Cotton field project helps farmers and students learn how to outsmart bugs while saving money and time

Pests are identified by AI as they fly through a light sensor
inside this trap. (Photo by D. Mcgee via The Conversation)

Researchers working to introduce precision agriculture practices to farmers and agriculture students made progress during their recent project, in which AI was deployed to outsmart cotton-eating bugs in Jenkins County, Georgia.

Jenkins County, with a population of roughly 8,700, is "among the top 25 cotton-growing counties in the state," write Debra Lam, Atin Adhikari and James E. Thomas for The Conversation. The area's farmers rely heavily on expensive pesticides to defeat "stink bugs, cotton bollworms, corn earworms, tarnished plant bugs and aphids."

The project aimed to help farmers determine when to spray their crops by combining "AI-based early pest detection methods with existing integrated pest management practices and the Georgia Cotton Insect Advisor app," according to the report. By integrating those tools, researchers learned how to "improve pest detection, decrease pesticide exposure levels and reduce insecticide use."

The project's outcome demonstrated that AI tools could reliably predict where and when pest infestations would occur, providing farmers with the knowledge they need to save money and labor costs by applying pesticides only where and when necessary.

Through the use of AI sensors, the research provided farmers with practical and intuitive ways to plan and protect their crops. According to the report, "Even after the sensors are gone, farmers who used them become better at spotting pests. . . . AI dashboards and mobile apps help them see how pest populations grow over time and respond to different field conditions."

The project was part of Georgia's ongoing effort to train more farmers and students on how to integrate precision agriculture into their farming or pest management practices. According to The Conversation's report, "The same tools could help local governments manage mosquitoes and ticks and open up more agtech innovations." 

The rural journalism business model hasn’t failed, but it needs updating; a nonprofit cooperative option beckons

By Al Cross
Director Emeritus, Institute for Rural Journalism

It’s become conventional wisdom that the advertising-based business model of newspapers has failed. But that is not true in many small communities, which could become the nuclei of a national enterprise of nonprofit newsrooms that will provide better journalism with sound business practices, including economies of scale.

So says Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of the National Trust For Local News, who recently announced the creation of a third state-based nonprofit journalism company, in Georgia, adding to those it has in Colorado (24 newspapers) and Maine (22), and says “wild success” would be a total of 15 such companies in the next five years.

Shapiro was interviewed on the Nov. 1 edition of the “Local News Matters” podcast of Tim Regan-Porter, executive director of the Colorado Press Association. When he asked her a question that many journalism funders and advocates ask, “Why save a failing business model?” she said the question is based on “high-profile failings of metro newspapers,” which aren’t reflected in the smaller papers the Trust owns or is considering buying.

Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro

“We have profitable papers in our portfolio and we come across profitable papers every day!” she exclaimed. “This idea that the business model is forever and always broken just reflects a real lack of curiosity, and I would say empirics, on the part of its adherents.”

That sort of language reflects Shapiro’s background as an academic researcher of journalism, with a Harvard Ph.D. in business studies, but she has developed a deep appreciation of small community newspapers, and she has become one of their most knowledgeable and articulate advocates.

“Because I was not trained as a journalist and didn’t come through that system, I didn’t come to this work with, you know, sort of hierarchy in my mind of metro news above all,” she said. “Plenty of funders also share that orientation, of like, metro news is sort of the highest level of news and the rest of it is sort of service journalism or amateur hour, basically. . . .

“I see it as actually the highest form of local news, because I think it actually reflects what truly local means, and the way that I think everyday people experience what ‘local’ means . . . local as in, ‘I live in this neighborhood’ or ‘I live in this town.’”

Shapiro is trying to make a distinction that badly needs making, at a time when local news is in trouble and a lot of people who want to help it don’t fully understand that “local” depends on how the audience of a news outlet defines its community.

She told Regan-Porter that the fracturing and diversification of business models “based on place and economic inequalities between geographies” – primarily rural and urban – means that “there really is no one-size-fits all,” and “There’s gonna have to be different solution sets for different scales.”

There are many differences among localities, she said, and many rural communities still have many independent retailers who advertise in local papers; but overall, the rural-paper business model must also include subscriptions, events, donations and “anything you can get.”

