local concert site, it wasn’t enough to pay her expenses. She had invested all of her savings in the business, and she did not want to see it go under.

But her loan applications were rejected repeatedly at banks in San Jose. Then she found Opportunity Fund, a local microlender that has teamed up with Kiva.org, one of the best-known international microlenders. Kiva, which has lent more than $150 million in 53 countries, had just begun a pilot program lending to business owners in the United States.

Through Kiva, Ms. Keppert obtained a $6,500 loan that she has three years to pay back and that carries a 6 percent interest rate. She used the money to buy an ice maker, a generator to save on propane costs and large signs to advertise her business.

Before the economic collapse, microfinance — the granting of very small loans, mostly to poor people — was a concept most closely associated with the developing world. But tight credit and the recession have increased the demand for smaller loans in the United States, giving microlending a higher profile and broadening its appeal. Both Kiva and Grameen Bank, a microfinance group that is based in Bangladesh and was started by Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his groundbreaking work in microlending, have widened their lending to Americans.

Small biz Survival: Rural and Small Town Business Resource Blog | By Becky McCray | July 11, 2010

This week, a monumental report on rural England's problems and rural potential hit the media with headlines like "Rural England key to economic recovery."

The New York Times | By SUSANNA G. KIM | July 9, 2010

For Cynthia K. Wegener, the owner of a horse farm in rural Kansas, using the Internet often means staring at a blank screen waiting for a page to load. | Photo by Matthew Staver for the New York Times

Government stimulus spending is a contentious issue right now in Washington. But the $7.2 billion in the last stimulus package for extending high-speed Internet access is just beginning to be spent, and the beneficiaries could not be happier.

Cynthia K. Wegener and her husband, owners of a farm and horse-breeding business in western Kansas, will be able to upload a photograph of a horse to show a potential buyer in seconds, not the 20 to 30 minutes they now need with dial-up service. “I just cannot begin to tell you how frustrating it is to do anything with it,” she said.

And in remote Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska, with limited Internet access, the program will bring more fundamental changes, expanding the health care options, for example, to allow doctors in Anchorage, 400 miles to the east, to see patients via videoconference.

“This is the first time in my 25 years in health care where technology has a direct impact,” David P. Hodges, the chief information officer for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation. “It sure gives you a new perspective on what you do for a living.”

The types of Internet activities that most Americans take for granted — watching videos, downloading songs, social networking — are out of reach for millions of homes across the United States. These people — many in poor, rural pockets — either have outmoded dial-up Internet service or have no affordable high-speed service. Sometimes the nearest high-speed connection is at the local library, 10 miles away.

Star Herald | By MAUNETTE LOEKS | June 17, 2010

As strong winds kept the flags flying over the Banner County Courthouse flapping Thursday, Banner County Highway Superintendent Toby Tyler talked about harnessing that wind to power the building.

Banner County plans to lead the way to use wind energy to power its courthouse and a roads department building located on the same site. Last week, the Nebraska Energy Office announced that Banner County had been awarded an $82,360 renewable energy grant to construct a 20-kilowatt wind turbine.

Banner County was the only county to receive a renewable energy grant.

“Banner County and its commissioners are a lot more progressive than people think,” Tyler said, adding that commissioners decided to be proactive in encouraging wind energy within the county. The county’s foray into wind energy began when companies began looking at the county for a possible wind farm.

Commissioner Milo Sandberg said proposals heard by the county have as many as 1,250 wind turbines considered for a wind farm. Tyler said he began working with the Banner County Wind Energy Association, a group of landowners being proactive in bringing wind energy to the county.

The Washington Post | By BETSY BLANEY, AP | June 25, 2010

TURKEY, Texas -- Craig Chancellor tried everything he could, but last November he finally closed the Turkey General Store, leaving the small Texas Panhandle town without a grocery.

Although Chancellor tried to trim overhead and relocated a small cafe he owned into the store, he couldn't make it work. He paid more for salaries and utilities than he made in sales, and finally, lost more than he could afford.

"It didn't play the way we wanted it to," the 48-year-old Chancellor said. "People understand why we had to do it, but they hate it."

