College students help small Vt. town chart its path

Many small towns struggle to balance economic growth with preservation of their community's spirit. One community is turning to the local college to help with the task.

Starksboro, Vt., population 1,900, is home to Middlebury College. City leaders have asked students to spend a semester interviewing residents to help determine what makes the town unique. “Our hope is to create enough consensus to then drive the plan’s language,” Bill Roper, president of the Orton Family Foundation, one of the groups funding the project, tells Abby Goodnough of The New York Times. “Then they can move forward with how to protect what they’ve all agreed is most important.”

The students are part of a class entitled "Portraits of a Vermont Town." The project is aimed not only at helping the town plan how they want to grow, but also at helping students understand the realities of rural life. “I’m guilty, like most of us, of really romanticizing Vermont life and Vermont towns,” said Max Kanter, a junior from Phoenix. “Now I have a sense of the challenge they have to stay afloat.” (Read more)

Automaker bailout plan wrinkles Southern brows

With talk of a bailout for the Big 3 automakers dominating this week's news these days, Michigan and some other Rust Belt states are getting a lot of attention. But some are saying that the future of the auto industry is not in the Great Lakes region, but in the South.

"States like Alabama, with the second-largest per capita concentration of auto-related jobs, as well as South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and Mississippi, have been growing these high-wage jobs for a new generation," writes Joel Kotkin for Forbes.com. "And the fact that the region will likely be producing the majority of the most low-mileage and low-emission cars certainly cannot hurt their future prospects." (Read more)

Sylvia Lovely, executive director of the Kentucky League of Cities and president of the New Cities Foundation, explains the region's appeal to car manufacturers. "The easy answer is that they came for cheaper land and labor," she writes on newgeography.com, but "They came also for laborers eager to find the good paying auto jobs that had escaped the South for too long." She also says the region contains a strong work ethic often ignored in stereotypes.

"Of course, we don’t want to see any part of America fail, including Detroit," she writes, "but others do see the bailout as undermining a trend that favors efficiency in manufacturing." But whatever Congress decides, they would do well to recognize that the auto industry isn't just about Detroit anymore. (Read more)

Japanese automakers have a stake in the fate of their American competitors, Coco Masters of Time magazine reports from Tokyo: "The bankruptcy of one or more of the Big Three could create havoc among parts suppliers that sell to Japan's carmakers; job losses would send more shock waves through the U.S. economy, deepening the recession in what is by far the largest single market for Japanese cars." (Read more)

UPDATE, Dec. 6: In an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Cutler of Wesleyan University examines the failure of the United Auto Workers to unionize Japanese plants in the U.S. and build a relationship with Japan's auto workers union.

Ban on road construction in national forests is narrowed to only 10 Western states

The ban on creating new roads in national forests, enacted during the Clinton administration, has been narrowed by a federal court decision. The ban now affects only a fourth of the states initially affected.

The 2001 "Roadless Rule" has been subject to judicial tug-of-war over the past few years. the Bush administration overturned the decision in 2005. Judge Elizabeth Laporte invalidated that repeal in 2006, after challenges from environmental groups. But another federal judge invalidated the original rule this August, says a recent Associated Press article.

In an attempt to reconcile the two rulings, Laporte reduced the scope of her decision. While the measure initially covered national forests in almost 40 states, it now only applies to 10 western states. (Read more)

Daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County? Mr. Martin's money train is hauling it back

Rural America gets the short end of the stick from the nation's foundations and other philanthropies, but many of its natives have wealth that could greatly benefit their old hometowns. The latest example is Felix Martin Jr., right, who died just over a year ago. When the retired investor and lifelong bachelor returned to his native Greenville, Ky., in 1996, "People knew him but they didn't know the extent of his wealth. He was private about it," his friend Roderick Tompkins said yesterday -- when the wealth became very public, with the announcement that Martin had left $50 million to create a foundation or trust "for the benefit of the education, civic and cultural needs" of Muhlenberg County.

The county of 32,000 is synonymous with the Western Kentucky Coal Field, where mining has been an up-and-down industry that has brought temporary prosperity to many, wealth to a relative few, and lasting human and environmental damage to some. Many know it best as the locale of John Prine's 1967 song "Paradise," from which the title of this item is taken.

"C. Dennis Riggs, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Louisville, which is administering the trust, said the gift may be one of the largest bequests to a community in the country," reports Emily Udell of The Courier-Journal. (C-J map) "He said the money will be a resource to help retool the county's work force." Yesterday the foundation, headed by Tompkins, announced a $150,000 grant to help establish an arts extension agent through the University of Kentucky and a $110,000 grant to boost a scholarship program for local students at nearby Madisonville Community and Technical College. Half a million dollars will be available for "nonprofits serving Muhlenberg County residents during an initial application period," Udell writes. (Read more)

For more background on rural philanthropy, click here.

Byron Crawford, chronicler of rural Kentucky, writes his last column for The Courier-Journal

Our longtime friend and colleague Byron Crawford, who traveled Kentucky to do rural features for Louisville's WHAS-TV, then spent 29 years as the state columnist for The Courier-Journal, wrote his last column yesterday. It's in the Louisville paper today. He was among the employees who applied for and received a buyout as the Gannett Co. Inc. paper did its part in the company's latest downsizing. He has become an institution, and The C-J won't be the same without him.

Crawford, a native of Lincoln County in the rural heart of the state, thanked readers and subjects "for trusting me with some of your most personal stories," and "for giving me directions when I was lost on the backroads along the Mississippi or on Pine Mountain. . . . My assignment has been to roam Kentucky from end to end, telling the stories of its fascinating people, places and folklore. I have tried always to remember that my voice and my opinion were never as important as those of my story subjects." And he apologized "to those whose important stories I never got to tell. There were just too many roads and not enough time."

Crawford carries a reminder of those roads. He noticed this summer that the left side of his face had more age lines, and figured that "a million miles of sun on the driver's side has left its mark. So, if these lines represent roads I have traveled and stories I have written, then I suppose they are also a part of each person who I have met along the way, and all of you who have read the lines I have left on this page. There is something intrinsically comforting to me in that thought as I reach the end of this line." (Read more)

NAA's "20 under 40" hotshots include four who serve rural America with newspapers

The Newspaper Association of America's 2008 20 Under 40 list features four employees from rural newspapers and a company that owns many rural papers.

Assembled by the NNA magazine Presstime, the list includes executives under 40 who represent creative and progressive work relevant to their respective publication and the newspaper industry. Individuals who received the honor include editors, advertising directors and online staff and feature writers, among others

The honorees were Dan Cox, president of the The World Co., publishers of the Lawrence Journal-World in Lawrence, Kan.; Shannon Dunnigan, vice president of human resources at GateHouse Media in Fairport, N.Y.; Mike Fuhrman, editor of the Statesville Record & Landmark in Statesville, N.C.; and David Sickle, circulation director for The Republican & Herald and The News-Item in Pottsville and Shamokin, Pa.