On a company scale, the Trust’s state-based approach is not fundamentally different from newspaper chains that use economies of scale and shared services, but Shapiro said it wants to preserve newspapers’ local identities, which she said is essential for long-term success.

“These are deeply local institutions, and their value and their long-term success depends on that: the quality of local participation and local engagement,” she said.

That requires a quality product, and the Trust’s chief portfolio officer, Ross McDuffie, said recently that it has “quality local news as the North Star of decision-making,” not “profits or shareholder value.”

Of course, the Trust’s companies must stay in the black, but they have “longer time horizons,” Shapiro said, with the top goal being community impact, not profit.

“The path to impact has to be through disciplined management of the business, because without money you have no mission,” she told Regan-Porter, who then cited the maxim that nonprofit is not a business model, it’s a tax status.

For-profit chains do short-term things that reduce the quality of reader experience, Shapiro said: “We are long-term investors in the quality of the product, and a quality product and an engaged audience are the drivers of long-term success.”

One cornerstone of quality is accountability journalism, but that’s not the main reason people like their local paper, Shapiro said: “Our model focuses on strong communities and social cohesion.”

The Trust says its mission is to conserve, transform and sustain community news organizations, and ultimately build stronger communities by keeping small, traditional sources of local news in local hands.

Shapiro said the Trust is willing to buy papers that would have difficulty surviving on their own but “wouldn’t be replaceable by something else” and can thrive in a nonprofit group. She said the Trust’s goal is “sustainability across a network so that we can serve larger communities and smaller communities.”

Shapiro said the Trust is still figuring out how to integrate the operations of its Maine papers, which it bought in August, and in other states wants to find publishers who can make strong anchors in a scaling-up strategy. “The good news is, we hear from those kind of folks every day,” she said.

The bad news, she said, is that time is short.

“Rural news publishers, in particular independent rural news publishers, are at risk of extinction, either getting bought by political forces or just closing because of really difficult economics in small places,” she said. “I think we are really in a race against time.”

Al Cross edited and managed rural newspapers before covering politics for the Louisville Courier Journal and serving as president of the Society of Professional Journalists. This is his latest column for Publishers' Auxiliary, the monthly newspaper of the National Newspaper Association.

Feds say Ga. can't drug-test food stamp recipients

Some states, including Georgia, have tried to require recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families—commonly called welfare—to submit to drug tests, but Georgia is the only state trying to force some food-stamp recipients to take such tests, Craig Schneider reports for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A new law would allow state workers—when they're reasonably suspicious—to require certain food-stamp recipients to be tested for drug use.

The measure is scheduled to become law July 1, but last week federal officials told the state it cannot require drug tests for food-stamp applicants and recipients. The U.S. Department of Agriculture policy "prohibits the states from mandating drug testing of applicants and recipients," according to a letter from Robin D. Bailey, regional administrator of USDA's Food and Nutrition Service. (Read more)

100+ arrests made in Appalachian poaching sting

http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/2013/02/25/11

Is a Farm Bill fight brewing in the House over conservation's link to crop insurance?

Looks like not everybody is happy with Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who last week got an amendment attached to the Senate version of the Farm Bill which linked federal crop insurance to conservation compliance. Groups such as the Environmental Working Group hailed the Georgia lawmaker at the time on the unlikely win which surprised even Senate insiders. Commodity-group leaders and members of the crop-insurance industry seemed stunned by the 52-47 vote, Agri-Pulse reports this morning. Already work has begun to overturn the move when the Farm Bill gets marked up in the House next month. (Edupix.com photo)

“The National Corn Growers Association is very disappointed to see passage of Senator Saxby Chambliss’ conservation compliance for crop insurance amendment in the 2012 Farm Bill,” said NCGA President Garry Niemeyer. “Our members feel this addition to the farm bill would have a negative impact toward America¹s farmers.” Agri-Pulse explains: If the provision is included in the final bill, producers who participate in most federal agricultural programs or the crop insurance program will be required to implement soil conservation plans on highly erodible cropland and refrain from draining wetlands for agricultural production.

