Quick hits: No.1 favorite ice cream; ousting rogue drones; big find by NASA's Curiosity Rover; some good news

Farm Journal graphic, from IDFA National Ice Cream & Frozen Novelty Trends Survey

It's dark and rich and back in the top spot. "Chocolate is back at No. 1 among U.S. ice cream flavors, with butter pecan gaining ground and richer options continuing to rise in popularity, according to a new survey," reports Taylor Leach of Farm Journal. "After briefly ceding the No. 1 spot to vanilla in 2024, chocolate has reclaimed the lead in 2026." Michael Dykes, the International Dairy Foods Association president, told Leach, "Americans’ love for ice cream is as strong as ever." 

The Conversation graph, from Energy Information Administration data

After weeks of surging gasoline prices with no end in sight, some Americans might be wondering what all goes into the cost of a gallon of gas. Robert I. Harris, an energy economist, breaks down gas prices for The Conversation. "The price of a retail gallon of gas is the sum of four things: the cost of crude oil, refining, distribution and marketing, and taxes. . . . In nationwide figures from January 2026, crude oil accounted for about 51% of the pump price, refining roughly 20%, distribution and marketing about 11% and taxes about 18%." Harris adds that since crude oil is the biggest component of gasoline, when its price spikes on the global market, gas prices go up. 

Indiana farmers didn't appreciate drones hovering over
their livestock. (Photo by B. Dittrich, Unsplash)

In rural Indiana, some farming families are "leaning on the law" to keep unwanted drones off their lands, reports Greg Weaver of Indiana Capital Chronicle. "Hoosiers in rural Indiana say drones are unlawfully tracking deer for poachers, inexplicably flying around chicken coops, and increasingly making people uneasy." Although many Indiana farmers considered shooting down the snooping drones, they learned that wasn't legal. "So they’ve found other ways to combat the rascals. . . . Farmers fearful that drones might be spreading disease among livestock recently persuaded the Indiana General Assembly to pass a law that prohibits the devices from being used to harm or harass farm animals."

When it comes to serving up energy for hungry grids in rural Virginia, sometimes smaller is better. "The Blue Ridge Power Agency, which serves a string of nonprofit utilities in central and western Virginia, is set to go live this summer with a collection of five batteries of about 5 megawatts each," reports Elizabeth Ouzts of Canary Media. By comparison, larger batteries are typically at least 10 megawatts; however, both sizes aim to store energy when it's less expensive and plentiful. Blue Ridge Power's new batteries will "help two rural electric co-ops and the city of Salem’s utility save money" by releasing battery-stored energy "when high demand on the grid spikes prices." Unlike their larger cousins, smaller batteries are cheaper and faster to build.

NASA's Curiousity Rover spends its time exploring Mars and 
sending information back to Earthlings. (NASA image)

It's hard to be more remote than exploring for signs of life on Mars, which is what the Curiosity Rover spends its time doing. "New research published in Nature Communications details Curiosity’s latest find — never-before-seen organic compounds, including one with a structure similar to DNA precursors," reports Jake Currie for Nautilus. NASA geologist Amy Williams told Nautilus, "The same stuff that rained down on Mars from meteorites is what rained down on Earth, and it probably provided the building blocks for life as we know it on our planet." To send all those compounds back to Earth, Curiosity had to conduct a full orchestra of experiments. The Curiosity also goes by "the little robotic chemist that could."

Suicide deaths among younger Americans dipped by 11% from earlier projections. 
(Graph by Vishal R. Patel, MD,  Michael Liu, MD,  and Anupam B. Jena, MD)

And now, some really good news: "The rate of suicides among young people in the United States dropped 11% below projections, decreasing most sharply in states with a higher volume of answered 988 calls, a new study has found, reports Ellen Barry of The New York Times. The study's results, published in a research letter in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that 4,372 more adolescents and young adults, ages 15 to 34, are alive today than previously projected. The study's data suggests that the federal government’s 988 suicide prevention hotline rollout, which launched in 2022, is having a positive impact among younger Americans.

Unhappy with the expense of spraying crops with a rig, an N.C. farmer turned to drones. Now he builds them.

Drones can spray hundreds of acres without damaging
crops. (Revolution Drones photo via Farm Journal)

As farmers search for every penny in savings, using drones to spray crops is a viable way for them to increase yields, reduce machinery wear and tear, and save on fuel costs, reports Chris Bennett of Farm Journal.

North Carolina farmer Russell Hedrick has been using drone-spraying since 2021. He started experimenting with drones to lessen the damage a rig does to his crops, and the cost of running the rig does to his budget. He now operates his own drone company, Revolution Drones, that produces drones especially built for American farmers.

