Walmart and Amazon are in a neck-and-neck race over online sales and delivery to rural Americans

Adobe Stock photo

America's biggest retail giants, Walmart and Amazon, are going head-to-head in a bid for online sales domination by delivering to rural areas "once deemed too remote or unprofitable," reports Anne d'Innocenzio of the Independent. "These sparsely populated regions, previously overlooked by major retailers, are now recognized as a significant source of untapped sales."

Walmart seems to have the upper hand because of the proximity of its brick-and-mortar stores to rural communities. D'Innocenzio explains, "Nearly half (45%) of its full-service Supercenters are located in towns with populations under 20,000."

Even with Walmart's edge, Amazon is betting speedy and accurate delivery will help it outperform the competition. D'Innocenzio reports, "Amazon last year invested $4 billion to bring same-day or next-day deliveries to 4,000 smaller cities, towns and rural communities."

Analysts at Morgan Stanley estimate the pot of money rural deliveries will generate rings in at $1 trillion in annual sales, d'Innocenzio explains. With that amount of revenue on the table, the race for the rural online consumer has "intensified."

Part of the reason rural and underserved delivery areas are now getting noticed is because of their changing demographics. D'Innocenzio adds, "This surge is partly driven by the increasing number of remote workers relocating to smaller towns and communities on the outskirts of metropolitan areas."

Until recently, delivering to a more remote address generally posed a problem for companies, who in turn relied on the U.S. Postal Service to go "the last mile" to reach the customer.

Now Walmart is using more delivery drones and robotics, paired with a new delivery mapping system to speed package fulfillment. D'Innocenzio reports, "The system replaced traditional service boundaries like ZIP codes, which can leave out small areas at the edges."

Amazon is taking a different approach by "setting up small delivery stations to serve a group of nearby communities based on travel drive time, customer demand, and delivery efficiency," d'Innocenzio adds.

Little guys' coalition successfully halts CO2 pipeline builds in Central Illinois

Page 2 of Navigator's letter explains eminent domain.
(Photo by Kathleen Campbell via the Yonder)

Successful grassroots efforts to stop carbon dioxide pipeline projects across Central Illinois spurred residents to form a state coalition to push for legislation that "would restrict the use of eminent domain for these potentially dangerous pipelines," report Ilana Newman and Julia Tilton of The Daily Yonder.

While the purpose of carbon sequestration is to reduce the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere by pumping it underground, where it can no longer contribute to global warming, many communities don't want the installations near their homes. Breaks in CO2 pipelines are hazardous, and farmland where pipelines are placed is permanently altered.

In this case, before the coalition was formed, some Illinois farmland owners received letters from a Texas-based company called "Navigator," informing them that it planned to install carbon-sequestration pipelines across thousands of acres of land — including some of theirs. The letter also stated that Navigator agents would be visiting properties to conduct land surveys.

Steve Hess was one of the farmers Navigator representatives came to see. Hess told the Yonder, "The Navigator agent says, ‘if we get approval and you don’t like it, we can just use eminent domain and put the pipe in anyhow.’ And that really struck me the wrong way."

Once landowners like Hess and other area residents got wind of the Navigator's plans, they "formed the Coalition to Stop CO2 Pipelines to fight Navigator and other CO2 pipelines in Illinois," Newman and Tilton explain. The group eventually "succeeded in stopping Navigator in 2023 and later, the proposed Iowa-Illinois Wolf pipeline in 2024."

The group has recently sent their state legislature "a bill that would ban companies from using eminent domain to seize land for CO2 pipelines," Newman adds. "The bill is a bipartisan effort with 22 cosponsors and endorsements from across industries."

Opinion: SNAP program changes may mean fewer retailers offering healthy food in rural and low-income areas

SNAP changes a may further limit access to healthy food. 
(Photo by Maria Lin Kim, Unsplash)

U.S. retailers will face new rules if they want to continue participating in the Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. "Starting on Nov. 4, 2026, any retailers that accept SNAP benefits from their customers will have to stock a wider variety of food, some of it perishable," writes community health expert Benjamin Chrisinger in his opinion for The Conversation.

The USDA is touting its stricter requirements as a way to make healthier food more available to the roughly 38 million Americans who rely on SNAP for groceries but, as Chrisinger explains, the new rules could hurt overall grocery access because the added expense in complying with USDA changes may lead smaller stores to stop accepting SNAP.