Fuhrman, editor of the Statesville Record & Landmark, has been recognized for helping create partnerships with four other daily papers to improve reporter training and an implement an emergency response plan. He has also introduced his paper to a new Web publishing system this past August. Publisher Tim Dearman says Fuhrman “understands the role the newspaper needs to serve in a changing environment. He is the best hire I’ve ever made, and I’ve been in the business a long time.”

Presstime says that the goal of the list “is to assemble a group of people, under the age of 40, who represent the innovative work being done at today's newspapers, and tell their stories through profiles in the magazine and enhanced content online at www.naa.org."

See the profiles of the winners here.

Small-town docs face challenges, but reap rewards

Small towns often struggle to find family-care physicians, because of lower pay and higher medical school debts, as well as schools' push for students to specialize and a more frequent schedule of being on night call. But family physicians say that these are all worth it for the benefits of small-town medical practice, where doctors really get to know their patients and their families.

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, the nation needs 41.6 family physicians per 100,000 people, but had only 31.2 per 100,000 in 2005. AAFP spokeswoman Leslie Champlin said medical schools can help by enrolling students from rural areas who might not have perfect test scores or research experience: "They want to go home and practice medicine." John Weiss of the Post-Bulletin in Rochester, Minn., writes that the organization "wants Congress to increase money to help ease the financial burden of those who practice in rural areas." (Read more)

Kansas governor, congressmen from Colo., Ga. lead list of speculation on agriculture secretary

UPDATE, Dec. 6: Sebelius "shocked the Kansas political establishment Saturday by abruptly withdrawing from consideration" for any Cabinet post," report Steve Kraske and Dave Helling of the Kansas City Star. (Read more)

The three leading candidates for secretary of agriculture in the Obama administration are Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Reps. John Salazar of Colorado and Sanford Bishop of Georgia, according to sources of Agri-Pulse, a Washington-based newsletter on agriculture. It is subscriber-based, but offers a four-week trial subscription. Yesterday, The Washington Post listed Sebelius, former Rep. Charles Stenholm of Texas and Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff, who is a dairy farmer.

"Later in the day, responding to reporters' inquiries, Sebelius indicated she was not interested in the job. Salazar and Bishop may have moved to front-runner status with that development," reports John Walter of Agriculture Online. Here are condensed versions of Agri-Pulse's brief biographies of the three Democrats, with our additions:

Sebelius, a popular governor in her second and final term, has long been on the list because she is viewed as a rising star in Democratic politics. She served eight years in the Kansas legislature and two terms as state insurance commissioner. (She was also on the list of potential Obama running mates, comes from his late mother's home state and is the daughter of former Ohio Gov. John Gilligan.)

Salazar, one of only a handful of active farmers in Congress, serves on the House Agriculture Committee and was recently re-elected to his third term. As the congressman from Colorado's Western Slope, Salazar has developed a strong interest in rangeland and national forest lands. Salazar pushed for fruit and vegetable grower funding as well as funding for renewable fuels research during the 2008 Farm Bill debate. (He is the brother of Sen. Ken Salazar.)

Bishop was a co-chairman of Obama's Georgia campaign, but his name surfaced in speculation only recently. He was first elected in the Black Belt district in 1992, and has been on the House Appropriations Committee since 2003 and its agriculture subcommittee since 2006. He has been especially active on peanut issues, securing committee approval of $74 million for peanut storage in the supplemental spending bill. His voting record has been the most conservative in the Congressional Black Caucus. (He would be the second black secretary of a department that has a checkered record at dealing with African American farmers.)

Meanwhile, seven former agriculture secretaries offered advice about USDA and perspectives on the future of agriculture today in Washington at the Food and Agriculture Policy Summit, sponsored by Farm Journal and Farm Foundation. For an introductory story by Farm Journal's Jeanne Bernick and a video, click here.

Farm Foundation study identifies challenges in the next 30 years of agriculture

Agriculture faces a number of challenges in the next thirty years and public policy must change if they are to be adequately addressed, says a new report released today by Farm Foundation.

"The 30-Year Challenge: Agriculture's Strategic Role in Feeding and Fueling a Growing World" identifies six areas that will shape agriculture in the next three decades: global financial markets and recession, global food security, global energy security, climate change, competition for natural resources and global economic development.

"It is not clear that today's policies -- designed to deal with issues of the last century -- will provide appropriate tools and incentives to address the 30-year challenge," said Neilson Conklin, the foundation's president. "This is what one project participant termed 'a generational opportunity' to begin new discussions on public policies for the 21st century." (Read the press release or full report)

Amid dire forecasts in industry, community papers remain stable, and want to make sure you know it

UPDATE, Dec. 6: The prediction is extreme, and newspapers have other steps available to them, such as becoming nonprofit organizations or donating themselves to such groups, media-business analyst Lauren Rich Fine writes on paidContent.org.

Several cities are likely to lose their daily newspapers in the next two years because the recession will deepen and some newspaper companies will default on debt and go out of business, Fitch Ratings said in a report on media companies yesterday. But just as the report was coming out, a group of community newspaper publishers went public with their plan to boost their sector of the industry, which is doing much better than metropolitan papers.

First, the bad news: Fitch, a subscriber-based credit rater, said in its 2009 outlook for the U.S. media and entertainment industries, "Fitch believes more newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010."

Mark Fitzgerald of Editor & Publisher writes, "Fitch is generally pessimistic across the board, assigning negative outlets to nearly all sectors from Yellow Pages to radio and TV and theme parks. But the newspaper industry is the most at risk of defaulting, it says. . . . Fitch rates the debt of two newspaper companies, The McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co. as junk, with serious possibilities of default. It also assigns a negative outlook to both the companies and the newspaper sector, meaning their credit ratings are likely to deteriorate further." (Read more)

But to such observers, the newspaper industry generally means daily, metropolitan papers. Circulation and advertising declines have been much less at weekly papers and smaller dailies, the sort of papers that belong to the National Newspaper Association. The NNA Foundation wants to help members "meet current circulation and revenue challenges," but some in the group also think they "need help in changing the public's perception that ... the newspaper industry is dying," Foundation President Peter Wagner writes in the December issue of Publishers' Auxilary, NNA's member newspaper.

Wagner says the foundation board is planning efforts to "promote the community newspaper industry as growing and effective and certainly not in the downward spiral being reported by the larger chains and major metro papers," pay for promotion of public-notice advertising, an important revenue source and public service of most rural weeklies, and meetings to help younger members of newspaper-owning families run their companies. About 40 percent of weekly newspapers are still independently owned; for dailies, the figure is about 20 percent.

The foundation is looking for donations to do its work, and for suggestions. The current Pub Aux isn't yet online, but Wagner can be reached at pww@iowainformation.com or P.O. Box 160, Sheldon IA 51249. He is publisher of the N'West Iowa Review, one of the best weeklies in the nation. (He would want us to capitalize the last word in the paper's name, as he does.) We strongly endorse his efforts.

UPDATE: In the INA Bulletin out today, the Iowa Newspaper Association announced the theme for its 2009 convention, to be held Feb 5-6 in Des Moines, is "Learning to Survive and Thrive." Note that the logo puts the emphasis on "survive."

