Fire departments can't get trucks or truck repair parts because the industry has consolidated to make big profits

Fire departments can wait years for a new fire truck.
(Adobe Stock photo)

Firefighters and fire trucks are the backbone of fire protection in most communities, but over time, keeping fire trucks repaired or buying replacements has become increasingly difficult. "Fire engine manufacturing is now largely controlled by three companies," report Mike Baker, Maureen Farrell and Serge F. Kovaleski of The Wall Street Journal. "Some departments have waited years for replacement vehicles while hunting the internet for parts to keep their older rigs going."

Wall Street executives sought to eliminate competition among fire truck makers "in a plan to boost profits from fire engine sales," the Journal reports. "One company, backed by a private equity firm, cut its own manufacturing lines as part of a streamlining strategy and then saw a backlog of fire engine orders soar into billions of dollars."

Edward Kelly, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said the pandemic caused production delays, but it isn't the main problem. He told the Journal: "In hindsight, it was masking what ends up being a main driver of higher cost and lag time in production: the monopolizing of fire truck and ambulance manufacturing in the United States. . . . Absent competition, monopoly capitalism is a shakedown.”

With no new competitors in sight, U.S. fire departments have no choice but to order from the three big companies that still make trucks. One of those companies, Rev Group "has created a more standardized vehicle that can be made in less than a year," the Journal reports. "If more fire departments choose this standardized model, said Mike Virnig, a Rev Group executive, it is likely that overall wait times will drop."

Yelloh, once known as Schwan's Home Delivery, closes due to 'insurmountable business challenges'

Yelloh started out as Schwan’s home delivery business
in 1952. (Yelloh photo via Twin Cities Business)

After years of decline, the frozen food delivery icon formerly called Schwan's closed its doors after 72 years of service. The company's direct-to-consumer delivery model increased its popularity among rural communities, where its signature yellow trucks became synonymous with good people and food. "At its peak, the company delivered meals and ice cream across 48 states," reports Aimee Ortiz of The New York Times. "But critics and experts said the company became frozen in time, ceding ground to competitors and modernity."

The company's setbacks began in the late 1980s, "with fewer people home as drivers came, the relationships between drivers and customers that had been built over decades began to diminish," Ortiz explains. "Then came membership stores like Costco, which could compete on frozen food price and quality, and on top of that regulatory changes added restrictions to their truck operations."

In 2019, Schwan's sold a group of its frozen food grocery store brands in a deal that forced the company to relinquish the "Schwan's" name and suppliers. The company renamed its service "Yelloh," but many loyal consumers were put off by the new name. "The 2022 rebranding was a failure on multiple levels, said Ken Moskowitz, who is the founder of Ad Zombies and has been a marketer for 40 years," Ortiz reports. "By changing the company’s name, decision-makers 'threw away all that history,' Mr. Moskowtiz said."

The loss of Yelloh's food suppliers also cut into its customer base. "The home delivery service carried Schwan’s items until early 2024, but soon enough customers lost access to many of their favorite entrees, snacks and desserts, including the Schwan’s ice cream that had made the company famous," Ortiz explains. Ed Johnson, a retail and consumer products expert, said "that he could not speak directly to what exactly caused Yelloh’s demise, but that it’s 'very hard to sustain that business in a world where there’s more choice.'"

Yelloh released a statement that explained the closure was due to “'multiple insurmountable business challenges,” including “economic and market forces, as well as changing consumer lifestyles,'” Ortiz reports. "The closure means that about 1,100 people across 13 states are out of a job."

An Ohio county with big Amish community is becoming an economic hub. Economists say the model can be replicated.

Horse-drawn buggy in rural Holmes
County (Wikipedia photo)

Hard work, generosity and 'extreme networking,' are a few of the reasons the Amish community in Holmes County, Ohio, is thriving. The group's unique ways of supporting new businesses can serve as a model for other places looking to bolster economic mobility, reports Scott Calvert of The Wall Street Journal. "Between 2005 and 2019, average household income in Holmes County rose 24% for 27-year-olds raised in lower-income homes."