Ferd Hoefner, with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, expects the House to allow the linkage to continue in its version of the bill. “The vast majority of producers have played by this set of rules for a long time." Even former National Resource Conservation Service Chief Bruce Knight, who previously worked as a lobbyist for NCGA, told Agri-Pulse that he thinks there will likely be little impact on 98 percent of America's farms, suggesting that "those who want to drain wetlands in the Northern Plains and perhaps some vineyards on steep hills in the Western U.S. could face the most significant changes if this provision makes its way into the final bill."

Agri-Pulse is a subscription-only weekly newsletter, but it offers a four-week trial subscription.

Ga. legislature holds first 'Rural Black Family Day'

The Georgia legislature is inaugurating an effort to increase "black participation in agriculture and other professions in rural areas," reports Maggie Lee for the Macon Telegraph. The first Rural Black Family Day at the Capitol will be held Tuesday, Feb. 22. Rep. Al Williams said legislators will push for more professional schools at historically black colleges and universities, including a doctorate in veterinary medicine at Fort Valley State University, a law school at Albany State University and a graduate teaching school at Savannah State University.

Sen. Robert Brown of Macon, said public school education also needed improvement. "There are too many people who are literally stuck in rural Georgia because they have been under-prepared by the education system. ... If they do come to Atlanta, they go directly to becoming almost a permanent economic underclass." (Read more)

Rural Ga. schools wonder if they have the money to meet new standards for math, English, science

New graduation standards may hit rural Georgia schools particularly hard, say rural school officials. School officials in several middle Georgia counties told Andrea Castillo of The Macon Telegraph one challenge for rural schools is a smaller tax base, limiting the academic and cultural resources the schools can offer. Georgia has the third-highest rural student population in the country, Castillo reports, citing information from a Rural School and Community Trust report we noted in November. More than 500,000 Georgia students attend rural schools and account for more than a third of the state’s student population.

Starting with current sophomores, all Georgia high schoolers will need to complete four years of math, English and science courses, Castillo notes. Previously, students could choose between a college preparatory or a technology/career preparatory diploma with varying course requirements. Trey Seagraves, assistant superintendent in Crawford County, worries the new requirements will cause iyts already low graduation rate to drop even lower.


"A lot of times when you have a high poverty rate and the community is economically disadvantaged, parents may not have resources to prepare students for school," Seagraves told Castillo. "I don’t think it’s a matter of not wanting to, it’s not being able to." Still other educators explained that rural school districts provide their own advantages. "You know the children. You see the families, even if you don’t see them in the school," Lawanda Gillis, director of curriculum and instruction and Title I director in Dodge County, told Castillo. "You see them in the grocery store or church. You don’t have that in larger towns." (Read more)

Whitt, 'redneck journalist' who won Pulitzer, dies

Private funeral services will be held Friday evening in Marietta, Ga., for retired investigative reporter Richard Whitt, who died of an apparent heart attack at his home Monday. Whitt retired from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2006; from 1977 to 1989 he was a reporter for The Courier-Journal of Louisville, where he won the Pulitzer Prize for general local reporting on a Kentucky fire that killed 165 people and prompted changes in safety laws. Earlier, he worked at papers in Middlesboro, Ky.; Waterloo, Iowa; and Kingsport, Tenn.

Whitt liked to say that he practiced "redneck journalism." His typical explanation for that was, "It’s the kind of journalism that when you read the paper in the morning you say, ‘Damn, that makes me mad,’ and it makes your neck red. That motivates people to do things.” But it also reflected his poor, rural upbringing, to which he remained connected. And it had another double meaning, that journalism was also for rednecks -- for those who wanted to practice it, and those who can be served by it. He was driven by a sense of social justice for the working class from whence he came, but never saw himself as a crusader and always wanted to enjoy his work. He was a reporter’s reporter, our friend, and a great example to rural journalists who aspire to the top of the craft.

An open house will be held at Whitt's home, 1000 Waverly Court in Marietta, from 2 to 8 p.m. Saturday. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Richard Whitt Memorial Fund for Rural Journalists at the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications. For more on that and Rich Whitt, click here.