Reforms at USDA could prove difficult for Obama

As the Obama administration nears many believe that drastic changes are needed in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Such changes may prove difficult. "In cash-strapped times, the challenges of mounting new initiatives are daunting," writes Kimberly Kindy of The Washington Post. "And the USDA is still battling long-running problems: subsidy programs that give huge sums to ineligible, millionaire farmers; a food inspection system that puts Americans at risk for food-borne illnesses; and nutrition programs that fail to identify more than 30 percent of Americans who live in poverty and are at risk of hunger every month."

Obama has criticized farm policy in the U.S. for focusing on large farms, and last week he noted a Government Accountability Office finding that "USDA continued to give federal subsidies to ineligible, wealthy farmers despite a series of congressional reforms," notes Kindy. "Between 2003 and 2006, more than 2,700 farmers who were earning more than the cutoff of $2.5 million annually continued to receive subsidies." But changing the farm policy to strengthen support for smaller farms has met with opposition from both Democrats and Republicans.

USDA also handles food safety, and many argue those inspections need to be drastically improved. Kindy writes, "The USDA and 14 other departments and agencies administer a patchwork of food safety laws that often overlap and do not always make public safety the first priority. The department also handles nutrition, and another Obama campaign pledge -- to end childhood hunger by 2015 -- also presents immediate challenges. The nation's economic crisis has pushed the number of families relying on food stamps to 30 million, an unprecedented high expected to climb as unemployment rates continue to rise," adds Kindy. (Read more)

U.S. ethanol production down, imports up in Sept.

The Energy Information Administration reports that U.S. ethanol production was down in September while imports, "largely from Brazil, increased," writes Janie Gabbett of MeatingPlace.

"EIA said the 806.3 million gallons produced in September, or 640,000 barrels per day, was a slight decline from August but an increase of nearly 200,000 barrels per day from a year ago," Gabbett wites. "The slight reduction in ethanol production in September reflects some of the economic difficulty ethanol producers have experienced as a result of higher input costs, lower ethanol values and the evaporation of credit in the market." (Read more)

Small-town radio station gets awards, attention for public-service work in Indiana community

Radio stations can be an important part of a small community, and one in Southern Indiana has recently been recognized twice for its public service. WMPI in Scottsburg, population 6,000, was recently named small-market station of the year by the Indiana Broadcasters Association and received a write-up in The Courier-Journal of nearby Louisville.

J.R. Ross, left, and his father bought the station almost 20 years ago, and since then, have made sure it is an integral part of the community. "I think people are hungry for customer service," Ross says. C-J Indiana columnist Dale Moss writes that Ross "missed a shift recently after dental work, and listeners called, worried what was wrong." (Photo by Moss)

The station also works hard at giving back to the community. This weekend is its 19th annual "We Care" holiday auction, which provides warm clothing for children in the community. With priorities like that, we think they deserve all the attention they can get. (Read more)

Kentucky lieutenant governor wants to link ATV trails in Eastern Kentucky with those in W. Ky.

Coal-mining counties in Central Appalachia are capitalizing on the region's rough terrain as a tourist attraction for owners of four-wheel-drive and all-terrain vehicles. Now Kentucky Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo is promoting a statewide adventure trail that would connect local trails from the eastern part of the state with the western part.

“We will have something that no one else on earth has. It will transform our economy and especially transfer the economy of rural Kentucky because that is our strength,” Mongiardo told state and local leaders this week in Harlan County, reports John Middleton of The Harlan Daily Enterprise.(Read more)

Mongiardo is a physician from adjoining Perry County and once represented Harlan in the state Senate. For earlier coverage of the adventure trail on The Rural Blog, click here and here.

Election tipped along the edges of metro areas

Barack Obama will become president on Jan. 20 not because he altered the electoral map, as he said he could uniquely do, but because he boosted the Democratic vote in swing-state suburbs, political scientist Michael Harrington writes on newgeography.com. His election "had to do with headway with specific voters – especially suburbanites and key swing states – rather than any overthrow of anticipated urban/rural voting divides," the site's editors write.

While Obama drive up black turnout, got two-thirds of the vote among other minorities and more than two-thirds of voters under 30, none of those shifts reflect "the electoral geography that drives the Electoral College results," Harrington writes. "The true shift from red to blue was actually driven by a slight shift at the margins of the divide. The tipping point was in the suburbs where middle and upper class suburbanites congregate and 49 percent of the electorate resides." The result, he says: Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida changed from red to blue.

To prove his point, Harrington uses these maps prepared by Mark Newman, showing the range of the partisan vote in a spectrum from red to blue, county-by-county (click below to enlarge):"Not a big difference, is there?" Harrington asks. The key differences, he writes, were on the edges of metropolitan areas: "Obama captured more suburban counties outside the urban core than either Gore or Kerry. These counties not only have lower population densities but also higher incomes and more white inhabitants. So much for race. . . . Obama won handily in the mature suburbs where Bush and Kerry had evenly split. This is also where much of the non-black minority support for Obama resides."

As for the rural vote, Harrington writes, "We again see a consistent monotonic relationship between party preference and population density. As we move outward from the urban core, voting preferences shift from blue to purple to red. This suggests that the urban-rural split in American politics is still very much with us. This should not surprise us if these political differences are based on lifestyle preferences that do not change from election to election or candidate to candidate." (Read more)

Bush administration enacts rule to ease mountaintop-removal strip mining of coal

UPDATE, Dec. 4: In approving the rule, EPA apparently ignored findings of its own studies, reports Joaquin Sapien of ProPublica.

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday approved a last-minute rule change by the Bush administration that environmentalists fear will lead to coal companies burying more Appalachian streams with excess rock and dirt from surface mining," report Renee Schoof, Bill Estep and Andy Mead of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The rule proposed by the Interior Department and its Office of Surface Mining was revised at EPA's request, but will still "revoke parts of a key water quality rule that could have been used [in lawsuits or action by the Obama administration] to limit the burial of streams by mountaintop-removal coal-mining operations," writes Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette.

The old "buffer zone" rule, enacted 25 years ago, bans mining activities withing 100 feet of streams, including those that occasionally dry up. That complicates mountaintop-removal mining, which deposits the rock and dirt from the mined area in fills at the heads of hollows, or narrow valleys below the mined ridges. Federal and state agencies routinely grant coal companies variances from the rule, supposedly by showing that they won't "adversely affect the water quantity and quality, or other environmental resources of the stream," as the current rule states.

Under the final version of the new rule, "EPA would consider mining valley fills incompliance with water quality standards if mining operators obtained 'dredge-and-fill' permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers," Ward reports. "But the standard for obtaining such a permit allows a greater level of damage than would be permitted under OSM's previous version of the buffer zone rule." The new rule "would also require coal operators to minimize fills and consider alternatives." (Read more)

Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post reports, "A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the rule has not been published, said new safeguards in the regulation will reduce the amount of waste deposited in Appalachian mountain waterways and is 'going to impose costs on the coal industry.' But coal officials, who had lobbied for the change, said it would not burden the industry and would help protect Appalachia's 14,000 mountaintop-mining jobs." (Photo: Mountaintop mine near Mud River, W. Va., by Michael Williamson of the Post.)