"If a farmer with 6,000 acres of soybeans runs a ground rig just twice, and loses 1.5 bushels per acre in damage, the cost is $90,000," Hedrick told Bennett. If that same farmer invests in drone spraying 750 acres a day at a cost of roughly $51,000, it'll take eight days to spray the crop and prevent $90,000 in crop damage.

Hedrick explained, "That farmer paid for his drone in eight days and still had $39,000 left in savings. . . .This is a game-changer like nothing else out there, and its impact is only just starting to be realized."

Russell Hedrick is a North Carolina farmer and innovator.
(Courtesy photo via Farm Journal)

Hedrick didn't set out to build his own drones, but he kept running into the same issue -- all the drones he used were built in China and built for the way Chinese farmers work their land. He told Bennett, "They don’t know how we farm in America, and don’t understand the vastness of our fields and the necessity to cover hundreds or thousands of acres in (a) day in a timely manner."

After considering his options, Hedrick decided to build his own drones. Bennett writes, "Farm innovator to the core, Hedrick already had access to software production through co-ownership of Soil Regen. He partnered with Gteex Drones in Brazil, another farmer-led business."

"Drone utilization in agriculture is about to go nuclear, far beyond present use, Hedrick insists. Why? Simple economics," Bennett reports. "Agriculture, Hedrick believes, is at the get-go of historic technology change, echoing the breakthroughs of yesteryear, whether steel plow or mechanization."

Quick hits: More bacon; thriving town-owned grocery store; shocking fertilizer prices; drones for rural duties?

Five-month-old pigs from the latest breeding line Smithfield 
has developed. (Smithfield Foods photo via WSJ)

Just like lots of people, pork companies would like more bacon. For pigs to produce more bacon, they need bigger bellies, a trait pork industry breeders have been developing for years. "Today, slaughtered hogs weigh about 285 pounds on average, a 30-pound increase since the late 1990s," reports Patrick Thomas of The Wall Street Journal. "The increase in hog weight coincided with the explosion in popularity of bacon as more than just a breakfast item." With bacon in demand and razor-thin profit margins, the pork industry is using breeding programs to "build a better pig." 

St. Paul, Kansas, hadn't had a local grocery store for more than two decades, but in 2005, the town's new mayor challenged his community to use municipal support to plan and build a grocery store. St. Paul residents embraced the challenge and the St. Paul Area Community Development Corporation stepped in to help with planning and financial legwork, reports Kansas State University. In 2008, the St. Paul Supermarket opened, and it continues to thrive as a town-supported grocery store. Its motto is "the friendly store." Read its success blueprint here.

Fertilizer costs are high in the currency of corn. (Krista Swanson, National Corn Growers Association )

With alarmingly high fertilizer costs and falling commodity prices, U.S. farmers are grappling with how to stay afloat in today's market. "Farmers are in the middle of calling input suppliers to get quotes for fall fertilizer, and the prices are shocking," reports Tyne Morgan of Farm Journal. "The corn price to fertilizer price ratio on inputs such as phosphate is now the highest on record, and as corn prices continue to slide, it’s creating financial hurt on farmers. . . . An unnamed farmer asked U.S. Farm Report, 'How are we going to survive at these prices?'" 

After severe storms damaged crops and farming equipment across Nebraska, the state used drones to help mitigate the aftermath. "Using drones to help with disaster response shows the role they now play in the state’s economy, after years of investment and research from the state government," reports Chris Teale of Route Fifty. "Officials in the state are looking at ways drones can be used, especially to help those in rural areas. Delivery of food, medical supplies and other resources is one use case receiving a lot of attention."

A Maine roadway.
(C. Banks photo)

Among all the states, Maine remains one of the most rural and wild. "Greater Portland, Lewiston, Auburn, Bangor, and other populous areas make up just a small slice of Maine’s pie," writes Chris Sedenka in his opinion for WBLM radio in Portland, Maine. "It’s fascinating just how much of the state remains truly remote and untouched. . . . We still have territories named T2R9, you’re not going to find that in every state. . . . According to the data, Maine’s rural population makes up 61.5% of the total. That is an absolutely huge number. . . .The majority of the state is basically just pine trees and wildlife."

Living a long life could partially depend on geography. Some counties just seem to support populations who keep on keeping on. 