UPDATE: Whitt's family held a private memorial service Sept. 19 to bury his ashes at the family homeplace, reports Mike James of The Independent in Ashland.

Parched Georgia wants to tap into Tennessee River by correcting error in states' boundary

Georgia, withering from drought, wants to correct a 190-year-old mistake and move its border with Tennessee a mile north so it can freely draw water from Nickajack Lake. A Georgia legislative committee approved a bill this week calling for creation of a boundary line commission, but officials in Tennessee scoffed at the idea, reports the Chattanooga Times Free Press: "They have criticized the effort as a veiled attempt by a thirsty Atlanta, unwilling to control reckless sprawl, to get access to the bountiful Tennessee River," which the Tennessee Valley Authority impounded to create the lake in the 1930s.

Georgia state Sen. David Shafer, R-Duluth, "said he believes resolution of the border issue will open the way to discussions about water sharing," the Times Free Press said in a staff report this week. Last fall, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen "said he has no interest in seeing Tennessee River water diverted to relieve drought-parched metro Atlanta and northern Florida," wrote TFP Nashville reporter Andy Sher. "I would have a real problem ... with a wholesale transfer of water out of the Tennessee watershed into Florida," Bredesen told him. "I just think it's one of the very important natural resources that we have in Tennessee, and (we) should be very, very cautious about allowing it to be degraded in any way." (Read more)

Atlanta's situation became more dire this month, with a federal appeals-court decision "curtailing Georgia's access to Lake Lanier – metro Atlanta's primary water source — in the future," wrote Dan Chapman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The suit was filed by interests downstream on the Chattahoochee River, as far as Florida.

The border between Georgia and Tennessee is supposed to be 35 degrees north latitude, the horizontal gray line on this Encarta map, centered on the aptly named (from Georgia's viewpoint) community of New Hope, Tenn. The shallows of Nickajack Lake are tantalizingly close to the northern border of Georgia -- about 150 feet, by our reckoning of a satellite photo. A major water intake would probably require deeper water, but no more than 1,000 feet north of the border. The Journal-Constitution used this satellite photo and red lines to show its somewhat different concept of the current and proposed border.

Seems to us there are other ways to solve the problem than moving a long-established border. In another story, Chapman said a 2004 TVA study found "Metro Atlanta could receive 264 million gallons a day — triple the average amount used daily by the city of Atlanta last December — with minimal impact on the river."

C. Bart Crattie, a surveyor who lives on the Georgia part of Lookout Mountain, told Pam Sohn of the Times Free Press that most of Tennessee's borders were incorrectly drawn to the state's advantage. “Tennessee made out like a bandit on all of its surveys,” he said. “On the Kentucky line, it’s off in some places by as much as 9 miles in Tennessee’s favor.” (Read more) The two states settled that error in the 1830s by allowing Kentucky to make land grants in the slice of Tennessee that should have been in Kentucky.

Georgia murder case highlights threadbare, varied systems of funding for public defenders

In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright held that indigent defendants must be provided free legal counsel. Since then, many states have struggled to create comprehensive systems for funding lawyers for the poor. In Georgia, the murder case of Brian Nichols, who sparked a widely reported Atlanta manhunt after his violent escape from court during his rape trial in 2005, has drained the state's fund for indigent defendants and placed other defenses in jeopardy, reports Jeffrey Toobin for The New Yorker. The case has implications for rural areas, where public-defender systems are often threadbare. Toobin writes:

The Nichols case illustrates a troubling paradox in death-penalty jurisprudence: the more heinous a crime—and the more incontrovertible the evidence of a defendant’s guilt—the greater the cost of the defense may be. Death-penalty trials require juries not only to determine whether the defendant is guilty but also to make other complex moral judgments—why a defendant committed a crime, whether he is likely to do so again, what punishment fits the crime. Defendants are entitled to often costly expert assistance, including the services of psychiatrists, as they prepare their cases. Yet spending large sums of public money on the defense of capital cases is politically incendiary, and in Georgia the consequences may be cataclysmic.