The Obama administration could try to overturn the new rule, which would be a complicated and lengthy process. "Obama's transition team declined to comment on its plans on Tuesday," the Herald-Leader reports. "Another option would be for opponents to go through the courts. Opponents have argued that the rule change is illegal." Also, the administration could propose a broader regulation or legislaiton that would place new limits on mountaintop removal, a step Obama has said he favors.

The governors of Kentucky and Tennessee asked EPA to reject the new rule, but Kentucky "state legislators, including several from coal-mining regions ... sent their own letter to the EPA supporting the change," the Herald-Leader notes. The state's Democratic congressmen opposed the rule, and Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Versailles, said yesterday, "This decision ignores Kentucky's landscape and merely rewards bad behavior." (Read more)

AIDS Day forum in N. Dakota spotlights need to increase knowledge of the disease in rural areas

As part of World AIDS Day yesterday, an organization supporting HIV/AIDS survivors in Minnesota and North Dakota addressed the importance of spreading awareness of the disease in rural communities.

While more dispersed populations may make it seem that AIDS isn't a pressing issue in such areas, “If there’s one person in our community living with this disease, then we’re all living with it,” Clinton Lende, the executive director of Minnkota Health Project, said at the organization's World AIDS Day Community Forum.

Kim Winnegge writes for The [Fargo] Forum: "Geneva, who gave only her first name, said the stigma attached with HIV/AIDS can make it difficult to fully identify herself – even though she’s been HIV-positive for 18 years." Geneva, who lives in rural Minnesota, said that stereotypes of people living with HIV/AIDS ignore the reality: "This is a human disease ... People think it’s a gay man’s disease, or a drug user’s disease. I’m neither, and I got it." (Read more)

Colo. utility helps customers generate solar power

High energy costs have put a dent in household budgets, but one energy company is working to make renewable energy more affordable. The Delta Montrose Electrical Association in Montrose, Colo., population 12,500, is helping area residents install solar energy systems in their homes. Kati O’Hare writes in the Montrose Daily Press that, through a $25,000 matching grant from the Governor's Energy Office, DMEA is offering a $2/watt rebate on solar photovoltaic systems. So far, 12 systems have been installed. (Read more)

Jim and Sharen Branscome, right, have one of those systems. They write for the Daily Yonder: "After 48 days of operation, we have generated 2.470 megawatt-hours of power and saved ourselves $246 in power we didn't have to buy from DMEA at 10 cents per kwh." (That's a kilowatt-hour, 1,000 of which make a mwh.)

The Branscomes still owe DMEA $108, thanks to a recent cold snap and the fact their system was finished during fall, leaving them unable to "bank" energy for later. However, they write, "Come spring and summer, we'll be in the 'banking' business. That is, we'll be selling excess power back to DMEA at the same ten cents per kwh they charge us." They write that they will have to live to 120 to recoup their capital costs, but the project was "the right thing to do." Maybe it's like planting a tree. (Read more)

Walking-horse interests get a spot among the exhibits at the 2010 World Equestrian Games

Despite controversy surrounding practices of the Tennessee walking horse industry, industry leaders have talked their way into the Alltech 2010 World Equestrian Games at the Kentucky Horse Park with promises of better behavior.

Breeders of Tennessee walkers have faced criticism over the practice of "soring" in which a horse's front legs are intentionally injured to exaggerate the gait in competitions. As The Rural Blog has reported in the past, the American Association of Equine Practitioners has called this practice "one of the most significant welfare issues affecting any equine breed or discipline."

The World Equestrian Games Foundation told Janet Patton of the Lexington Herald-Leader that the inclusion of the breed in exhibits (not competition) will help improve industry practices. "There can't be one unsound horse here because this is going to have the whole world looking at them," said John Long, WEG Foundation chairman and CEO of the U.S. Equestrian Federation. "This is an opportunity to change the image if they get this right, and I think they will. This is what might be the beginning of the solution to the places they need to go." (Read more)

To read other Rural Blog posts on Tennessee walkers click here and here.

Virginia commission will study uranium mining

As the demand for alternatives to imported energy sources keeps rising, many are looking to lift existing bans that would allow for exploration of domestic sources. This year has already seen the ban on offshore drilling lifted in many areas, and now Virginia may lift a statewide ban that prevents mining for uranium. Anita Kumar of The Washington Post writes, "Despite opposition from the General Assembly, a state commission will study whether more than 60,000 tons of uranium can be safely mined in rural south-central Virginia in what is thought to be the nation's largest undeveloped uranium deposit."

The state Coal and Energy Commission does not have the authority to lift the 25-year-old ban on uranium mining. That would have to be done by the legislature, which in March killed a study proposal. "The issue divided legislators along geographic lines rather than partisan ones," Kumar writes. "Many who represent areas where uranium has been found or whose drinking water could be affected voted against it, and many from other regions, including Northern Virginia, voted for it."

The deposits are found along Virginia's border with North Carolina. "Tests indicate that about 60,000 tons of uranium, worth $10 billion, are below the surface, the company says," adds Kumar. "That would be enough to supply all the country's nuclear power plants for about two years." Virginia Uranium has spent $100,000 to lobby for the project. Environmentalists and other advocates of the ban believe that the rainy climate and high population densities of the areas near the deposits make mining in the area too risky. (Read more)

Bush pardons include many who just want to shoot

As George W. Bush's presidency comes to a close, he has begun issuing pardons. "On the surface, the list of the 14 people pardoned by the president this week shows few common denominators in terms of time served, geographic location or even type of crime, except that the felonies were non-violent, writes Amir Efrati of The Wall Street Journal. "But a closer look at some of the newly pardoned shows many of them are church-going, blue-collar workers from rural areas (and ardent Bush supporters) who had little trouble finding jobs after their convictions. There is another common thread: the important role firearms once played in their lives."

Bush has been a strong advocate of gun ownership during his tenure as president. This support may or may not have played a role in the decision to pardon some of the people on the list. Presidents do not typically discuss their reasons for issuing a pardon. "Coincidentally or not, at least seven of the 14 pardoned on Monday are former hunters or shooting enthusiasts," adds Efrati. "In interviews, five of them said they wrote in their petitions to the government that a desire to win back the right to bear arms was a chief reason for wanting a pardon." (Read more)

Retirement-age newcomers, still active, bring a variety of useful skills to rural communities

Rural America could get a welcome boost as more active people of retirement age move into their communities. A report from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire shows that rural areas are getting more than their share of new residents over age 60. Cornell University researchers Nina Glasgow and David Brown write, "While young people are much more likely than older adults to move, almost 10 percent of Americans aged 60+ migrated between counties during 1995 to 2000, with a disproportionate share moving to rural communities."

"Older in-movers are active in a wide range of social, civic, religious, and service organizations, and they are especially likely to volunteer," Glasgow and Brown report. "Community leaders we interviewed reported that through their labor, technical expertise, and financial contributions, older in-movers are a driving force in community activities and organizations."