By some measures, Holmes should be struggling, but instead, it's becoming an economic hub. "Economists and local business leaders believe much of the progress stems from entrepreneurial growth fueled by cooperation and innovation, all buttressed by tight family and community ties," Calvert explains. "Mark Partridge, an Ohio State University economist who has studied Holmes County, points to an 'extreme networking effect,' where companies — and cousins — routinely help each other out."

Location of Holmes County
in Ohio (Wikipedia photo)

Experts point out that being Amish isn't necessary to replicate what's going on in Holmes County. Partridge told Calvert, "You can have a tight social network with effective social organizations, chambers of commerce, business organizations, and other kind of nonprofits.” Calvert reports, "While rural areas are often hampered by young talent moving away for better job opportunities, many Holmes County natives remain, held in part by the Amish tradition of staying near one’s community."

Sharing -- even with business competitors -- is a key ingredient in this community's success. Calvert writes, "Steve Miller, 31, started Grand Design Roofing in his 20s with a partner. Their Covid-era boom is over, he said, but business is still robust enough to sometimes overextend him and his six workers." Miller told Calvert, "If we’ve got plenty of jobs, I just go to my competitor and I give him a couple jobs. . . . I’m here so my employees can make a good, honest living. . . . I’m not here to collect all the wealth I can absolutely collect.”

Modernizing the U.S. Postal Service is a huge undertaking; troubles at new processing center highlights the obstacles

The U.S. Postal service was once focused on moving
flat letters vs. packages. (Adobe Stock photo)

The opening of a new U.S. Postal Service mail and package-processing center near Atlanta exemplifies how difficult it will be to modernize the national carriers' network and delivery services. "Signs of trouble appeared days after the opening," reports Ester Fung of The Wall Street Journal. "Packages piled up on conveyor belts. . . .Trucks lined up for hours outside waiting for space at the loading docks."

Appointed Postmaster Louis DeJoy has said the work is "'simple stuff,' but union leaders are pushing against a rush to implement plans, insufficient training and poor management from inexperienced supervisors," Fung explains. "Employees said the new sorting machines were overwhelmed by the volume of mail and packages. . . . Dozens of workers didn't show up, saying work reassignments went against longstanding job-bidding processes established in collective-bargaining agreements."

Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal Service has lost money in 16 out of the past 17 years. DeJoy's overarching $40 billion plan is to update processing centers, cut costs and gain a greater market share of package shipping to turn profits. Executing those changes has been a rough route. Fung reports, "It is overhauling its vast network of sorting centers and truck routes that had long been focused on moving flat letters. [The plan] includes outfitting sorting centers with new equipment, purchasing electric vehicles to replace aging trucks, and consolidating processes and facilities."

Internal restrictions often prevent the Postal Service from recovering losses compared to its competitors, which can change prices to meet their costs. The Postal Regulatory Commission "limits what the Postal Service can charge customers," Fung reports. The Postal Service is also burdened with "a costly mandate to deliver to every address." Carriers such as FedEx and the United Parcel Service don't face those obstacles to profitability.

Because of the 2024 elections, the Postal Service is under increasing pressure to prove it can efficiently and consistently deliver mail on time. "It has to ensure it can handle mail-in ballots for coming elections as well as negotiations for new contracts with several labor unions," Fung writes. "The Postal Service currently has around 640,000 workers and it wants more flexibility to reassign employees to other positions as it restructures its network." Union leaders are concerned too many changes will hurt customer service.

Larger retailers used their dominance to push suppliers and squeeze competitors during pandemic, FTC report shows

Larger retailers used the pandemic to 'come
out ahead.' (Photo by S. Lee, Unsplash)

American grocery prices remain usually high, and many smaller-scale grocers still struggle to recover from pandemic setbacks. A new Federal Trade Commission report sheds some light on how larger retailers used their power to push suppliers to deliver to them first, which caused more struggles for smaller competitors and may be partially to blame for why grocery costs have remained high even as overall inflation has cooled.