In 2003, the state created the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council to oversee the assignment of attorneys to poor defendants, but the Nichols case is testing the system. Nichols' defense team has racked up a bill of more than $1 million, partly because attorneys had to be hired from North Carolina; defense attorneys in the Atlanta area claimed they were too close to one of the victims, a judge. The bill has left many Georgians asking question: What is the cost of a fair defense? Toobin quotes Steve Bright, senior counsel for the Southern Center for Human Rights: "The question now is whether the whole thing is going to come crashing down. . . . Georgia has 159 counties, and each one has a different system of hiring lawyers for the poor." Toobin reports, "In November, a judge in a murder case in rural Pike County removed two private attorneys because the council could no longer afford to pay them."

In many places, the question of legal defense for indigent defendants is determined on a court-by-court or case-by-case basis. States such as Florida, Oklahoma and South Carolina have placed caps on legal fees, but fees to expert witnesses still send the average cost above six figures. The financial problems have delayed the Nichols case for months now, and the end is nowhere in sight. Toobin's account is worth a look, and it could inspire additional reporting on this subject. (Read more)

Toobin's story has had a big impact on the case — Judge Hilton M. Fuller, left, removed himself after being quoted in the article, reports Shaila Dewan of The New York Times. In discussing the defendant, Toobin quotes Fuller as saying, "Everyone in the world knows he did it." Fuller had halted the case when there were no funds to pay for Nichols' defense. "Prosecutors, politicians and even fellow judges have railed at Judge Fuller over the delay," Dewan writes. "Judge Fuller stood firm, saying it was pointless to try a case without meeting constitutional standards for an adequate defense." (Read more) For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's story about Fuller's recusal, by Beth Warren, click here. (Photo by Pouya Dianat, AJC)

As Clinton focuses on getting rural support, some of Edwards's rural lieutenants come out for Obama

Now that he is out of the presidential race, former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina isn't saying whether he favors New York Sen. Hillary Clinton or Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, but his most prominent rural spokesmen are already campaigning for Obama.

"Being a Southerner, being a rural American who's been completely devastated by the trade policies of the Clintons, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that he does not endorse Hillary Clinton," Edwards' chief rural strategist, David "Mudcat" Saunders of Virginia, left, told Norah O'Donnell MSNBC, as first blogged and transcribed in The Politico by Ben Smith.

Kevin Merida of The Washington Post picked up on that today, quoting Saunders as saying, "Hillary Clinton has about as much chance of beating John McCain as this Scots-Irish hillbilly has of becoming pope." Merida also got hold of former U.S. Rep. Ben Jones of Georgia, who played Cooter on "The Dukes of Hazzard" and campaigned with Edwards. Jones told Merida, "I've already enlisted in the Barack Obama campaign. The fight goes on. It's about the past and the future, and I'm with the future. I think the Clintons are the past." (Read more)

Beyond such prominent folks, though, Edwards's supporters are likely to scatter, Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, told Peter Wallsten of the Los Angeles Times. "The Edwards base will feel 'cross-pressured,' Kohut said, with men more likely to support Obama and other lower-income voters probably moving to Clinton." Wallsten notes that despite Edwards' anti-poverty message, he "drew votes from an economically diverse bloc, mostly white men, who were just as likely to be rich as they were to be poor." (Read more)

In a non-bylined "Notes" column, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Clinton met privately with state House Minority Leader DuBose Porter, "who only last Sunday was hosting his candidate of choice, John Edwards. Now Edwards is gone. And Porter had a personal, face-to-face appointment with Hillary Clinton after her speech this evening. . . . But he said he would give any decision at least a few days, out of respect for Edwards."

Porter is publisher of The Herald Courier in Dublin, which editorialized this week about Edwards' weekend visit to Laurens County: "Many Sunday may stand on the opposite side from Edwards on the issues, but they wanted to become informed citizens first and foremost. . . . This country would be so much stronger and wiser if all citizens had the opportunity to meet political candidates up close as Laurens County did Sunday. But, that is a pipe dream. However, there is still no reason, in this age of technology, that the citizenry cannot be enlightened about a candidate." (Read more) But it's important to remember that many weekly newspaper readers don't read a newspaper daily, and that most of the television coverage about the race is superficial. So all news media need to pay attention and inform the voters.