Current USDA rules require all SNAP-participating retailers to sell at least three items in each of four staple food categories, which include dairy, produce, grains and protein. "Under the stricter new rules, all retailers accepting SNAP as payment must sell at least seven kinds of food in each of those four categories," Chrisinger writes. "And they need to offer at least one perishable variety in three of the four."

The stricter rules will not require changes from larger retailers because they already sell a wide variety of items across all USDA staple categories. But small shops and convenience stores, which are often found in rural and low-income areas, may find the changes too expensive.

"A big industry group that represents convenience stores and an anti-hunger organization are both warning that instead of making it easier for low-income people to follow a balanced diet, the new USDA rules might lead many small shops to stop accepting SNAP benefits," Chrisinger writes.

While small stores that now accept SNAP offer convenient options to area residents, getting them to stock healthier food may not happen because grocery items already have razor-thin profit margins and "many smaller retailers are not familiar with how to source and stock healthier food, especially produce," Chrisinger adds. "And many question whether these products will sell."

Survey: Farmers want input costs, tariffs and health care addressed by midterm election candidates

Farm Journal map, from Farm Journal survey

U.S. farmers are getting pummeled by skyrocketing diesel fuel prices and input costs for fertilizers and machinery repairs, while also grappling with trade obstacles, concerns about rural health care and federal policy changes.

A recent Farm Journal poll shows how producers feel about the current agricultural economy as the country heads into the midterm election cycle, reports Tyne Morgan of Farm Journal. 

The survey revealed that "more than half of the farmers say federal policies have negatively impacted their operations over the past year," Morgan writes. "And as input prices, including diesel and fertilizer, continue to climb, one Ohio farmer says these expenses, and the strain they’re having on his farm, haven’t been this bad since the 1980s."

Top concerns for today's farmers and ranchers by state. (Farm Journal map, from Farm Journal survey)

Input costs were the top concern among the roughly 1,000 farmers and ranchers surveyed. Morgan reports, "Fred Yoder of Plain City, Ohio, says when you break it down between the three, fuel costs are particularly burdensome this season." Yoder told Morgan, "Right now fuel is really costing us about $1,500 of cash per day to run two tractors. That’s a lot.”

This year, trade and tariff policies are also causing farmers to worry about their futures and the futures of their communities. Morgan adds, "Kristin Duncanson of Mapleton, Minn., says uncertainty surrounding tariffs and trade policy is weighing heavily on producers and contributing to broader economic concerns across rural America."

Meanwhile, 74% of surveyed producers believe that "elected officials do not fully understand the realities farmers are facing," Morgan reports. "Duncanson says agriculture still has advocates in Washington, but fewer lawmakers have direct ties to farming communities."

The poll also revealed that "about one in four farmers say they are open to changing how they vote in the midterms depending on the issues at stake," Morgan adds. Tariffs are one of those issues. Yoder told Farm Journal, "The majority has got a very, very hard line against tariffs. We hate tariffs. We want markets, and we want market-oriented programs.”

Quick hits: SS Edmund Fitzgerald mystery remains; internet carriers team up; complex beef pricing; what to wear for extreme-weather reporting

At 729-feet, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the longest ship traveling through the Great Lakes
before it was 'swallowed' by Lake Superior. (Wikipedia photo) 

It's still a story investigative reporters are exploring: What caused the massive SS Edmund Fitzgerald to sink 17 miles from the safety of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin? "On November 9, 1975, the ship left Superior, Wisconsin, with more than 26,000 tons of taconite pellets aboard. By the next evening, Lake Superior had swallowed the Edmund Fitzgerald whole," reports Andrew Daniels of Popular Mechanics. "One answer may be the ship’s cargo hatches. Ric Mixter, who visited the Fitzgerald wreck in the 1990s, said that if he could return, he would take photos of every hatch clamp and investigate where the taconite ended up." Read Pop Mech's deep dive on the famous ship's final voyage here. Listen to Gordon Lightfoot's haunting ballad about the fate of the Edmund Fitzgerald and its 29-member crew here. 