"Federal regulators said large grocery chains used their size and scale to keep shelves stocked during the pandemic, edging out smaller rivals when most stores struggled with product shortages and distribution bottlenecks," reports Liz Young of The Wall Street Journal. Many larger retailers put "stricter delivery requirements into place and fined vendors that didn't comply. . . The demands led many suppliers to route more goods toward those retailers to avoid the fines."

FTC Chair Lina Khan told the Journal, "Dominant firms used this moment to come out ahead at the expense of their competitors and the communities they serve." Young reports, "The agency said revenue growth at grocers outpaced the cost increases many of them faced from suppliers, suggesting that higher profits 'warrant further inquiry by the commission and policymakers.'"

While supply bottlenecks thwarted smaller grocers during the pandemic, "Some of the largest U.S. retailers, including Walmart, Home Depot, Costco and Target, chartered their own cargo ships in 2021 to import goods and get around the chokepoints," Young writes. "Small grocers say the pandemic exacerbated their longtime struggles to compete with bigger retailers." Robert Buche, chief executive of South Dakota grocery chain G.F. Buche, told Young, "Covid just made it more obvious what's been happening for years with us independents."

Philanthropy organizations can help rural companies fill skilled labor positions through internships, other programs

A student intern at KEITH in Madras, Oregon.
(KEITH courtesy photo via The Daily Yonder)

Over the past two decades, finding and retaining skilled manufacturing talent has become increasingly difficult. The challenges seen at KEITH Manufacturing Company in Madas, Oregon, are similar to other areas of the country where the sector can't find enough workers, reports Nick Flouriezos of The Daily Yonder. Mike Feigner, KEITH's plant manager, told him, "I've been doing this job since 2006, and it seems like you always have a labor problem. . . . We suck up a lot of that skilled labor that is a great fit for us quickly, and then we're trying to fit it with other people who maybe aren't looking for that long-term commitment to learning those skills."

If companies can't find long-term workers, retention and training soak up more company resources. "The company has no choice but to train and support homegrown talent if it wants to continue producing the self-unloading conveyor belt system that has become a staple in waste and recycling trucks worldwide," Flouriezos explains. "One thing that’s helped? A partnership with Oregon STEM and its Spark Oregon earn-and-learn initiative that helped pay for KEITH to employ four local high school interns for the summer."

Madras, pop. 7,500, is located in
Jefferson County, Ore. (Wikipedia map)

Earn-and-learn money "helped the students justify doing the internship when they could have been making more working full-time at the local McDonald's for the summer, Feigner says. Working three days a week for two months, the students were exposed to everything from welding and forklifts to assembly and engineering work with the R&D team," Flouriezos reports. At the end of the first internship, the company was able to hire one of the interns. Feigner told him, "I think this is exactly what the country needs. . . .Even if we get one student every two or three years that ends up being a direct-hire, I would call that a win."

What worked in Oregon exemplifies the ingenuity many philanthropy organizations use to address shortages. "Philanthropies with a technology focus or background have been particularly creative in funding education and workforce programs," Fouriezos adds. "That’s fitting, says Matt Dunne, executive director of the Center on Rural Innovation based in his hometown of Hartland, Vt." Dune told Fouriezos: “If you dig into it, a lot of it has to do with the economy and the impacts that a completely unequal recovery from the 2008 recession led to. And if you look at the driver of that divide, it really comes down to the winners and losers of the knowledge economy driven by technology."

At times, philanthropy can do what government or private funding cannot. Josh Elder, vice president and head of grant-making at The Siegel Family Endowment, told Fouriezos: "We embrace the idea that philanthropy should operate as society’s risk capital. . . . We want to be able to support early-stage things that others might not look at."

Ohio derailment and chemical burn 'upended' farm and rural life and businesses, and left big questions about future

Pam Mibuck is thinking about leaving her 14 acres.
(Photo by Brian Kaiser, The New York Times)

What is it like to return your home, your farm, your animals, wildlife and the creek, all perhaps chemically altered by a controlled burn of toxic liquids? The Norfolk Southern train derailment East Palestine, Ohio, "upended an area where generations of families could afford to buy acres of land, raise horses and plant gardens, hunt deer and birds, and build lives undisturbed by the chaos of bigger cities nearby," writes Emily Cochrane of The New York Times. "Although farming provides only a small number of jobs in the immediate area, many residents say that raising livestock and working the land are profoundly important to their way of life."

