Advocate argues for regional collaboration to help slow rural outmigration

Despite some backlash from the agriculture industry, the federal government's increased emphasis on regional collaborations and other rural economic development strategies is a positive step, writes one Illinois rural affairs advocate. "Washington’s recommitment to rural development is good," Timothy Collins, the assistant director of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University, writes for The Daily Yonder. "And continued hollowing out of rural areas is wasteful, a depletion of valuable national assets. Effective and continued targeting of federal and state assistance could create opportunities to mitigate geographic discrimination."

Collins points to the 2009 Rural Tour from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, President Obama's numerous stops in rural America and the four regional rural development "convenings," hosted by Partners for Rural America with funding from USDA as examples of the renewed focus on rural development. Each of the meetings hosted by PRA "had the goal of stimulating regional partnerships to plan and implement rural development strategies," Collins writes. "Each planning committee used different methods to accomplish the planning and, one would hope, to implement the ideas that emerged from the sessions. The process itself was refreshing, given the distressing record of top-down national uniformity in federal programming."

USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack has faced criticism from Congressional Republicans for his emphasis on local food and rural development to the detriment of traditional farm programs. The "American Farm Bureau Federation agrees with Vilsack about some rural needs, such as high-speed Internet service, but asserts that rural development should not come at the expense of farm programs," Collins writes. Despite those criticisms, Collins argues outmigration is the biggest challenge to rural development. "Now rural developers face twin challenges: how to develop regional partnerships that build economic opportunities and how to make rural communities better, more attractive places to live," he writes. "Outmigration has created the need for regional rural development networks and, if left unchecked, it will threaten all these efforts." (Read more)