Researchers said Chancellor's story is being repeated across the country as rural stores struggle to survive amid competition from distant supercenters and relatively high operating costs. The grocery industry and government don't keep statistics on rural store closures, but experts said a long-running trend seems to be picking up speed. A survey by Kansas State University backed up that belief, finding that more than 38 percent of the 213 groceries in Kansas towns of less than 2,500 closed between 2006 and 2009.

It isn't just a store that goes when groceries close, said David Proctor, who studies rural communities at Kansas State. Such closures rob towns of their vitality, with the loss of gathering places and sales tax revenue to fund local governments.

By the United States Department of Agriculture

Download the full report here

WASHINGTON, June 9, 2010 -- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today highlighted the release of a report that details how broadband deployment funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) will improve the quality of life of over half a million rural American households. The report also states that broadband awards announced to date will create about 5,000 immediate and direct jobs.

"The Obama Administration supports the expansion of rural broadband so that all areas of the country have access to the tools necessary to spur economic development and job creation in the 21st century economy," Vilsack said. "These broadband loans and grants, provided through the Recovery Act, are critical to building and revitalizing the economy and infrastructure of rural America."

Vilsack discussed the importance of broadband deployment during last week's Rural Summit in Missouri, saying broadband will create new opportunities for rural prosperity and one of the key pillars of rebuilding and revitalizing rural America. Vilsack also noted that broadband deployment will improve educational opportunities, public safety, improve medical diagnostic services, support business development, farmers and agricultural producers. The report, Connecting Rural America, outlines the projects USDA Rural Development's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) is funding under the first round of awards made under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP).

One award, to Madison Telephone, LLC, a cooperative in Southeast Kansas, will enable broadband service to be extended to residents living in a 200 square mile area. In a letter to Secretary Vilsack, CEO Mary F. Meyer said; "We have been struggling for several years with the need to offer high speed broadband to our subscribers but simply could not afford this type of project…The opportunity of stimulus funding will allow us to provide the technology to our subscribers so they have the necessary broadband speeds to work, research, gain access to markets, weather and personal networking." She said that mapping and staking for the area has been completed and "we hope to have a plow in the ground by Labor Day."

In the first of two scheduled funding rounds, RUS awarded $1.068 billion for 68 broadband projects in 31 states and one territory. Three types of projects received awards:

• Last-mile remote projects, which will provide broadband service to households and other users in rural areas located at least 50 miles from the nearest non-rural area.
• Last-mile non-remote projects, which will provide broadband service to households and other users located less than 50 miles from the nearest non-rural area.
• Middle-mile projects, which will provide necessary "backbone" services such as interoffice transport, backhaul, Internet connectivity, or special access to rural areas.

The projects will bring broadband service to an estimated 529,249 households, 92,754 businesses and 3,332 anchor institutions across more than 172,000 square miles – a geographic area approximately the size of the state of California. Community anchors, such as schools, libraries, health care providers, colleges, and critical community facilities, provide essential services for safety, health, education and well-being for area residents. These projects will also provide services to 19 Tribal lands. A second round of successful applicants will be announced later in the 2010 fiscal year.

USDA Rural Development's Rural Utilities Service received $2.5 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for the Broadband Initiatives Program. Working in coordination with other Federal agencies, RUS has implemented a program to ensure that BIP funds are distributed quickly, efficiently and as Congress intended. The report provides a summary of the awards made in the first round of funding to advance the Obama Administration's commitment to improving the rural infrastructure and to enact the directives established by Congress.

USDA, through its Rural Development mission area, administers and manages more than 40 housing, business and community infrastructure and facility programs through a national network of 6,100 employees located in the nation's capital and 500 state and local offices. These programs are designed to improve the economic stability of rural communities, businesses, residents, farmers and ranchers and improve the quality of life in rural America. Rural Development has an existing portfolio of more than $138 billion in loans and loan guarantees.

WASHINGTON, May 25, 2010 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture today released a preliminary study revealing existing gaps in the regional food systems regarding the availability of slaughter facilities to small meat and poultry producers. The study by USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is a first attempt to identify areas in the U.S. where small livestock and poultry producers are concentrated but may not have access to a nearby slaughter facility.