The map above shows which U.S. counties have an overall life expectancy above 80 years.
(Map via Brilliant Maps)

WSJ EDITORIAL: Ukraine's drone attack is a 'wake-up call' to U.S. about potential vulnerability

Will an increase in defense spending enable the U.S. to close 
the gap in the drone market? (WSJ video snapshot)

Ukraine's recent drone strike battering of some 40 Russian aircraft, sitting unprotected deep inside that country's borders, serves as a warning to the U.S. about the vulnerability of American military bases and the homeland, writes The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

At least 77 U.S. military installations are strategically placed in rural towns and more are in cities with less than 40,000 residents. The editorial suggests that rural communities may want to pay particular attention to military discussions about international drone warfare, domestic missile protections and U.S. drone production problems.

"The details about Ukraine’s daring operation are few, but Kyiv managed to sneak cheap drones across the border and use them to destroy costly Russian military assets," the editorial states. "The bang for Ukraine’s buck was considerable. You don’t have to be a fan of thrillers to imagine a similar scenario in the United States."

In light Ukraine's drone attack success, President Trump’s Golden Dome missile-defense shield idea doesn't sound so outlandish, the WSJ board concluded. "The headlines are preoccupied with space-based interceptors. But the U.S. is exposed to many threats besides ballistic missiles — from drones and spy blimps to cruise missiles launched off submarines."

In 2023, the bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission "warned that the U.S. needs better integrated air and missile defenses against 'coercive attacks' from Russia and China, and such an attack could come from conventional weapons," writes the board. "In a crisis over the Taiwan Strait, Xi Jinping might threaten the Commander in Chief: Stay out of the Western Pacific or you never know what might happen to your pricey F-22s in Alaska."

The editorial cites a January report from Thomas Shugart and Timothy Walton at the Hudson Institute that criticized Air Force plans to protect new B-21 bombers with what they referred to as "sunshades." The report points out that a lack of structural protection "could leave aircraft 'exposed to threats, including lethal' unmanned aerial vehicles," the board adds.

Beyond the tragedy of Sept. 11, Americans are used to wars "fought far from home. . . but everyone in the U.S. will be on the front lines of the next conflict," the editorial states. "Political leaders could be doing much more to educate the country about this vulnerability, rather than boasting that the U.S. military is the best it has ever been. It isn’t."

Watch the entire WSJ video on China's drone dominance, here.

Small town grocer co-ops and technology offer innovative answers for residents living in food deserts

CoBank map, from USDA Economic Research Service
Food Access Research Atlas data

 
 

It's more common for rural U.S. households to experience food insecurity, and while finding reliable access options has proved difficult, new business delivery options are offering solutions to hunger, reports Billy Roberts of CoBank. "Rural communities comprise 63% of all U.S counties but 87% of the counties with the highest food insecurity rates. . . . The Brookings Institution found delivery zones are concentrated in larger metropolitan areas, with only 37% of rural residents having access to any of the analyzed food delivery services."

While convenience and "dollar" stores have increased in rural towns, their ability to supply fresh food is still limited by population density. Additionally, when community revenue is compared between a dollar store and a local grocer, the local grocery store is a far better investment. Roberts reports, "CoBank and Food Co-op Initiative have worked together to expand programs for rural communities that have lost (or are at risk of losing) local grocery options. . . . An example is Marmaton Market in Moran, Kansas. A for-profit corporation operating under cooperative principles proved to be the solution for the town of 500. . . . The store emphasizes local as a means of supporting the economy, building morale and creating a stronger sense of community."

Beyond co-ops, current shipping and technology-based rural food delivery systems offer solutions. "Particularly for shelf-stable food and beverage, delivery mechanisms exist, even if it takes the form of FedEx, UPS or USPS. Fresh food offerings present another challenge altogether, but more direct-to-consumer approaches should, in the long term, be able to capitalize on improvements in technology (whether drone delivery or driverless trucks) to reach those who don't live near a grocery store," Roberts reports. "In collaboration with Gatik, Tyson Foods will deploy AI-assisted autonomous trucks to haul prepared meats over predetermined short-haul routes to distribution and storage facilities in northwest Arkansas."

As online options and technology improve, more delivery possibilities are created. "Whole Foods has made hundreds of its 365 private-label products available for U.S. shipping through Amazon," Roberts adds. "For its part, Walmart and Google subsidiary Wing are teaming up to test 30-minute drone delivery of household essentials and groceries to customers' homes within a six-mile radius of two stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. . . . These examples indicate where retailers — whether grocery stores or even convenience stores or dollar stores — could serve rural consumers and offset the issue of food insecurity stemming from limited access."