It appears that the trend is rising as baby boomers approach retirement age. "If new cohorts of older persons maintain the migration behavior of current retirees, older in-migration to rural areas will persist into the future," write Glasgow and Brown. "There seems little question that this will be the case, given the fact that nonmetropolitan areas have experienced net in-migration at ages 60+ during three of the last five decades, with the rate of in-migration at these ages being particularly high during the rural growth decades of the 1970s and 1990s."

Glasgow is a senior research associate in the Department of Development Sociology at Cornell, in Ithaca, N.Y., and Brown is a professor of development sociology, director of the univresity's Community and Rural Development Institute and associate director of the Cornell Population Program. Click here to read their full report.

Cracker Barrel returns to original corporate name

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store became a huge success by marketing rural food and culture. Now, after mixed results in its first attempt at diversifying, and selling off the Logan's Roadhouse chain last year, its corporate name is returning to the original we all know and leaving one known only to investors. The company "announced Wednesday that its shareholders overwhelmingly approved changing the corporation's name" from CBRL Group to the old name, reports The Lebanon Democrat, in the company's hometown of Lebanon, Tenn. (Read more)

Michael A. Woodhouse, the company's chairman, president and CEO, said in a release, "With our return to a single-concept company and to further build on our strong and highly-differentiated brand, we are pleased to return to the company's original name of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc." The company's stock will continue trading as CBRL on NASDAQ. It topped $50 a share in March 2007 but dropped to $25 by January 2008 and is trading today at just under $20.

Maryland getting tougher on chicken manure

Chicken farmers in Maryland are being blamed for increased pollution in Chesapeake Bay, as unregulated chicken manure is being washed into streams that flow into the arm of the Atlantic. The state is proposing new regulations for manure storage and disposal by one of the largest agricultural industries in the state.

Opponents of the regulations say farmers "are already doing their part to protect the environment and that the proposed regulations come as the industry is reeling from record-high energy and feed prices," reports Ian Urbina in The New York Times. Supporters say the rules would merely bring the industry in line with other livestock groups in the state. “We don’t let hog or dairy farms spread their waste unregulated, and we wouldn’t let a town of 25,000 people dump human manure untreated on open lands,” said Gerald W. Winegrad, former state senator and a public policy professor at the University of Maryland. “So why should we allow a farm with 150,000 chickens do it?” (Read more)

Wyoming folks unite to get best wind-power deals

With developers flocking to Wyoming to take advantage of the rising popularity of wind power, residents are banding together to get the most from their land.

Elsie Bacon, a 71-year-old widow who owns a ranch in Wheatland, population 3,500, told Felicity Barringer of The New York Times that she saw firsthand how wind-power companies are working to get cheap access rights to her land. A landman came by her house in July, offering her only a fraction of what her neighbors were receiving: “He said, ‘You sure I can’t write you out a check?’ He was really pushy.”

"While ranchers have always been ready to help their neighbors, they have been less willing to discuss their financial affairs," Barringer writes. "That has made it easier for wind developers to make individual deals and insist that the terms be kept secret." But Wyoming residents are finding that it is to their benefit to have these difficult conversations.

“I thought we could use collective bargaining strategies to maybe have a little more leverage in negotiating with wind developers," said Grant Stumbough, who worked for the Agriculture Department's Resource Conservation and Development office and helped develop one of the first associations in Wyoming, If we could all get together and work together cooperatively and do some cost sharing and maybe share some of the profits, I think it’s going to be a benefit to everybody.” (Read more)

Oklahoman stops circulating statewide; Charleston Daily Mail switching to a.m. in bid for state sales

Today The Oklahoman became the latest, and one of the last, metropolitan daily newspapers to stop statewide circulation. The family-owned Oklahoma City paper announced Nov. 6 that it would stop distribution "in the four corners" of the state after Nov. 30 but "remains committed to covering news throughout the state, including in areas affected by the cutbacks of the print product, through a variety of digital products, some of which are newly developed." The paper cited rising nesprint costs and "the worst advertising climate for all media since World War II."

We're not sure if anyone keeps track of which papers still have statewide circulation, but The Oklahoman reported that "it was one of the last daily newspapers in the United States to deliver its product throughout its home state. About 7,000 households, most of them 100 miles or more from Oklahoma City, will be affected by the changes in daily home delivery. In a handful of communities, including Tulsa, home delivery will be discontinued, but the daily paper will be available from news racks and in retail stores. Despite the cutbacks, the redrawn circulation area of The Oklahoman still covers roughly two-thirds of the state." We asked Pat Dennis, The Oklahoman’s vice president of operations, for a map of its new circulation area but got no reply.

The Oklahoman's cutback follows similar measures in many other states, increasing the need for smaller daily and even weekly newspapers to fill the gaps in regional coverage.

In a possible exception to the trend, the Charleston Daily Mail will switch from evening to morning publication on Jan. 5 and try to extend its circulation beyond West Virginia's capital city over a six-month period. Editor and Publisher Nanya Friend said the change also would save distribution costs, since the paper has a joint operating agreement with The Charleston Gazette. "Our mission stays the same: Aggressive coverage of local news; a conservative editorial philosophy," Friend said. The paper and the Gazette, which has a liberal philosophy, have competing staffs and publish a combined edition on Saturdays and Sundays. Circulation is about 75,000 on Sunday and 61,000 on Saturday. The Gazette's daily circulation is 47,000; the Daily Mail's is 22,000, down from 29,000 two years ago.

The Gazette's owner, Charleston Newspapers Inc., handles business operations for both papers, including advertising, printing and delivery. The Justice Department filed suit last year, arguing that the papers "lost the protection of antitrust laws" when they changed the agreement in 2004, notes Daily Mail Business Editor George Hohmann. "Friend said the lawsuit has nothing to do with the Daily Mail's switch." (Read more) In the 2004 change, the Gazette's local owners bought the controlling interest in the agreement from Media News Group, which once owned the Mail and is now paid a fee to manage its editorial operations. The suit alleges that the Gazette intends to close the Mail, which the Gazette denies. (Read more)

Even without restructuring of automakers, which could hurt rural areas, dealers are in big trouble

A week ago today, we reported that restructuring of the Big 3 automakers could lead to closure of many small-town auto dealerships, and even without laws to override franchise agreements, almost 1,000 of the 20,000 or so U.S. dealers are expected to close next year. Today, The New York Times has its version of the story. If you're a journalist thinking about doing a similar story, this story and last Sunday's item are two places to start.

"At least 70 percent of the dealerships that have closed so far this year sell American cars, and better than 60 percent of the remaining dealerships sell the troubled Detroit brands," Clifford Krauss reports. "Even if Ford, Chrysler and G.M. survive, many believe a comeuppance is inevitable among dealerships; indeed, for years the nation has had more dealers for domestic brands than warranted by the sales volume of the Detroit automakers. ... In October alone, 20,000 employees of auto dealerships lost their jobs nationwide, more than half of those who were newly unemployed in the retail trade, according to the Labor Department. ... And now the credit market — the lifeblood of any car dealership — is frozen."