Ga. schools pass up chance to offer Bible classes

Almost two years after the Georgia legislature allowed public high schools to offer Bible classes, "The idea hasn't caught on," at least in Middle Georgia, which is "smack dab in the Bible Belt," writes Julie Hubbard of The Telegraph in Macon.

"At least 10 Middle Georgia school systems said they do not offer a Bible course in their high schools, nor do they have plans to," Hubbard writes. "The costs for materials, scheduling conflicts and possible legal implications are reasons." The state school board required any such class to be "taught by a teacher who is objective and would not pass on any religious judgment to students. For some school systems, managing the course and finding an unbiased teacher wouldn't be easy."

Hubbard says more reporting is required: "Finding exactly how many school of 180 systems in the state are teaching Bible courses this school year is hard to determine. State officials say they won't know how many systems are offering the courses until June, when student records -- which show what classes students are taking -- are sent to the state." (Read more)

Drought continues in Southeast, and rural areas' private wells feel the strain

As extreme drought conditions persist in the Southeast, predictions of a dry winter present a grim forecast for parts of Alabama, the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. Little of the reporting about the problem has mentioned private water supplies, but the drought is putting heavy pressure on wells around Charlotte, N.C., which suffered through its driest summer since 1948, reports The Charlotte Observer.

The biggest problem is with old-fashioned, shallow wells. "Commonly known as 2-inch wells, these typically consist of a 2-inch pipe that goes less than 100 feet down -- about one-third the depth of modern wells," Mark Price reports for the Observer. "Most were drilled prior to the '60s, and they are the least productive and most vulnerable to groundwater changes."

Now, homeowners who depend on those wells are hoping for rain but preparing for the worst. When those wells go dry, homeowners must drill new, deeper wells, Price reports. Homeowners whose wells still work are taking precautions to curb water use in hopes of squeezing more time out of those wells. That includes adding "flow restrictors on faucets" and enforcing "strict rules against car washing, lawn watering and lazy showers," Price writes. (Read more)

According to the latest projections from the National Weather Service, the drought conditions likely will continue in Alabama, the Carolinas and Georgia, but should improve elsewhere over the next few months. The NWS has created the Drought Information Center, which has up-to-date conditions and seasonal outlooks. In the last few hours, Chattanooga, Tenn., has received more than 2 inches of rain, while Rome, Ga., has receive 1 inch, The Weather Channel reports. More rain is predicted for Alabama and Georgia, but it is not expected to offer much relief.

Drawn by scenic horse farms, Ga. homebuyers discover the true sights and smells of rural living

The postcard-like beauty of horse farms in rural Milton, Georgia, has lured many new residents to the area in Fulton County north of Atlanta. They have built expensive new homes in this rural setting, but upon moving in, some were surprised to learn horse farms are still farms, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The town of 20,000 has about 90 percent of its land zoned for agriculture; at the same time, the average price a home is more than $800,000, reports Doug Nurse. "As city officials are finding out, some Milton residents are more enamored with the visual aspects of a rural environment than with the inevitable byproducts," he writes. Farm such as Yellow House Farm may look perfect (in an AJC photo by Phil Skinner) but they still produce smells and sounds new residents find less than appealing.

The growth in Milton has put farmers and the new residents at odds, especially since the agriculture zoning "allows a wide variety of uses that doesn't fit the increasingly suburban nature of Milton, such as chicken farms, pig farms, kennels and horses," Nurse writes. Recent conflicts include the fight between one homeowner and a neighboring farm's horse arena. In response, the city is set to begin its first comprehensive plan which may change much of the zoning to residential. (Read more)

Construction begins on Georgia cellulosic ethanol plant that will use pine waste as feedstock

Construction has begun in Georgia on the nation's first commercial plant to make cellulosic ethanol from pine-tree waste. On Tuesday in Soperton, Ga., about 100 miles west of Savannah, construction on the Range Fuels' plant officially started, reports Vicky Eckenrode of the Morris News Service.

While most of the research in cellulosic ethanol has focused on corn-based production, this plant will use "stubby pine trees and branches not used by Georgia's forestry industry to provide the feedstock," Eckenrode writes.

