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Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Even if 'rural' gets a better definition, USDA Rural Development programs seem likely to be cut

Rural development may be among the prime targets of federal spending cuts, since the benefits of those programs are not always immediately evident. That view may be short-sighted, and the difficulty of defining "rural" makes those decisions even more difficult, writes Timothy Collins, assistant director of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University. Collins, who recently testified before a House Agriculture Subcommittee about defining "rural," writes for the Daily Yonder: "In a dynamic global economy with multi-faceted domestic, urban relationships, the meaning of 'rural' is truly problematic, especially on the so-called rural-urban fringe."

Because of rural development's inclusion in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's broader mandate, rural has often been used synonymously with agriculture. When USDA took on rural development tasks outside agriculture, "better definitions were needed to take into account the mixed rural-urban functions of smaller cities and towns, since these are the economic, social and cultural anchors for wider, less-densely populated regions," Collins writes. USDA's county rural/urban codes are useful for research and adding context, but "contemporary conditions demand a broader regional approach that might include only parts of counties," Collins writes.

Micropolitan statistical areas, which are removed from larger metropolitan areas but have at least one urban cluster with a population between 10,000 and 50,000, have become the key to rural development, Collins writes. Chuck Fluharty, president of the Rural Policy Research Institute, says micropolitan areas could provide keys for new rural regional-development strategies, including federal support for localized food systems and specialized economic clusters, and Collins argues they could be hubs of green energy production and educational outreach. In a perfect world those regions would be used to enhance rural development under current funding levels, but "unfortunately, given the budget-slashing mood and current farm politics, rural development is ripe for cutting because its constituency is scattered and because its benefits come in the longer, not the shorter term," Collins writes. (Read more)

In Eastern Kentucky, two marginal coalfield counties are planning to establish an "agricultural industrial park" that would be home to "a USDA-approved meat processing plant" that would start with 30 to 35 employees with an expansion to 150-300, reports The Licking Valley Courier of West Liberty. The project is being helped with $425,000 in coal severance taxes. (Courier is not online)

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