Agricultural drones are increasingly popular, but federal regulations seem to prevent many farmers from using them

Farmers say drones could revolutionize agriculture, allowing them to assess their crops' health by leaf color and more. Led by North American farmers, the global market for agricultural drones was worth $1.32 billion and is expected to grow to $9.89 billion by 2028, according to a recent report. But farming advocates say U.S. regulations are often confusing and prevent farmers from using the technology. 

"The Federal Aviation Administration determines which regulations and permits apply to drones based on how high they fly, how much they can lift and whether they are for commercial or private use," Capital News Service's Nicholas Simon reports for Michigan State University's Great Lakes Echo. 

“You have to be in sight of the aircraft with unaided vision and you can’t use binoculars.” said Robert Goodwin, project manager of MSU's Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System. “You can use extra people in the field with radio contact to keep an eye on it. But, if your using drones you’re trying to limit labor, not bring more people into the field.”

Farmers have had little input in such regulations. The FAA's Advanced Aviation Advisory Committee regulates commercial drones, but none of its members represented farmers until recently. Congress passed a bill in January 2020 mandating that the committee expand to include representatives from farms and local government organizations, Simon reports. 

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who introduced the bill, said in a statement: "Rural America deserves a seat at the decision-making table."

Ky. research team explores using drones to monitor cattle

Beef cattle graze in Montana. (Alamy stock photo)

Almost 3 million U.S. cows die from health problems each year, costing the cattle industry more than $1 billion. Better observation of pasturing cows has been proven to reduce deaths, but the are spread out over wide areas, and monitoring them can be difficult.

A mechanical engineering professor at the University of Kentucky is trying to see if drones are the answer. Jesse Hoagg, aided by a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is working on a way to use drones to monitor cattle. "The drones would provide farmers with a way to remotely and autonomously check on the location and health of each cow — allowing them to address cattle health and safety issues much sooner," Lindsey Piercy reports for UK's College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. "The new system aims to identify each cow in a pasture through unique characteristics such as facial features and measure vital health information like size and physical activity."

The technology would be especially helpful for the many cattle producers who have off-farm jobs, said Josh Jackson, an assistant extension professor who is one of those producers. He said he had the idea when he was trying to find his black Angus in the dark. "It gets tricky to locate cows this time of the year, when the sun sets so early," Jackson told Piercy. "We want to lessen producers' stress by helping them locate their animals quicker and help sick animals faster."

North Dakota Highway Patrol and a sheriff's department in the state get federal permission to fly drones over people

The Federal Aviation Administration has granted the North Dakota Highway Patrol and the Burleigh County Sheriff's Department in North Dakota the permission to fly drones over people and populated areas. "The North Dakota patrol is the first state highway patrol agency in the country to receive the permission," Blake Nicholson reports for the Bismarck Tribune. "The Burleigh County Sheriff's Department is only the second county law enforcement agency in the nation to obtain it." In June, the North Dakota Transportation Department became the first state government agency to get an FAA permit to fly drones over people.

According to Col. Brandon Solberg, the highway patrol's superintendent, the waiver will allow troopers to safely document complicated vehicle crash scenes. The agency says the drones will also aid in finding missing people and fleeing suspects, Nicholson reports.

The patrol is in the process of buying a drone, and has already bought a parachute recovery system that makes it safer to fly over populated areas; if the drone falls, the system deploys a parachute, shuts down the rotors, and emits a buzzer to warn bystanders. If the patrol is satisfied with the drone, it plans to buy three more and base one in each quadrant of the state, Nicholson reports. The state legislature approved one-time funding of almost $100,000 for the program over the next three years.

NCSU uses drones to pinpoint plant diseases, deficiencies

Bobby Vick of PrecisionHawk lands a drone.
(Wilson Times photo by Drew Wilson)

Drones are helping a study of plant diseases  get off the ground, Drew Wilson reports for the Wilson Times in North Carolina.

North Carolina State University student Joshua Henry is collaborating with North Carolina Cooperative Extension  and drone company PrecisionHawk to gather information about diseased tobacco plants interspersed with healthy plants over an acre on Vick Family Farms.

"We are looking at nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium deficiencies as well as magnesium and sulfur deficiencies and boron toxicity," Henry told Wilson. Henry, a doctoral student in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, placed about 50 plants with each disorder, 300 total, among an equal number of healthy tobacco plants.

Examining so many plants is a tall order, but drones can fly in a search pattern grid and gather a great deal of information quickly with remote sensors. Each nutrition deficiency creates a unique light signature; since the drones' remote sensors collect 270 narrow bands of light, they can pinpoint which disease a plant has.