Farmer Pam Mibuck's land was blanketed by post-burn chemical film. "After the chemicals were released, Tina, the amiable white turkey that Milbuck bought less than a year ago for $3, was put on antibiotics for respiratory problems, and her chickens laid eggs with an unsettling purple hue," Cochrane writes. "Her son in California is urging her to move away, offering to build a barn on his land for her two horses, Samuel and Razor. Mibuck, who works as a custodian at a university, is seriously thinking about leaving the 14 acres that she considers a slice of heaven."

Despite state and federal assessments and testing, "Farmers determined to weather the unknown remain fearful about whether their customers will continue to trust their product," Cochrane reports. Greenhouse operators Dianna and Don Elzer "had predicted that this would be their first normal Valentine’s Day. Even when they were required to evacuate for a few days, driving to Pittsburgh, they came back daily to water and care for their plants — the palms, the herbs, the succulents — and returned as soon as they could. On Feb. 14, they had one customer: a man who bought a single red hibiscus tree. Mr. Elzer, 67, told Cochrane, “No one wants to come here. There’s no way to counterattack the publicity and perception.”

The explosion has permanently altered futures. "Michael McKim had a business dream he shared with his wife: an affordable destination winery in East Palestine. . . . The winery’s grand opening is still set for St. Patrick’s Day. . . .Yet the family business has been rattled by the derailment: Most of the bridal showers, wedding receptions and events scheduled for this year have canceled. Mr. McKim told Cochran, "It’s a tragedy. I could make the best wine in the United States, in the world, and someone could say, ‘Hey, isn’t that where the train derailed?’"

Last night on CNN, in a conversation with a few East Palestine residents, Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw pledged "apologized and vowed to make it right through proper cleanup and reimbursing residents," as well as helping rebuild the town's reputation.

Keeping farm-family relationships healthy takes shared values and 'expect that we’re going to be having problems'

Andy Junkin addresses the Pennsylvania Dairy Summit.
(Photo by Philip Gruber, Lancaster Farming)

Everybody's got problems, but not everyone has problems that include the trials of farming with family members. "The first step to overcoming conflict over the direction of the family farm is finding the points where everyone agrees," writes Philip Gruber of Lancaster Farming. Andy Junkin, who become a farm-succession mediator in 2010 after quitting his family's dairy farm, told Gruber, "We’ve got to stop being stubborn with each other, and we’ve got to start being stubborn with the habits that make a farm and a farm family successful."

Gruber reports, "Junkin’s approach to reconciliation is based on finding shared principles. A few of these values should be what made the farm successful and need to be maintained. . . . Junkin realized that many families were not really asking him to fix their problems. They were looking for permission to split up. Junkin told Gruber, “I don’t accept that because I know what it’s like not to get together with your family for Christmas."

In one case, "Junkin was called in to work with a son who expanded and took over his father’s hatchery. But while the father had worked tirelessly alongside his employees, the Ivy League-educated son stayed in the office, wrote out protocols, and berated employees who didn’t follow them," Gruber writes. "Junkin talked with the son and got him to understand why the workers respected his father but not him. The son signaled his change by getting a tattoo saying 'Earn respect daily,' and the farm has succeeded and grown in the years since."

Gruber cites a key principle: "Whatever tenets the family chooses, they need to be specific enough that everyone agrees on what they mean. Instead of a one-word goal like 'communication,' Junkin suggested 'the right hand knows what the left hand’s doing'. . . . When someone’s about to throw a punch, other family members won’t defuse the situation by saying the person needs to work on communication."

"Rooting decisions in shared values will help families work through tough financial times and enjoy working together," Gruber writes. Junkin told Gruber, "What we’ve got to be is realistic and expect that we’re going to be having problems. We’ve got to get really good at problem solving."