Reporting from Quincy, Fla., Krauss gets the rural angle: "The auto dealers are not just businesses, of course. Most of them are deeply rooted in their communities, and each is a slice of Americana — their big flags flying, their radio advertisements compelling attention and their Little League sponsorships and other charity helping to improve the lives of local people." But he also notes, "Car dealers are not entirely blameless for their fate. Auto analysts say they did not push Detroit hard enough to build better-quality, more efficient cars. They note that the dealers lobbied hard in state capitals for laws to protect their franchises from the Detroit manufacturers who wanted to limit their numbers and determine their locations." (Read more)

The Big 3 get little sympathy a few hours up the Chattahoochee River valley from Quincy, in West Point, Ga., where a Kia plant will start making light SUVs next fall. "In West Point, disdain for Detroit commingles with gratitude for Kia," a Korean company, reports Richard Fausset of the Los Angeles Times. "The new jobs will counter the devastating collapse of the textile industry in this border region of Alabama and Georgia." (Read more)

A Thanksgiving prayer for all

Each year, the Kentucky Resources Council sends its friends a copy of Marian Wright Edelman's Thanksgiving prayer, from her book Guide My Feet. We are happy to pass it along and join in the sentiment. Happy Thanksgiving.

God, we thank You for this food
for the hands that planted it
for the hands that tended it
for the hands that harvested it
for the hands that prepared it
for the hands that provided it
and for the hands that served it.
And we pray for those without enough food
in Your world and in our land of plenty.

Are top two ethanol firms talking merger? Maybe

"The first salvo may have been fired this week in a long-awaited shakeout for the U.S. ethanol industry," reports The Forum of Fargo, N.D., in a story based on staff and wire-service reports.

Hours after the nation's largest ethanol maker, Poet LLC, said it is "talking with other companies about buyouts," bankrupt Vera Sun Energy said it had received an unsolicited takeover bid. "Neither Poet nor VeraSun will say if the two are negotiating a deal." The companies control about one-third of America's ethanol capacity.

The story is a good, up-to-date summary of the ethanol business. To read it, click here.

Concern spreads about effect on water supplies of natural-gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing

As reported in an earlier blog item, Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica has been investigating environmental impacts of drilling for natural gas using hydraulic fracturing, which can damage water supplies. City and state governments have begun to react to prevent such damage.

"New York City and state officials have expressed concerns in recent months about how plans to drill for gas in the formation called the Marcellus Shale might affect the rivers and upstate reservoirs that feed drinking water to nine million New Yorkers," writes Lustgarten. "The drilling process involves the use of potentially hazardous chemicals and raises issues about how those fluids would be disposed of and how the environment would be protected against spills."

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation has hired a consultant to evaluate the impact of gas drilling. The city water system functions without a filtration plant because its water sources are so clean. The influx of harmful chemicals from gas drilling could require the construction of such a system at an estimated cost of $20 billion, exceeding any potential natural-gas profits, Lustgarten writes. (Read more)

Similar concerns have been raised in New Mexico with the Bureau of Land Management. "New Mexico officials say a gas drilling proposal on federal lands threatens a pristine aquifer that could someday provide drinking water to 15 million households, but the state's protests have met with resistance from the federal office administering the project," Lustgarten reports. "Because the BLM relied on decade-old data in a four-year-old environmental review, neither the Environmental Protection Agency nor the state's environment departments were involved in the decision."

Many environmental concerns with gas drilling are linked to the tremendous amount of deregulation the industry has been granted by the federal government. "The drilling industry is exempted from many major federal environmental statutes, including the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Superfund law and the Toxic Release Inventory, which requires disclosure of hazardous waste," writes Lustgarten. (Read more)

Ohio bill would take away EPA oversight of water pollution from coal mines

A bill in the Ohio Senate would leave the state's Environmental Protection Agency unable to regulate mining-caused water pollution, instead granting oversight to the state Department of Natural Resources. Environmental activists say the bill is intended to help one mining company.

EPA denied Murray Energy Corp. permits to build a large coal slurry pond in Belmont County because of threats to a nearby creek that houses an endangered species of salamander. But officials say the bill is aimed at speeding up the approval process for mining projects. The bill's sponsor "said the EPA and Natural Resources officials often take years to review coal companies' plans," writes Spencer Hunt of The Columbus Dispatch. "That puts Ohio at risk of losing new mines and jobs to coal states such as West Virginia and Pennsylvania." (Read more)

Struggling Miss. catfish farmers may raise algae

Catfish farmers in Mississippi have struggled in the last few years, due to the combination of high food and fuel prices and foreign competition. Many are abandoning the business altogether, choosing to enter the biofuels market by transforming their catfish ponds into farms for algae.

Arizona-based PetroSun is hoping to lease the unused ponds from farmers, The Associated Press reports. Proponents say that algae-based fuel is an attractive alternative to other biofuels because, unlike ethanol, it does not rely on food sources. Neither would it decrease the number of catfish ponds. Algae farming "is not problematic because the ponds they are looking at are out of production," said Andy Whittington, president of the Mississippi Biomass Council. "The catfish market hasn't been what it needs to be, and there are a lot of ponds going out of production now." (Read more)

Rural educators must address globalization, environmental threats, expert writes

Many rural communities have already weathered a transition from farming to industrialization, but a recent meeting of community educators highlighted a need for rural educators to help their students and communities adapt to change caused by globalization.

Timothy Collins, the assistant director of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University in Macomb, reported on his experiences as the National Community Education Association meeting in Dallas, for an article in The Daily Yonder: "Community-based rural schools are engaging their students in learning experiences that deal with significant local issues such as small-business start ups; implementing agricultural and alternative energy projects; and environmental studies and restoration."

Part of the challenge facing rural communities is the environmental threat to the land-community bonds that often typify rural experience. "Rural communities face a shared problem: they tend to be simultaneously exploited by and disconnected from the global economy," Collins writes. "Even when these places seem forgotten, they remain sources for low-cost labor and natural resources." This means that rural education must also include an emphasis on stewardship, with "a curriculum that preserves and enhances the community’s assets, while recognizing the importance of global citizenship." (Read more)

New tobacco product coming under fire in W. Va.

In a rural state with one of the nation's highest smoking rates, tobacco company RJ Reynolds has debuted a new ‘spitless’ tobacco product with higher-than-normal nicotine levels.

Camel Snus, a pouch placed between the gum and the lip, is under scrutiny from West Virginia University’s Translational Tobacco Reduction Research Program, which has issues with the perceived manipulation on the part of tobacco companies in the region.

“It would appear that tobacco companies are trying to strategically market new smokeless, spitless tobacco products in these areas of high use, such as West Virginia, and also promoting their use as a way to get nicotine in places where you can’t smoke,” Cindy Tworek, Ph.D., said in a release. First spotted in a convenience store in Morgantown, W. Va., Camel Snus are advertised as a cleaner alternative to smoking or chew tobacco. Low levels of salt and moisture content mean users don’t have to spit and the packaging and design of the product appears to be clearly aimed at the younger consumer. “Packaging, colors, and advertising have potential appeal to a younger audience, including product pamphlets on where you can use Camel Snus,” said Tworek.