Drones don't require much expertise, said PrecisonHawk solutions engineer Bobby Vick, whose parents own Vick Family Farms: "All you have to do is tell the drone where to go . . . The software is telling the drone what positions to go to and what altitude and speed to fly. The drone actually flies itself. Any one of us out here could fly these drones in five minutes time and feel comfortable doing it."

Graduate student Henry hopes drones, which can cost as little as $1,500, can help farmers develop better fertilization plans. Farmer Linwood Vick agreed: "I think it’s always good to be looking ahead and not getting stuck in the past, so we are looking to do new things and new technology."

Government to increase drone use to fight wildfires

A federal drone (U.S. Bureau of Land Management photo)

Last year's wildfire season cost more than $2 billion to fight, straining the budgets of many Western states. When the next wildfire season starts, the federal government wants to fight it with increased use of unmanned drones, which it says allows missions to be done in one-seventh the time and at one-tenth the cost of a manned mission.

An incident last summer showed how useful drones can be. A Bureau of Land Management drone was flying over a blaze in the Umpqua National Forest in southwest Oregon in August when its infrared camera spied a nearby "spot fire" which was unconnected to the main fire and likely started by a windblown ember. A human pilot doing a flyover could not have seen the fire because smoke limited visibility to 100 feet. But because the drone caught it, firefighters were able to contain it before it became a big problem. "The BLM, a division within Interior, later estimated the early detection of the fire by the drone saved $50 million in land and infrastructure value that could have otherwise been lost," Dino Grandoni reports for The Washington Post.

The Interior Department increasingly relied on drones to help firefighters last summer, sending them on 707 fire detection and monitoring missions over 71 wildfires. It plans to ramp up their use this year and is working on developing drones that can help extinguish fires. "The goal: To deploy retardant-dumping helicopters capable of being flown either manned and unmanned, so firefighting efforts can continue around the clock. At night and in the early morning, darkness and low-lying smoke, respectively, obscure the views of firefighters above, often making missions too dangerous to do," Grandoni reports. The University of Nebraska is also testing drones that can help fight fires by starting prescribed burns.

Though the Interior uses only its own drones right now, the department recently solicited bids from private companies to fly drones over forest fires for data collection.

Trump OKs drone experimentation plan; could make use and deliveries easier in rural areas

An Amazon.com delivery drone. (Amazon photo)

"President Donald Trump launched a program on Wednesday to expand testing of drones to include flights over people, nighttime operations and flights out of sight of the operator," David Shepardson reports for Reuters.

"The pilot program aims to speed up the integration of unmanned aerial vehicles into the national airspace system and test drone detection and tracking while waiving some limits on their use." That could benefit rural areas, and make use of them in agriculture more practical. Drones also could be used to deliver life-saving medications to remote areas, and retail giants like Amazon could deliver packages for less. UPS and FedEx charge extra fees to deliver packages to some rural areas.

Trump's Oct. 25 memo means "states and local governments would be able to seek Federal Aviation Administration approval for testing and expanded use," Shepardson reports. "The White House stopped short of proposing new regulations that would allow broader nationwide use of drones or any timetable for new authority. The memo said the Transportation Department could allow drone flights at up to 400 feet with the goal of approving at least five pilot projects. The program would expire in three years."

The Transportation Department website said that the cost of the program will be revealed soon.

Amid bumper soybean and corn crops, some Iowa farmers are looking at fourth straight year of losses

Roger Zylstra harvested soybeans on one of his fields near Kellogg, Iowa, Oct. 18.
(Des Moines Register drone photo by Rodney White and Michael Zamora)

Many Iowa farmers are looking at the fourth consecutive year of losses on their crops, Donnelle Eller reports for The Des Moines Register: "Here are some numbers worrying Nodaway farmer Bill Shipley: He could get $8.96 for each bushel of soybeans he brings to his southeast Iowa elevator. But the statewide average cost is over $9 a bushel. Corn prices are even more grim: Iowa farmers could potentially lose 30 to 40 cents per bushel, with prices around $3 at Iowa elevators, based on estimates from Chad Hart, an Iowa State University economist."

Iowa's soybean and corn crops, respectively, are expected to be the second and third largest ever, part of the largest-ever soybean crop and second-largest corn crop in the U.S. as a whole. "U.S. farmers are expected to see a 3.1 percent increase in profits this year, thanks largely to improved pig, cattle and other livestock returns," Eller reports. "But Hart says Iowa farms will be lucky to see a 1 to 1.5 percent increase, given the state's large grain production." He told Eller, "For a good number of Iowa farmers, it will be a fourth year of losses."