It's expensive for U.S. ranchers to increase their herds.
(Photo by Daniel Quiceno M, Unsplash)

Why can't farmers just raise more cattle so the price of beef will come down? "Ranchers say it's not that simple," reports Jack Dura of The Associated Press. "It’s never been so expensive for Americans to buy a steak or hamburger. … The dwindling number of cattle is a key reason the average price of all uncooked ground beef in the U.S. was $6.86 per pound in March." Even with high beef demand and high prices, ranchers still have to consider the cost of adding to their herd. Livestock owners are already paying more for the cattle they do have because drought and wildfires have left ranchers no choice but to pay for additional feed and water to be delivered to herd sites. 

Despite efforts to get the entire country online, many U.S. residents still live in areas without internet access, but that problem could soon change. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Communications announced that they are "setting aside their differences and forming a joint venture that will help end wireless dead zones across the U.S., especially in rural and underserved areas," reports Connor Hart of The Wall Street Journal. "The companies said the initiative will help the U.S. extend its global leadership in wireless communications technology … "

Handwritting letters is good for the human brain.
(Photo by T.D. Aran, Unsplash)

Handwriting letters may seem more than a trifle old-fashioned, but revisiting the aged tradition of letter, pen and stamp can reap benefits. Elizabeth Passarella of The New York Times writes, "Research shows that writing by hand lights up multiple parts of your brain — areas that are associated with creativity, memory and your senses — in a way that emailing does not. … Unlike chatting, writing makes you slow down and decide which details of your life are meaningful enough to share." Readers interested in tips to get started with a letter-writing habit can click here.

Whether it's tornado, wildfire or hurricane season, journalists need to be ready to hit the natural disaster beat. But first, preparations need to be made, and extreme-weather reporter Judson Jones is here to help reporters look good no matter what Mother Nature blasts. "Shortly after returning from a trip to chase hailstorms, Jones gave me a rundown of his core outfit packing list that keeps him ready for any assignment," reports Kyle Fitzgerald of Wirecutter. "We talked about why the way he unpacks is as important as the way he packs, as well as the need to bring multiple hats." After years of trial and error, Jones has even found a jacket that keeps him dry during hurricane rain and winds and is stylish enough to wear to dinner post-storm reporting. Read his picks and tips here. 

The world loves American cheese and butterfat products.
(Photo by Edward Howell, Unsplash)

Global cheese and butterfat demand continues to climb, helping American dairy farmers slice off profits even as milk production continues to increase. Cheese exports in March broke records with "over 63,435 metric tons exported, which is an all-time high for single-month exports," reports Sarah Jungman of Dairy Herd Management. The 2026 gain represents a 29% jump in cheese exports over March of 2025. "Butterfat and anhydrous milk fat exports also set a single-month record at 17,074 metric tons shipped, 109.9% higher than March of 2025." During the first quarter of 2026, Mexico exported the largest chunk of American dairy products. 

Nominations sought for the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism by June 15

Tom and Pat Gish

Each year the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues presents the national Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, named for the couple who exemplified those qualities as publishers of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., for 52 years.

Nominations for the Gish Award may be made at any time, but the deadline for new nominations to be considered for this year's award is Monday, June 15. The winner will receive the award at an event in Lexington, Ky., on Oct. 22.

To make a nomination, please send a detailed letter explaining how the nominee shows the kind of courage, tenacity and integrity that Tom and Pat Gish demonstrated at their weekly newspaper in the Central Appalachian coalfield. They withstood advertiser boycotts, business competition, declining population, personal attacks, and even the burning of their office to give their readers the kind of journalism often lacking in rural areas, and were the first winners of the award named for them. Tom died in 2008 and Pat in 2014. Their son, Ben, is the editor and publisher of the Eagle and serves on the award selection committee.

Additional documentation may be submitted after the nomination, and may be requested or required. Send your nominating letter, initial documentation and any questions to Institute Director Benjy Hamm at benjy.hamm@uky.edu.