Further analysis showed the nicotine levels in Camel Snus were much higher than other snuff products sold in the U.S. Newswise, a research-reporting service, reports that “ the version of Camel Snus currently being sold in West Virginia has double the nicotine compared to an earlier analysis of a test-market version of the same product.” The level is much higher than the Liggett Group’s comparable Tourney product line. “With nicotine levels this high, these products are going to be highly addicting,” said Bruce Adkins of the state Division of Tobacco Prevention. “The public needs this awareness, especially to remind them that there’s no tobacco product that can be used without significant potential health risks.” Read the release from Newsiwse here.

Obama cites 'millionaire farmers' as one example of where to cut the federal budget

President-elect Barack Obama said this hour that "millionaire farmers" who get federal subsidies are an example of the cuts that need to be made in the federal budget at a time of economic and fiscal austerity.

"Millionaire farmers received $49 million in crop subsidies even though they were earning more than the $2.5 million cutoff for such subsidies," Obama said at a press conference, citing a Government Accountability Office report. "If it's true it is a prime example of the kind of waste I intend to end when I am president." During his campaign, Obama voted for the new Farm Bill but said he would like subsidy programs to do more for smaller farmers and less for large ones, including corporations. Today, he said he would target "special interest tax breaks and corporate subsidies." UPDATE, Nov. 26: In an editorial, The Washington Post noted Obama's vote and said of the GAO figures, "The supposed amount involved -- $49 million over four years -- is puny in the context of a $3 trillion annual budget."

Part of Obama's language at the press conference appeared to come from Michael Doyle of McClatchy Newspapers, who wrote in his story about the GAO report, "At least 2,702 farmers nationwide received subsidies between 2003 and 2006 even though they were making more than the $2.5 million gross income cutoff [which the new Farm Bill lowers to $750,000]. The unwarranted payments totaled $49 million and exposed enduring Agriculture Department management problems, investigators concluded."

The report says 1.8 million farmers get subsidies. It cites several specific examples of abuse and said the Department of Agriculture "cannot be assured that millions of dollars in farm program payments it made are proper" because it doesn't have enough access to Internal Revenue Service data. USDA's Farm Service Agency replied that it "made the best use of the resources available" and "the reported improper payments amounted to less than 1 percent of total crop subsidy payments," which total $16 billion a year, Doyle writes.

"USDA said it doesn’t have the legal authority to cross-check its program payments with IRS income tax data," notes Agri-Pulse. "GAO wasn’t impressed by the response, pointing out that not only could USDA seek the needed authority but that even without IRS data, there are ways to sample individuals receiving farm payments to test for income eligibility – something GAO says USDA hasn’t tried."

For a summary of the study, click here. For a PDF of the full report, click here.

Getting broadband is 'like having a sewer system'

A small town in rural Arizona is finding that broadband Internet service is a fundamental component of local infrastructure. "Having high-speed in rural communities is like having a sewer system; it's needed for a healthy community," said Mila Lira of Superior, pop. 3,000.

Lira once found her business capabilities stifled due to sole reliance on dial-up Internet service, but now runs a successful online business, thanks to WI-VOD, a company that provides inexpensive wireless broadband access in rural communities. Superior residents pay about $30 each month.

"Superior got its broadband through grants from public and private groups totaling $340,000, according to Heather Murphy, a Pinal County spokeswoman," writes Kelly McGrath of The Arizona Republic. "Of that, $270,000 came from USDA Rural Development, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Superior provided a $25,000 grant, and the business community provided $10,000 in matching funds."

Candi Nillies, support-services coordinator for the Hayden Police Department, notes that wireless access helps with public safety efforts, allowing police officers to carry mobile data terminals in their cars. "We want to give them every piece of technology possible to ensure they go home to their families safe and sound after a shift."(Read more)

As appointment of agriculture secretary remains up in the air, some have policy advice for Obama

As President-elect Barack Obama weighs his options for the position of agriculture secretary, some rural interests are asking him to reflect on his campaign promise to reform farm and rural policies. Many see the appointment as either a way forward or as a means of preserving the status quo.

"He proposed refocusing federal policy on creating opportunity for family farms by capping payments to mega farms and enforcing rules against unfair pricing practices by meat packers," Chuck Hassebrook, executive director of the Nebraska-based Center for Rural Affairs, writes in the Des Moines Register. "To revitalize rural communities, he proposed investing in small business, microenterprise development and value-added agriculture, including local foods and sustainable agriculture."

Hassebrook suggests that farm and rural policy have come to exemplify the broken politics of Washington. He adds, "The federal government spends billions subsidizing mega farms to drive smaller farms off the land and often penalizes the best environmental stewards with lower payments." It is the support of these smaller farms that he sees as the best farm policy, and he says current policy largely ignores many rural people. "In 2005 the Department of Agriculture spent nearly twice as much to subsidize the 260 biggest farms across 13 leading farm states than on rural development initiatives to create economic opportunity for the 3 million people living in those states' 260 most struggling rural counties," he writes. (Read more)

Since the election several names have been mentioned as possible candidates for the agriculture secretary position. Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack had been the odds-on favorite, but told Philip Brasher of the Register that he does not expect to get the post. (Read more)

Reps. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and Stephanie Sandlin, D-S.D., are two other names Obama is rumored to be considering.(Read more)

Bankruptcy of big ethanol producer may mean less money for farmers

The buyout of Iowa's largest ethanol producer, VeraSun, may mean that farmers get lower prices for their corn. Dan Pillar of The Des Moines Register writes, "Farmers who sold corn to VeraSun under futures contracts for delivery later this year or next at prices above the current $3.50 per bushel level on the futures markets may not get the contracted price."

As reported here the bankruptcy of VeraSun, the purchaser of roughly 8 percent of Iowa's annual corn crop, came about because the company locked into contracts with corn growers at prices above the current market value. Bankruptcy may solve this problem. "VeraSun has said that under the terms of bankruptcy law, it may exercise its right to void or change the terms of futures contracts," Pillar notes.