The downturn, which cascades to farm equipment, crop insurers, fertilizer and seed companies, has created a shortfall in the state budget. "Since 2013, Iowa farm income has dropped $5.72 billion to $2.6 billion in 2016, U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows. Corn and soybean prices have dropped between 50 and 60 percent from highs in 2012, when the nation was gripped in a widespread drought," Eller reports. Her story is accompanied by photos and video from drones.

'Silver BBs,' not silver bullets, offered as hope for Eastern Kentucky after collapse of its coal economy

Click on the image to view a larger version

As Eastern Kentucky looks for a way to recover from a historic collapse of its coal economy, lots of new ideas are being tried or ventured, Adrian Campo-Flores reports in a roundup for The Wall Street Journal. “There’s no silver bullet to solve this,” said Peter Hille, president of the Berea-based Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, which finances and/or advises ventures in the region, told Campo-Flores. “But there could be a thousand silver BBs.”

Some groups are training former coal miners and others people to write software code. "Interapt, a Louisville technology company, created an intensive 32-week classroom and internship program in Paintsville that received federal and local funding, and pays $400 a week," the Journal reports. "The first class, which started with 50 people selected from 800 applicants, just completed the program, and Interapt has offered jobs to 22 of them so far, said Chief Operating Officer Eric Seto. Others have found work elsewhere." One Interapt developer is Alex Hughes, who ran an animation business in Prestonsburg until the coal swoon killed it. “This is a start of this new ecosystem that we’re trying to create here,” he told Campo-Flores.

Hazard Community and Technical College has trained 180 laid-off miners to work as electric linemen, and the program has a 90 percent placement rate, President Jennifer Lindon said. "Anthony Bowling . . . is happy with the pay—$18 more an hour than he earned as a miner," Campo-Floes reports. In a more innovative program, the college "has teamed up with local county governments and other entities to create a local drone training and testing facility on a former strip mine. The area—secluded, with varied topography and devoid of air traffic—is well-suited to companies seeking to develop and test unmanned aerial vehicles, said Bart Massey, operations manager for the proposed $11 million project."

Campo-Flores also notes AppHarvest, first reported on The Rural Blog March 9, which is raising money to build high-tech greenhouse on a reclaimed strip mine.

Can a $50 million drone port help revitalize Central Appalachian economy, retain young people?

Seth Hatfield, a sophomore in Belfry, Ky. said a drone port
close to home makes him hopeful for high-tech career options
after college (Education Week photo by Tim Webb)

Eastern Kentucky officials hope a planned $50 million complex where companies would design, build, and test drones and train people to operate them can revitalize a region hurt by the loss of coal jobs and persuade young people to stay, Denisa R. Superville reports for Education Week. Backers of the plan "say the region's high schools would provide a strong pipeline of students to learn high-tech skills."

"The project, known as USA Drone Port, is still in its conceptual phase and is expected to be built near Hazard, Ky," Superville writes. "It would include a 3,500-foot runway for drones and other small autonomous aircrafts, as well as an indoor-testing facility for year-round work. There would be space for engineers to build, test and perfect their inventions. Classroom space would be available for K-12 and college students to learn drone design and manufacturing, and have job-shadowing and mentoring opportunities. The facility would have aquatic ponds to test small underwater vehicles—the kinds that might be used in search and rescue missions."

Hazard, Ky. (Best Places map)

In January the region had an unemployment rate of 12.8 percent, twice the national average, Superville notes. But officials believe the facility could "create jobs in the burgeoning high-tech field and entice the region's brightest students back home after college with the promise of good jobs." 

Jeff Hawkins is the executive director of the Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative, or KVEC—"a collective of 21 rural districts with 50,000 students that covers an area roughly the size of Connecticut." Hawkins told Superville, "We know [drone technology] is a growing area of employment opportunities, and the uses are only now being discovered. It's also a way for us to engage student-learners in a pathway that's focused on drone design, testing and use, that exposes them to high levels of mathematics, engineering and physics, etcetera."

Hawkins said Eastern Kentucky is a perfect location for the facility, Superville writes. He said "while districts in the region have large numbers of students living in poverty—81 percent qualify for free- or reduced-price meals—they post average four-year graduation rates that are higher than the state's average." The graduation rate in the KVEC area in 2016 was 94.9 percent, above the state average of 88.6 percent.

Paul Green, director of KVEC's Appalachian Technology Institute, said "KVEC districts have also been building a stronger foundation for high-tech education, deploying more than $30 million in federal grants to expand courses in computer programming, computer science, coding, aeronautics and aviation," Superville writes. He said, "prior to the recent expansion, only two of KVEC's 29 high schools offered computer science classes with coding, and only two had offerings related to aerospace engineering and aviation."