When the first phase of construction is finished in about a year, the plant expects to produce about 20 million gallons of ethanol annually, with hopes to increase that total to 100 million gallons annually eventually. The Colorad0-based Range Fuels received a $76 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for the plant, with $50 million going toward the initial construction and the rest for expansions in the future. (Read more)

Georgia newspaper's series highlights prescription drug abuse, a rural scourge

The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer in Georgia is running an impressive series on the issue of prescription drug abuse, a scourge in many parts of rural America. It ranges from additiction to teenagers (illustrated by the photo of a "trail mix" party bowl of drugs) to that of pharmacists and physicians.

The 44,000-circulation daily began the series on Sunday with a story called "Shackled" that offers both local and national perspective. Reporters Larry Geirer and Brad Barnes write that three in 100 Americans are addicted to prescription drugs and that "48 million people in the United States -- some 20 percent of the population -- have used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse." This well-reported story goes on to explore responses to the issue in Columbus and elsewhere.

In an accompanying story, Gierer writes that the addiction is a problem among those who prescribe the drugs: "The American Medical Association estimates that 10-15 percent of doctors and pharmacists suffer from prescription drug addiction. By comparison, less than 5 percent of U.S. residents use a painkiller nonmedically in a year, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration."

In another story, Gierer examines drug abuse by teenagers, some of whom throw "trail mix parties" during which they dump pills into bowls and then take whatever they fish out. The series is definitely worth a look, because it is a great example of blending statistics with anecdotal examples.

Rural school enrollment up 15 percent last year, with a 55 percent jump in minority students

Enrollment in rural schools is up 15 percent since last year, and minority enrollment is up 55 percent, says the latest report from the Rural School and Community Trust. The jump in enrollment reverses year-by-year trends, yet rural schools, specifically in the South, continue to receive less funding per pupil.

The report also highlights what it calls the "priority states where rural schools produce the worst student achievement outcomes." The report, called "Why Rural Matters 2007: The Realities of Rural Education Growth," was written by Jerry Johnson, the trust's policy research and analysis manager, and Marty Strange, the trust's policy director.

The report ranked states according to 23 factors in five gauges: importance of rural education, socioeconomic challenges, student diversity, policy context and educational outcomes. Based on that, the report found 13 priority states that rank low across these factors: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. These states "serve student populations with the severest socio-economic challenges — especially high poverty levels — and they operate with less money than rural schools in other states," the report says.

The lack of funding and a rise in English Language Learner students, who require more teaching resources, have made difficult situations worse. The report concludes that in those priority states, "poverty, fiscal incapacity, low levels of adult education, and low levels of student achievement run in the same mutually reinforcing circles in states in these regions, many of which are as fiscally challenged as their citizens and schools."

Not surprisingly, one of the report's policy recommendations is a priority for the trust: "Keep schools small. Research shows there are academic benefits for students attending small schools in small districts." Other recommendations:

• Keep schools small. Concentrate resources in high poverty areas. The cost of teaching low-income children rises disproportionately as the poverty rate increases; more student support per pupil in schools with high poverty rates is needed.
• Maximize rural school effectiveness and efficiency with technology. Distance learning has been proven to be effective in meeting needs of rural communities.

To download the full report, go here. (Free subscription required.) To read the report overview, see summaries and compare state-by-state results on a clickable map, go here.

Shortage of paramedics, EMTs slows response to rural emergency calls in Georgia

The shortage of health professionals in rural America often includes emergency medical technicians and paramedics, and that means emergency situations can become even more critical in many rural areas.

In Georgia, a statewide shortage of emergency medical workers has hit rural counties the hardest, reports the Athens Banner-Herald. From 2005 to 2006, the number of licensed emergency medical workers dropped by 5 percent.

James Matthews, the head of emergency medical services in Oglethorpe, had to cut short an interview with reporter Lee Shearer because a call came in and he had to hop in the ambulance to lend a hand. "As director, I shouldn't have to get on a truck," he told Shearer. "But plenty of mornings (when someone calls in sick), I can't find anybody." There even have been times when Matthews has received a call and did not have a crew to respond. He has managed to find nearby county answer the call, but he said, "It's been close, though."