Rural businesses struggle with population losses and lack of qualified staffing, nonprofit's study finds

Rural small businesses continue to report more negative consequences from population loss and a shrinking market of skilled labor. "With rural America losing population, rural entrepreneurs (45.3%) are significantly more likely than non-rural entrepreneurs (25.5%) to say that population trends impact their business," reveals a newly released research study of rural businesses by Score, a nonprofit organization that fosters small businesses and started life as the Service Corps of Retired Executives. The research also showed that "rural businesses are hurting for workers: population shifts create challenges for small rural employers, over a third of which (35.9%) say there are few qualified workers in their area."

Rural Vermont and New Hampshire grapple with
staffing shortages. (Image fromThe Directory.Org)

In South Royalton, Vt., pop. 600, rural labor challenges have reduced the town's ability to provide school children's dental care. The town had been utilizing HealthHub, a non-profit mobile dental-hygiene clinic, but HealthHub had to reduce its care schedule due to staffing shortages, reports Nora Doyle-Burr of  the Valley News in West Lebanon, N.H., and White River Junction, Vt. HealthHub's president told Doyle-Burr, "HealthHub now has funds and equipment sufficient to double the dental care it was providing to school children in the White River Valley last year, but instead it has reduced the amount of care it is providing to just 20% of what it was last year." Doyle-Burr reports, "The mobile clinic’s full-time hygienist retired this summer and the nonprofit has been unable to find someone to replace her. As part of a planned expansion, the clinic also had hoped to hire a dentist or dental therapist to staff another mobile unit, as well as another mental health provider, but has so far been unable to do so."

Across the Connecticut River, "The Ammonoosuc Community Health Services dental clinic in Littleton, N.H., has closed due to staffing shortages," Doyle-Burr reports. "And the Mascoma Community Health Center in Canaan suspended its dental service indefinitely in July after the dentist there left and it was unable to recruit a dentist or a hygienist."

John Mozena, president of the Center for Economic Accountability, a think tank that promotes free-market ideas, who was not involved in the report’s methodology, told Kristi Eaton of The Daily Yonder, “The single biggest challenge for rural communities in the modern era is the fact that the very nature of a rural community is that there just aren’t a lot of people.”

Minnesota town of 1,500 passes sales tax to fund childcare

Lindsey Buegler at the Little Sprouts child-care center
in Warren, Minn. (Photo by Dan Gunderson, MPR)

What was once a childcare challenge is now a crisis, with rural families feeling more of the pinch to secure affordable, healthy childcare. 

Warren, Minnesota, pop. 1,500, was one city that decided to address its shortage of childcare with innovation. In November, Warren voters became the first to approve a local sales tax dedicated to supporting a childcare center. The approval was unexpected since the tax is for a service many Warren citizens won't use, reports Dan Gunderson of Minnesota Public Radio.

Lindsey Buegler was a Warren parent who needed childcare. She told Gunderson: "It was either get involved and beg and plead with people to somehow keep the daycare open or we would have had to move. There were seven of us directly involved with the center that would have had to move. . . . I would say that's huge for this small city of Warren to lose seven families."

City officials "partnered with the First Children’s Finance Rural Child Care Innovation Program" and found "a shortage of 187 childcare slots within a 20-mile radius of Warren," Gunderson reports. "The research also found more than 30 percent of survey respondents had turned down a job, or withdrawn from the workforce because of childcare issues."

Map from City-Data.com

Using those facts, the city proposed a half-cent sales tax, and to the surprise of many, voters approved it, making Warren the only city in Minnesota with a tax for that purpose. "Business leaders pushed hard for the tax. They understood how a shortage of childcare was limiting economic growth," Gunderson reports.

Construction for a new childcare center will begin in the spring 2023 with funding coming from the new sales tax proceeds, community fundraising efforts and a low-interest loan from the Department of Agriculture, Gunderson adds. "The childcare building will be owned by the city and operated by the Little Sprouts nonprofit. City leaders expect that arrangement will help make childcare more affordable."

Pandemic roundup: Omicron threatens economic recovery; there's good news about remdesivir; babies born to Covid-infected moms are at higher risk of health issues

Here's a roundup of recent news stories about the pandemic and vaccination efforts:

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan declared a 30-day state of emergency Tuesday due to the coronavirus. Covid-19 hospitalizations rose more than 500% in the past seven weeks, overwhelming hospitals. 