U.S. journalist on exchange program touts success of retail drone delivery in rural China

JD.com photo

While drone delivery of retail products is still years away in the U.S., an online retailer in China has found success using drones in rural areas, Jim Harger reports for MLive. Harger, who was part of a group of U.S. journalists who visited China through an exchange program, saw firsthand how China has been using drone delivery in rural areas.

"At JD.com, Chinese consumers can buy home appliances, clothing, books and furniture just like Americans can at Amazon.com or other online retailers," Harger writes. "Unlike Amazon, JD.com can deliver your order via drone in China — something Amazon only dreams of doing in the U.S. JD.com has begun using drones to deliver packages to customers in four rural provinces."

"It's a way to get around China's shabby rural infrastructure," Harger writes. "By deploying drones from their warehouses to landing and pickup sites in rural villages, JD can cut down on delivery times and equipment costs."

JD.com vice president Gloria Li told reporters, "Rural consumers have limited choices, prices are higher. We think it's a good way to improve their lives."

Harger writes, "During a 10-day reporting trip, we visited JD.com's gleaming new headquarters outside of Beijing, where some 14,000 employees work — most of them millennials in their late 20s. Founded in 1998 by a 24-year-old entrepreneur Qiangdong Liu, JD.com now sells $95 billion worth of goods each year, second only to government-owned Alibaba, which sells $450 billion worth of goods online each year."

JD.com's annual net sales total $1.36 billion, and "operates seven fulfillment centers and 256 warehouses with 6,906 delivery stations and pickup stations in 2,655 counties and districts across China," Harger notes. "Unlike online retailers, JD uses its own fleet of red trucks deliver its goods. The company developed five models of drones and uses them to deliver between five and eight packages. The company hopes to have 100 delivery routes by the end of 2017."

Drones search Grand Canyon for missing hikers

AP photo by Brandon Torres

Drones are being used for the first time in a major search at a national park, in an attempt to locate two lost hikers in the Grand Canyon, Astrid Galvan reports for The Associated Press. "Grand Canyon is the only national park with its own fleet of unmanned aircraft for locating people who have gotten lost, stranded, injured or killed. Under a program that began last fall, it has five drones and four certified operators."

Drones have been used before at Grand Canyon in other capacities, Galvan writes. "In November, after a visitor drove off a cliff and died, drones were sent in to examine the trees and brush and make sure it was safe for a helicopter to fly in and lift the car out." One month later, "rangers used a drone to locate a woman who had jumped to her death. Then they rappelled down to retrieve the body."

Matt Vandzura, chief ranger at Grand Canyon, told Galvan, "Our historic model was to take the helicopter to look and see," but he said now drones can offer "that same close look but without putting any people at risk. It has dramatically increased our ability to keep our people safe."

UPS tests drone deliveries in rural areas

United Parcel Service tested delivery via drones on rural routes this week, Elizabeth Weise reports for USA Today. UPS's senior vice president for global engineering and sustainability at UPS, Mark Wallace, told Weise, "While the drone is making its delivery, the driver would continue to the next stop, make another delivery by hand, and the drone would then rendezvous and recharge on top of the UPS package car."

If successful, drones could cut costs for UPS in rural areas, which are the company's most expensive routes, largely because of the extra miles driven and the added time to complete deliveries, Weise writes. The company estimates that reducing driving distance "by just one mile per driver per day over one year could save the company up to $50 million."

But don't expect to get a delivery by drone any time soon, Luciana Lopez reports for Reuters. John Dodero, vice president of industrial engineering at UPS, said the company "has no timeline for when drones might be put into wider use, partly because federal authorities are still developing regulations on how to use the technology." The USA Today story says drone deliveries are still "years away."

Low consumer demand for drones has industry turning more attention to agriculture market

Getty Images photo by Jean Pierre Muller

Low consumer demand for drones is crashing the industry and forcing manufacturers to turn their focus to businesses such as agriculture, Heather Somerville reports for Reuters. "While many drone-makers overestimated demand from hobbyists, they now see big opportunities selling to businesses under newly relaxed U.S. regulations."

The future of drones could be in agriculture, which already leads the market for commercial drone usage, says Lux Research, a Boston-based firm that concentrates on emerging technologies. Agriculture will generate $350 million in revenues in 2025, helping lead the commercial market for drones to $1.7 billion in 2025.