Ernie Doss, public safety director for Lincoln County, said he had found that about one-third of the medic positions were not filled in his county and the 12 surrounding it. Doss said some days he doesn't even have a paramedic on duty. "What that means is, if we had a patient that needs emergency medication, we can't give it on the scene," he said. "It's a delay in advanced life support." (Read more)

To read a Department of Health and Human Services study on emergency services in rural areas, go here. The 2006 study examines the role volunteers play in rural areas and suggested some models for success, such as blending services and sharing them among agencies.

Sigma Delta Chi Awards have rural connections, including cartoonist -- and publisher who sees provocative editorial page as circulation booster

There were several winners with rural connections at last night's Sigma Delta Chi awards banquet at the National Press Club in Washington, but none so rural as Mike Lester of the Rome News-Tribune in Georgia, circulation 18,500, who won the for editorial cartooning in 2006. Few papers with circulation under 20,000 have editorial cartoonists, a point noted by the judges, who said, "We applaud the Rome News-Tribune, a small newspaper, for having a full-time editorial cartoonist on staff."

Publisher Burgett Mooney III said in an interview that he wanted a cartoonist because he sees a "provocative" editorial page as a way to build and maintain circulation. "It gives us a place to really drive people to the newspaper," he said. Lester has been cartooning for the paper for five years. He was living in Rome and doing cartoons for an online news service until the dot-com bubble burst, then Mooney recruited him.

Lester tackles local, state, national and international topics, but said in an interview that he tries to make two of five cartoons a week have some local connection, often through a setting that is not identified but that local will recognize as a locale in the town of 35,000. Lester is generally conservative, but has an independent streak. The newspaper "tends to be what is considered conservative on economic matters and liberal on social issues," said the editorial-page editor, Pierre-Rene Noth.

The News-Tribune is part of News Publishing Co., which also publishes seven weeklies in northwest Georgia and Cherokee County, Alabama. The Sigma Delta Chi Awards were established in 1932 by the organization now known as the Society of Professional Journalists. The current program began in 1939, when Sigma Delta Chi presented its first Distinguished Service Awards. When Sigma Delta Chi changed its name to SPJ in the 1980s, the original name was retained for the awards and SPJ's foundation. Its board includes Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Several awards were handed out last night for coverage of rural issues by urban media. Marx Arax of the Los Angeles Times won in the magazine-writing category for a series of stories on a California raisin picker. Todd Melby and Duane Richard of Chicago Public Radio won in radio documentary for "Flatlined: How Illinois Shortchanges Rural Students." Two awards were given for coverage of the Sago Mine disaster: to NBC Nightly News, for breaking news coverage on TV, and Mine Safety and Health News, for public service in newsletter journalism. For a complete list of this year's and past winners, click here.

Savannah Morning News is latest metro paper to curtail circulation in outlying counties

Another metropolitan newspaper is reducing the size of its circulation area, continuing a trend that can put more pressure on rural news outlets to cover the issues and hold local officials accountable. The Savannah Morning News announced today that it is "discontinuing home delivery along with store and rack deliveries to 17 outlying counties and portions of three others," the paper reports. "Under the plan, 95 percent of the newspaper's circulation will be within a 60-mile radius" of Georgia's main coastal city. (Map from MSN Encarta)

"Market conditions, rising fuel prices, additional taxes, postal rate increases and advertiser pressures have combined to affect newspaper distribution costs and have forced the Savannah Morning News, like many other newspapers, to reconsider its delivery processes," Morning News reporter Christian Livermore writes. He quotes Publisher Julian Miller: "Right now, we're delivering out about 120 miles - places where we have just a few subscribers and single-copy customers. With the cost of gasoline, labor, paper, trucking, everything has combined to make it impossible to recoup your investment that far out."

While many counties are affected, the change affects relatively little of the paper's circulation of 52,000. "About 1,025 subscribers are in the affected area," Livermore writes. "The Morning News will continue to distribute in 14 counties, including Chatham, Bryan, Effingham and Liberty counties in Georgia and Beaufort and Jasper counties in South Carolina." The story notes that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution "cut Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and parts of Georgia from its circulation territory" this year. (Read more)