The Institute seeks nominations that measure up, at least in major respects, to the records of the Gishes and other previous winners. Other winners have been the Ezzell family of The Canadian Record in the Texas panhandle; Jim Prince and Stanley Dearman, current and late publishers of The Neshoba Democrat in Philadelphia, Miss.; Samantha Swindler of The Oregonian for her work at The Times-Tribune in Corbin, Ky., and Jacksonville Daily Progress in Texas; Stanley Nelson and the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La.; Jonathan and Susan Austin of the Yancey County News in North Carolina; the late Landon Wills of the McLean County News in Kentucky; the Trapp family of the Rio Grande Sun in northern New Mexico; Ivan Foley of the Platte County Landmark in northwestern Missouri; the Cullen family of the Storm Lake Times-Pilot in northwest Iowa; and Les Zaitz of the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon. In 2019, the award went to three reporters whose outstanding careers revealed much about the coal industry in Central Appalachia: Howard Berkes, retired from NPR; Ken Ward Jr., then with the Charleston Gazette-Mail; and his mentor at the Gazette, the late Paul Nyden. In 2020 the award went to the late Tim Crews of the Sacramento Valley Mirror; in 2021 to the Thompson-High Family of The News Reporter and the Border Belt Independent in Whiteville, N.C.; in 2022 to Ellen Kreth and the Madison County Record of Huntsville, Ark.; in 2023 to Craig Garnett of the Uvalde Leader-News in Texas; in 2024 to Eric Meyer and the Marion County Record in Kansas; and in 2025 to Lisa Stayton and The Mountain Citizen of Inez, Kentucky.

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky, is focused on helping sustain journalism in rural communities in the United States through information, expertise, training, outreach and other programs.

Very rural New Mexico reaps millions in oil revenue

In the U.S., only Texas produces more oil than New Mexico.
(Photo by Laura Mann, Unsplash)

New Mexico's state treasury began reaping millions in oil revenue after global crude supplies were strangled in the Strait of Hormuz. 

Despite the predominantly rural state's dependence on fossil-fuel-generated revenue, the windfall has sparked mixed feelings for "Democrats who oppose the war and would rather reduce their reliance on fossil fuels," reports Morgan Lee of The Associated Press.

The Democratic-led "Land of Enchantment" is second only to Texas for oil production, and the "state’s revenue from taxes, royalties and lease sales helps cover the cost of college tuition, all school meals, health insurance and a new initiative for free universal child care," Lee explains.

Even seemingly small increases in crude oil prices can mean big money for the state. Lee reports, "For every $1 fluctuation in the average annual price of oil, New Mexico sees a roughly $59 million swing in state government income."

The state's treasury automatically channels increases in oil revenue "into a series of trust accounts designed to gradually reduce the state’s reliance on fossil fuels," Lee writes. Through investments, those trusts "underwrite Medicaid, early childhood education, infrastructure projects and an expansion of mental healthcare" in a very rural state that is "entrenched [with] swaths of extreme poverty and the nation’s highest enrollment rate in Medicaid."

New Mexico isn't the only rural state to see surges in state income because of the war with Iran. Lee adds, "In Alaska, the state forecast an additional $1.05 billion for the current fiscal year and the one beginning July 1."

Opinion: Congress needs to remember 'who they are working for.' A tractor ride with a farmer might help.

Allison Lynch

American farmers have been hard-pressed to be excited about heading out to the fields this spring: "Margins are tight. Profits are thin. Morale is low. It’s time for legislators to ride around in the tractor to remember who they’re working for," writes Allison Lynch in her opinion piece for Farm Progress.

Bob Bishop, a farmer from Leesburg, Ind., gave a candid answer when Lynch asked him about this year's planting season. He told her, "Input costs are driving this farm and agriculture in general. It’s tough right now, It’s tough. The expenses, the input costs, the machinery repairs, the property taxes — everything seems to be going higher, but our revenue generated from grain sales doesn’t seem to be keeping up.”

Still, there are solutions to many farming woes, but they aren't in farmers' hands. Lynch adds, "Industries have to shift, wars have to end, and global trade has to resume. … Hey, Congress. It’s your turn."

What about the soaring fertilizer costs? That started before the war with Iran. Lynch writes, "The Trump administration has recently started sniffing into fertilizer giants, pursuing an antitrust case. Hopefully, this can get the ball rolling on their end. We want to see results back here on the farm."

Many Americans may think that farmers are always getting handouts, but on the farm, that's not how it plays out. Lynch adds, "The farmers can’t win. They’re stuck between corporations that exploit their labor and a population that doesn’t understand them."