Babies born to Covid-infected moms are 60% more likely to be born very prematurely, increasing their risk of death or long-term health problems such as cerebral palsy, asthma, hearing loss, depression, anxiety, heart disease, and kidney disease. Boys could be even more vulnerable. Read more here.

The pandemic is compounding rural hospitals' struggles with staffing and bed space. The Omicron variant is more contagious than previous iterations, but patients don't tend to get quite as ill. That means that, even when patients must go to the hospital, fewer are taking up intensive-care beds. 

Mounting Omicron infections among workers threaten economic recovery as businesses scramble to remain open. Read more here.

People who test positive for Covid-19 and stay home to recover and isolate are not eligible for unemployment insurance. Under federal law, Americans must be "able and available" to work to qualify for the assistance, but it's not meant to be a substitute for paid sick leave, said a Labor Department senior adviser. Read more here.

The antiviral drug remdesivir reduces recovery time in hospitalized Covid-19 patients, but a recently published study found that it's even more effective when administered earlier in the course of illness, before a patient must be hospitalized. Another recent study suggests that remdesivir could eventually be administered by inhalation instead of by infusion. That could make the drug more accessible to patients who aren't hospitalized. Two oral antiviral pills have just received emergency authorization but supplies are limited.

Though scientists have made remarkable breakthroughs in coronavirus treatments and preventatives, experts say it's just as important to increase funding for local health departments so testing, vaccines and treatments can be effectively administered. Read more here.

Pandemic roundup: some moms having trouble returning to work; state incentives to boost vaxes have mostly failed

Here's a roundup of recent news about the pandemic and immunization efforts:

Many moms left the workforce during the pandemic. But many find it difficult to return to work because of issues like a lack of childcare. Read more here.

Rural coronavirus vaccinations continued at roughly the same pace in late June, The Daily Yonder reports. Click here for an interactive map, regional analysis and more.

State efforts to increase coronavirus vaccination rates via lotteries and other incentives have mostly failed to do the trick. Read more here.

President Biden said he doesn't expect the emerging delta variant to force another lockdown, but said he worries that areas with lower vaccination rates "will be very hurt" by it. Read more here.

The Chamber of Commerce in a rural Tennessee county encouraged locals to get vaccinated because (among other benefits) a lower infection rate helped businesses reopen. Read more here.

The Washington Post extrapolated current vaccination rates to estimate when each state will hit the 70% vaccination rate. Read more here.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may provoke an immune response that protects people against the coronavirus for years, according to a new study. Read more here.

Covid roundup: Fishing crews exempt from mask rule; rural health clinics get funds for tests; anti-vaxxers misuse info

Here's a roundup of recent news about the pandemic and immunization efforts:

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, said Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation" that the Delta variant of the virus now accounts for 10 percent of all U.S. cases, but will likely become the most dominant strain. Read more here.

Those who catch the Delta variant are twice as likely to be hospitalized as those infected with the Alpha strain, a recent study found. Read more here.

The Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines have proven highly effective in preventing hospitalizations for those infected with the Delta variant, a recent study found. Read more here.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Coast Guard now say fully vaccinated commercial fishing crews don't have to wear a mask while above deck. The updated guidelines come after Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, protested that masks were a safety hazard. Read more here.

The Department for Health and Human Services is providing $425 million to more than 4,200 rural health clinics for coronavirus testing and mitigation. Later this summer, HRSA will issue up to $35.3 million in additional funding to rural clinics that meet eligibility requirements. Read more here.

Anti-vaccine activists are using a federal database of reported vaccine side effects to spread disinformation about safety of vaccines. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System has unvetted reports of side effects that may be coincidental, and shouldn't be cited as proof. Read more here.

Novavax's coronavirus vaccine is proving highly effective in clinical trials, a company spokesperson said, meaning it likely to become the fourth vaccine available in the U.S. Read more here.

The FDA has ordered Johnson & Johnson to throw out 60 million doses of its vaccine that may be contaminated. Read more here.

Health experts worry that states with low vaccination rates could see an uptick in cases if the natural immunity of those exposed to the coronavirus begins to wane. Read more here.