"To support consumer demand for locally produced agricultural products, meat producers need to have access to local or regional slaughter facilities, and the study we are releasing today shows that there is often a shortage of facilities needed to bring food to market," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "The 'Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food' initiative is working to address various shortcomings in the food supply chain on behalf of our country's producers and consumers. If there is a stronger, closer link between production and consumption, there is often an economic benefit."‬

The data creates a county-by-county view of the continental United States, indicating the concentration of small farms raising cattle, hogs and pigs, and chicken, and also noting the location of nearby state slaughter facilities and small and very small federal slaughter establishments. The USDA defines "small slaughter establishments" as those having between 10 and 499 employees, and "very small slaughter establishments" as having fewer than 10 employees or less than $2.5 million in annual sales. For the purpose of the study, small livestock and poultry producers are those who have annual sales of $250,000 or less.

The presentation "Slaughter Availability to Small Livestock and Poultry Producers – Maps" may be found at: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/PDF/KYF_maps-050410_FOR_RELEASE.pdf. These findings are released as part of USDA's "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" initiative, which emphasizes the need for a fundamental and critical reconnection between producers and consumers. The effort builds on the 2008 Farm Bill, which provides increases and flexibility to USDA programs in an effort to revitalize rural economies through the promotion of local food systems. Aimed at strengthening the connection between farmers and consumers, the initiative also increases local market access for farmers, and expands access to healthy food for all Americans.

Inquiries can be made to the Small Plant Help-Desk by toll-free telephone or by e-mail. The Help-Desk is open from 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday, excluding federal holidays. To speak to a staff specialist during this time, call 1-877-FSISHelp (1-877-374-7435). Customers may also contact the help-desk by e-mail at InfoSource@fsis.usda.gov.

For information on loan and grant programs that can be used to support local food initiatives, including initiatives involving new or existing meat and poultry slaughter facilities, contact USDA Rural Development (RD) at 1-800-670-6553. For information on RD programs on the Internet, go to www.rurdev.usda.gov. Or, visit your nearest USDA Rural Development Office.

By Mike Knutson | Reimagine Rural

Last summer, I met an individual who had moved from California to rural South Dakota. She was charged with setting up an office in the region for her employer, but the field of potential communities to locate was pretty open.

So, how did she choose? Part of the answer rested with a blog she discovered; she felt the blog helped her connect with people of similar interests and values in one community without having to move there first. But it also provided a more authentic view of the community than possible through a traditional community-based website. This isn’t a knock on traditional community-based websites. It simply acknowledges that even at their best, websites only tell part of the story. And they don’t usually help you meet people.

Is this an isolated incident or does it happens more often than we think? I don’t have research to validate an answer, but I believe the latter is more accurate. So until I find that research, I’d offer the following abbreviated list of reasons why I believe communities should include social media in their people attraction strategies.

Public News Service - MN | By Sharon Rolenc & Deb Courson | May 20, 2010

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - In the wake of health care reform, many rural small-business owners are worried that insurance mandates under the new law will drive them out of business - further weakening fragile rural economies. In an effort to clear up the confusion about what the reforms will mean for rural Americans, the Center for Rural Affairs recently released the first in a series of reports, with the first topic addressing small business concerns. 

Jon Bailey, the report's author and director of theCenter for Rural Affairs rural research and analysis program, says that debate and rhetoric around health care reform created a lot of misinformation and a whole lot of unnecessary worry.

"If you have a small business with 50 or fewer employees - and that's almost all rural businesses - there is no mandate. You're not required to offer and provide health care insurance for your employees."

CNET | By Marguerite Reardon | May 13, 2010

Verizon Wireless could make good on its promise to get 4G wireless broadband to rural America.

The nation's largest wireless provider is in talks with rural wireless operators to expand its 4G network to consumers in hard to reach areas of the country, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Verizon is building its next-generation wireless network using $4.7 billion worth of spectrum it acquired in the Federal Communication Commission's 700MHz auction in 2008. Using a technology called Long Term Evolution, or LTE, the carrier hopes to be in 25 to 30 markets by the end of this year.