"Farmers can use unmanned aerial vehicles to check fields for areas of dryness or disease, spray fertilizer and pesticide, watch over livestock, and a number of other purposes," reports Futurism. "Drones are more easily serviceable and significantly cheaper than small piloted planes or satellites; ready-to-use agricultural drone systems, together with sensors and software, range in price from $1,500 to $25,000."

4-H National Youth Science Day teaches 200 youth about unmanned aircrafts at 'Drone Discovery'

The 2016 4-H National Youth Science Day, held Oct. 5 in Washington, D.C., featured a "hands-on engineering design challenge that explores the science behind drones and how they are being used to solve real world problems," according to 4-H. "Drone Discovery," developed by Cornell University Cooperative Extension, teaches youth about flight dynamics, aircraft types, safety and regulations and remote sensing and flight control.

Jennifer Sirangelo, president and CEO of the National 4-H Council, said about 200 youth participated in this year's event, Art Silverman reports for NPR. She told him, "Drone Discovery engineering challenge has different levels of activities, from unmanned flight to the coding behind remote sensing."

Some of the participants are already familiar with drones, Silverman reports. Emma Brown, 10, said her family has drones at its Maryland farm. She told Silverman, "At my dad's house, I have a really big drone, and it has a camera on it. And when my dad goes over to the farm, I get the drone out and fly it over there and spy on him and see what he's doing."

Others are new to drones, Silverman reports. Josh Renko, 11 told him, "Drones are probably going to take over the world." Lydia Eskeland, 15, from Virginia, said, " I mean I think a lot of good can come out of them, but it's kind of scary to think about at the same time that, like, 10 years from now, like, everything could be run by drones."

Tough pilot requirements, other concerns will slow growth of drone journalism, expert says

By Al Cross
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

MINNEAPOLIS -- The use of drones for journalism is likely to be limited mainly to large news organizations for a while because of the requirements for a license to pilot unmanned aircraft, and adoption may be slow, an expert in the field said during a session at the national journalism educators' convention Thursday.

University of Nebraska professor Matt Waite with drones

Matt Waite, a journalism professor at the University of Nebraska, said he sees "a culture of caution in newsrooms," which don't want to be test cases in an area of law that remains largely untested by courts. He said unmanned aircraft are "a gray area a lot of media attorneys are uncomfortable with."

Waite is holding an overbooked "bootcamp" next weekend to prepare about 60 would-be drone pilots for the Federal Aviation Administration exam. He said the test material includes "a lot of minutiae" that are unrelated to unmanned aircraft. "It is a lot of stuff, and I'm afraid it is going to chase off too many journalists."

But he said as more organizations use drones and an insurance market for them is stabilized, that will encourage more usage. The images available are amazing, said Katie Culver, a professor of journalism ethics at the University of Wisconsin.

Culver said that in debates over drones, news organizations haven't been as aggressive as they should be in speaking up for their First Amendment right to gather news and information.

Waite, Culver and Jacksonville University journalism professor Courtney Barclay appeared at the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications in Minneapolis. They discussed not only the legalities surrounding unmanned aircraft, but the ethics.

"Ethics has to start with safety," Waite said, noting that the recently issued federal regulations prohibit flying drones over people.

Culver said she fears many newsrooms will "default to technological determinism" and do what the technology allows, limiting their ethical thinking to possible consequences: What happens if X happens? She said newsrooms are aware of privacy concerns but tend to think of them more in legal terms than ethical terms, and many are more concerned about "getting what is interesting to the public rather than what's in the public interest."

An important question, Culver said, is "What are drones going to do to our credibility as journalists?" She said there is "pretty widely documented public suspicion of civilian drones," with about two-thirds of the population saying they will make things worse and one-third expecting better.

Culver suggested that news organizations follow the example of the Gannett Co. newspapers in Wisconsin and discuss the issue with "focus groups" of citizens.

Waite said most people probably don't know that anyone can legally take and publish a picture of anyone on a street, but state laws may eventually prohibit such photography or video from unmanned aircraft below a 500-foot altitude. "It's important for journalists to understand that use of that technology may be transformative in the public's mind."

Jane Kirtley of the University of Minnesota, moderator of the panel, said some state "ag-gag" laws designed to shield agricultural operations from public scrutiny have been extended to include drones.

Waite said, "Agriculture is talking out of both sides of sides of their mouth," wanting few restrictions on drones for farming but blocking others from flying over farms without permission, as was attempted in the Nebraska legislature.

He said agriculture is much more important to the unmanned-aircraft industry than journalism is: "I've often described journalism as the bug speck on the windshield when it comes to drones."