Free webinar at 1 p.m. ET Thursday, June 3, will show how rural employers can strengthen local vaccination rates

A National Rural Business Summit webinar on Thursday, June 3, will discuss how major rural employers and small businesses can engage with employees and residents to play a meaningful role in increasing the rural coronavirus vaccination rate. Strategies include sharing fact-based information, sharing personal vaccination stories, and supporting community vaccination efforts.

The free webinar will begin at 1 p.m. ET and is presented by the Rural Assembly in partnership with the Health Action Alliance, The Daily Yonder, the National Rural Health Association, The Rural America Chamber of Commerce, and other organizations. Click here to register.

In related news, a new episode of the Rural Assembly's Everywhere Radio show is all about how to overcome vaccine hesitancy in rural America. Host Whitney Kimball Coe, director of the Rural Assembly, talks with Jeff Eastman, CEO of Remote Area Medical, a nonprofit that provides free health care to those in need. Listen to the episode here.

PPP loans to be offered to some bankrupt businesses, including farms, following ProPublica investigative story

"The federal government has quietly reversed course on a policy that had kept thousands of businesses from applying for pandemic economic aid, with only weeks to go before funds are expected to run out," Lydia DePillis reports for ProPublica. Now, individuals and companies in Chapter 11, 12, or 13 bankruptcy are eligible for Paycheck Protection Program loans if a judge has approved their reorganization plan. The loans are forgiven if the loan is mostly spent on payroll.

Previously, the Small Business Administration "had battled in court against several bankrupt companies attempting to apply for PPP loans, and did not change course even after Congress explicitly passed legislation in December allowing it to do so," DePillis reports.

But in early March, ProPublica reported on the rule. "Referencing ProPublica’s story, the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys wrote a letter to newly installed SBA Administrator Isabella Guzman urging her to follow Congress’ suggestion and tell the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees — a division of the Justice Department that oversees most American bankruptcy courts — to allow debtors to receive PPP loans," DePillis reports. "The agency has not yet contacted the Justice Department. But on April 6, the SBA released new guidance as part of its frequently asked questions for the program, redefining what it means to be 'presently involved in any bankruptcy.' ... A spokesperson for the SBA said the explanation had been added for 'clarity.'"

Farm Bureau Ag Innovation Challenge open until Aug. 20; will award $165,000 in startup funds to 10 businesses

The American Farm Bureau Federation is accepting entries for its eighth annual Ag Innovation Challenge, a nationwide business competition for startups that address issues facing American farmers, ranchers and rural communities. Contestants can address longstanding challenges such as labor access, yield optimization, and operating cost reduction, or new issues.

The competition will award $165,000 in startup funds to 10 businesses: $50,000 to the winner; $20,000 to the runner-up; $15,000 each to two finalists; $10,000 each to six semi-finalists; and $5,000 to the People's Choice Team, chosen by public vote (all 10 finalists are eligible). The application deadline is Aug. 20.

Click here for a timeline of the competition and more details, including profiles of past winners. 

Pharmacy deserts leave many rural Americans with few options for vaccination; see interactive county-level map

Retail pharmacy availability in non-metropolitan counties (Click the image to enlarge; click here for interactive version.)
(Kaiser Health News map based on Rural Policy Research Institute data) 

"As the Biden administration accelerates a plan to use pharmacies to distribute Covid-19 vaccines, significant areas of the country lack brick-and-mortar pharmacies capable of administering the protective shots,"  Markian Hawryluk reports for Kaiser Health News. "A recent analysis by the Rural Policy Research Institute found that 111 rural counties, mostly located between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, have no pharmacy that can give the vaccines. That could leave thousands of vulnerable Americans struggling to find vaccines, which in turn threatens to prolong the pandemic in many hard-hit rural regions."