Farm is more than "crops and the land and politics," Lynch writes. "It’s about family and legacy." Legislators need to see that point of view. "Call yours. Offer them a ride. Give them the view from the tractor cab."

More selective colleges aim to get rural students who've been accepted to take the leap and enroll

Rural students accepted to selective Amherst College make 
s'mores and discuss their futures. (Photo by Lucy Lu, Hechinger)

Prestigious colleges throughout the U.S. are increasing efforts to convince more rural high school seniors to not only apply for admission but to enroll upon acceptance. Student and family support initiatives are being created to help those seniors take the leap, reports Jon Marcus of NPR in collaboration with The Hechinger Report.

Roughly three years ago, a full-fledged initiative known as the STARS College Network — for the Small Town and Rural Students — was launched by rural-born philanthropist and University of Chicago trustee Byron Trott, who invested $20 million to start the program, Marcus explains. During its first three years, STARS aimed to help more rural students learn what more elite colleges were offering and apply.

Even though more rural high schoolers graduate than their urban and suburban counterparts, getting rural students to consider and apply to colleges like Brown, MIT and Yale is a tall order. "Ninety percent of rural students graduate from high school," Marcus reports. "But only a little more than half go straight to college."

The reasons rural high school graduates avoid colleges, particularly those that are more selective or far away from home, are complex and can range from being scared off by tuition costs to not even knowing where to start applying. Nonetheless, the STARS College Network has made progress. Marcus adds, "As STARS has built momentum, more than 90,000 rural students applied to its member institutions last year, up 15% over the year before."

But STARS leadership saw a gap. Even when rural students were accepted to more elite colleges, they did not enroll. New funding from the Trott family is working to change that. Marcus reports, "Trott's foundation has since injected another $150 million into STARS, which has expanded from 16 member schools to 32."

To encourage accepted students to enroll, some STARS colleges are covering the costs for "prospective students and admitted applicants from rural areas to spend a day or two on their campuses," Marcus explains. "More than 1,000 students took advantage of that opportunity last year."

Not only does adding rural students to a selective college body help rural students and families achieve upward mobility, but it also helps colleges create a more diverse set of opinions and learning experiences for all students. Michael Elliot, the president of prestigious Amherst College in Massachusetts that participates in STARS, told Marcus, "Students growing up in rural areas bring perspectives and experiences that students from urban environments don't have."

The bourbon bubble has burst

Tight budgets and health concerns have slowed U.S.
bourbon sales. (Photo by Thomas Park, Unsplash)

After years of sales growth and production expansion, bourbon distillers and barrel cooperages have seen their businesses shrink as Americans tighten their purse strings, explore sober-curious lifestyles or choose hangover-free options like cannabis and THC beverages, reports Laura Cooper of The Wall Street Journal. "The Trump administration’s trade wars have dented U.S. alcohol exports."

Bourbon's renewed popularity began around 2010, as craft cocktail designers used it as an elevated staple, followed by the pandemic lockdowns, when "Americans heavily stocked their bar carts … with bourbon and other spirits," Cooper explains. "But after peaking in 2022 at 31.2 million nine-liter cases, consumption of American whiskey — including bourbon, Tennessee whiskey, rye and single malts — has slowed."

In Kentucky, where 95% of the world's bourbon is made, the spirit's sinking sales are leading to closed stills, employee layoffs and labor-hour reductions. The state is "awash" with unsold bourbon, Cooper reports. "Kentucky is sitting on roughly 16.1 million barrels of bourbon — the equivalent of around 300 million cases. That’s the largest reserve ever, enough to last as much as 10 years."

Because U.S. law requires bourbon to be aged in new, charred barrels of oak, the bourbon boom became a barrel boom. At its zenith in 2023 and 2024, distillers were "paying upward of $285 per barrel. Since then, prices have dropped significantly, industry players say," Cooper adds. Some large spirit companies have announced plans to sell their cooperages because barrel production isn't needed.

Since bourbon distillers can only use a barrel for bourbon once, when barrels are emptied, they are "often resold to distillers in Scotland or Ireland, where they can find a second act storing scotch, rum or other spirits, over a lifespan of some 80 years," Cooper explains. Used barrels that would have fetched "more than $200 at the end of 2024, now go for around $50, as liquor demand has also plummeted."