The confluence of several economic trends has exacerbated the problem of rural pharmacy deserts. "From 2003 to 2018, 1,231 independent rural pharmacies closed . . . leaving some 630 rural communities with no retail drug store," Hawryluk reports. "The changing economics in the pharmacy industry did them in, a combination of national pharmacy chains expanding and consolidating, big-box stores and supermarkets opening their own competing pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers eating into small-pharmacy profits. Mail-order options siphoned off business." But, Hawryluk notes, "you can’t get vaccines in the mail." And for many rural Americans, those pharmacies were the only source of nearby health care.

More than 1.6 million Americans live more than 20 miles from the nearest pharmacy, according to a recent analysis by the University of Pittsburgh's School of Pharmacy and the West Health Policy Center. Those residents must drive long distances to get vaccinated (twice, if they're getting a two-dose vaccine) and may have to deal with poor road conditions or difficult weather, Hawryluk reports.

"So far, with a limited quantity of doses and strict limitations on who is eligible, that hasn’t been a problem," Hawryluk reports. "But as vaccination opens up to the general public and supplies of the vaccines increase, local health departments may be overwhelmed with demand and may need to offload the task of vaccinating local residents to other health care providers."

Vilsack, in line for confirmation as secretary, says he will have 'a serious focus on getting stuff done quickly' at USDA

Tom Vilsack
(Getty Images photo by Alex Wong)

Tom Vilsack is one step away from another term as agriculture secretary, following the Senate Agriculture Committee's unanimous voice vote for his nomination Tuesday. The virtual hearing "was full of references to climate change, greenhouse gas mitigation and carbon credit programs, and lessons learned from the pandemic about the vulnerabilities of our food system," Laura Reiley reports for The Washington Post.

Vilsack was the only cabinet member to last all eight years of the Obama administration. The former Iowa governor and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council didn't want to come back at first, President Biden said in December, but Biden said he persisted because Vilsack knew the department "inside and out."

Vilsack said recently that he would arrive at USDA with a "serious focus on getting stuff done quickly" and would have the advantage of understanding the breadth of what the department can do and the challenges it faces, Chuck Abbott reports for the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

Vilsack will face a new challenge in the pandemic, but will have considerable latitude in taking action to help those hurt economically, Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico's Weekly Agriculture that USDA is sitting on a $30 billion (for now) war chest that . . . Biden could tap to prop up struggling restaurants, pay farmers to implement climate-friendly production and potentially much more."

Policies have changed little since Vilsack left, University of Tennessee agriculture economists Harwood D. Schaffer and Daryll E. Ray write: "With the exception of the trade payments and the Covid-19 payments, the farm policies Vilsack inherits as he returns to the agriculture secretary job are essentially the same ones he shepherded through Congress when he previously served."

But other things have changed, so Vilsack's familiarity will be critical, said Ben Lilliston, director of rural and climate strategies at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. "USDA was decimated by the Trump administration, including the attempt to end the undersecretary for rural development and the decision to physically move two key research agencies [the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture] resulting in a major loss of research capacity," Lillston told Jan Pytalski of The Daily Yonder. "Vilsack knows the department and will rebuild USDA’s capacity and function in the short term."

Schaffer and Ray write that critics have called Vilsack ineffective, but "one could argue that in developing farm policy Vilsack had to deal with a Republican Congress that limited what he could do" after 2010. "For instance, he worked with chicken farmers on contracting issues and held a series of high-profile hearings, only to have Congress fail to fund the writing of new rules."

Progressives worry Vilsack is too cozy with Big Agriculture and has a poor track record on race. "A two-year investigation by Nathan Rosenberg and Bryce Stucki of The Counter unearthed a series of other concerns related to Black farmers, including alleged manipulation of census data to cover-up historic discrimination and to falsely claim there was a renaissance in Black farming under Vilsack’s leadership," Martin Longman writes for the Washington Monthly.

Lilliston told Pytalski, "In terms of setting a new course for rural communities, one that isn’t primarily extractive and tied to the interest of often multinational companies, there are reasons to be skeptical that Vilsack will shift much from the Obama years." But Oleta Garrett Fitz, regional administrator of the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic and Social Justice, told Pytalski that Biden’s inital USDA appointments "give a semblance of hope that this administration will pay more than lip service to the rest of the department’s mission to support the health and economic wellbeing of all of rural America, including its most diverse populations."