The Iowa Department of Agriculture's Grain Indemnity Fund would provide support for farmers who lose money when they are not paid for grain that was delivered to a licensed warehouse but it can do nothing in cases where companies like VeraSun do not honor previously negotiated contracts. (Read more)

Turkey cost key in Thanksgiving dinner inflation

According to the American Farm Bureau Federation's 23rd annual Thanksgiving dinner cost survey, people will have to pay 6 percent more to get the feast on the table this year, mainly because turkey prices are up. The average cost of dinne for 10 is $44.61, an increase of $2.35 from last year. "The price of a 16-pound turkey is $19.09, or $1.19 per pound, which is an increase of 9 cents per pound compared to 2007," reports Lindsey Klingele of MeatingPlace. (Read more)

Other items that have increased in cost are a 12-oz. package of brown-and-serve rolls, $2.20; a 12-oz. package of fresh cranberries, $2.46; a 30-oz. can of pumpkin pie mix, $2.34; two 9-inch pie shells, $2.26; a 14-oz. package of cubed bread stuffing, $2.57; a relish tray of carrots and celery, 82 cents; a half-pint of whipping cream, $1.70; a pound of green peas, $1.58; and three pounds of sweet potatoes, $3.12 according to AFBF's Web site. Items that decreased in price included several basics: milk, coffee, onions, eggs, flour, sugar, and butter. (Read more)

Contrary to the national parent and its findings, the Indiana Farm Bureau says a Thanksgiving dinner for Hoosiers will cost 4.3 percent less than last year: $45.58, down $2.05. "White potato prices are up 35 percent this fall because potato acres were down 8 percent from last year," Purdue agricultural economist Corrine Alexander told Dave Russell of Brownfield Network. "In contrast, sweet potato prices are down because of a record crop of sweet potatoes." IFB said in its release, "Neither the national nor Indiana surveys is scientific They are instead snapshots of prices on basic items during a given time period." (Read more)

The National Farmers Union reminds us that "off-farm costs including marketing, processing, wholesaling, distribution and retailing account for 80 cents of every food dollar spent in the United States." For details and examples from NFU, click here.

Tom Gish, buried today, taught rural journalists there's almost no such thing as a strictly local story

Tom Gish, the renowned rural journalist who died Friday, was remembered yesterday and today as an editor-publisher whose influence went far beyond the Kentucky mountains where he lived and worked with his wife and newspaper partner, Pat, and their editor son Ben. (1968 photo by Thomas N. Bethell)

"The Mountain Eagle’s reach to legislators and the national and international press corps shaped legislation ranging from food stamps, Head Start, Title I of the education act, Black Lung compensation, mine safety legislation, strip-mining legislation, housing assistance, to name only a few – all incubated in a weekly newspaper," wrote former Eagle reporter Jim Brancsome. His remarks were read at today's funeral by David Hawpe, editorial director of The (Louisville) Courier-Journal, who said Tom and Pat Gish "gave me the foundation for much of the work I've done as a journalist." For an Associated Press story on the funeral, click here.

Another former Eagle reporter, Bill Bishop, wrote on his Daily Yonder yesterday: "Tom and Pat wrote some of the first stories about the poverty that came with the post-war depression in the coalfields. Other reporters followed the Eagle’s reporting. They would read a story in the Whitesburg paper and then trek down to Eastern Kentucky to see things for themselves. Invariably they’d wind up in Whitesburg and following Tom on a personally guided tour of the region. The War on Poverty began with stories coming from Eastern Kentucky. In reality, Lyndon Johnson’s attention to the nation’s poorest people was directed by reporting done by Tom and Pat Gish."

Bishop writes that the Gishes "taught rural America ... that you can work locally and have a national impact. He quotes another former reporter and Gish friend, Thomas N. Bethell: “One of the many reasons why Tom and Pat are great journalists is that they have always understood that there is almost no such thing as a strictly local story, and they have been willing to follow the story wherever it takes them. That, surely, should be a model and a mantra for rural journalists wherever they are.” (Read more)

Taking on the coal industry, bad schools, corrupt officials and bad police sometimes had a high price. In 1974, the Eagle office was firebombed by a city policeman supposedly upset about stories on police harassment of young people. (Tom Gish told a TV interviewer that state police had evidence that the cop was paid by a coal operator.) The Gishes' front porch became the newspaper office, and the paper's motto, "It Screams," became "It Still Screams."

“It expresses a determination to scream out from the local level to Frankfort to Washington to the people of the country that this is something that needs to be addressed and this is something we’re not going to stop shouting about,” lawyer and former state representative Steve Cawood of Pineville, Ky., told Howard Berkes of National Public Radio today. For the NPR story, click here. For a story from Editor & Publisher, go here. For more on the Gishes, go to http://www.ruraljournalism.org/ or click here.

Most-viewed stories on The Rural Blog last week

Madeline Pickens offers to foster wild horses and burros that are too numerous for federal land
Tom Gish, inspirational rural editor-publisher, dies
Kentucky governor objects to proposed rule that would make mountaintop-removal mining easier
Klan loses in rural lawsuit, draws ABC-TV spotlight

Broadband access creates unusual employment opportunities for rural Wyoming

The availability of broadband Internet has brought new employment opportunities to small communities in northern Wyoming. Ten Sleep, a town of 350 residents, has been opened to new opportunities that utilize technology because the town upgraded to fiber-optic cable.

Eleutian Technology employs teachers in Ten Sleep to teach English to Koreans via the Web. "The company has 300 teachers hooked up to more than 15,000 students," writes Mead Gruver of The Associated Press. Eleutian Technology CEO Kent Holiday initially had planned on building the business in Utah but changed his mind because of the fiber-optic cable installed by the the telecom cooperative that serves Ten Sleep. The upgrade was made in 2006.

Jon Benson, CEO of the Wyoming Technology Business Center at the University of Wyoming told Gruver, "Broadband connectivity really has allowed people to do high-tech businesses from remote areas. It allows companies to locate in a place like Wyoming and do business across the world."(Read more)

There has been some debate about the economic impact of broadband access in rural areas. But the Ten Sleep example shows the potential benefits.

Turkey's good for you, but is turkey farming? Scientists debate effects of antibiotics

"It's hard to find a nutrition expert who doesn't think eating turkey is good for your health," writes Karen Ravn of the Los Angles Times. "Ironically, though, many scientists worry that turkey farming may be bad for public health in general," largely because antibiotics used to treat sick birds and prevent disease might spur evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. (Times photo)

"In 2001, the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that advocates for a healthy environment, estimated that every year in this country 3 million pounds of antimicrobials are used in human medicine," writes Ravn. "By contrast, the organization estimated that 24.6 million pounds are used in food animals for nontherapeutic purposes." Francine Bradley, extension poultry specialist in the Animal Science Department at University of California-Davis, isn't worried. She told Ravn that antibiotics "cost a lot of money, so no one gives them indiscriminately. Besides if they've overused them previously, they won't get a good response when they really need them."

Another concern, that antibiotics will be transferred from turkeys to humans, has been largely dispelled. "Even critics of antibiotic use see this danger as minimal, at least in turkeys," Ravn writes. "A withdrawal time has been established for every antibiotic, based on testing how long it remains in the bird after usage has stopped. So if the withdrawal time is, say, two weeks, the antibiotic cannot be given for at least two weeks before the turkey goes to market."

The Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture routinely test turkeys for antibiotic residue and the results show the birds to be 99 percent residue-free, according to a spokesperson for the National Turkey Federation. Who wants to carve? (Read more)

Rural children now less likely than urban children to live in homes with married couples

Children in rural areas are now less likely to be living in married-couple families than those in urban areas, according to new data from the Census Bureau. In 1990, 76 percent of rural children lived in married couple homes; now the figure is 68 percent. Meanwhile, the urban percentage declined from 72 to 69. The numbers for suburban children dropped 5 percentage points, less than the declined for rural children.

"The poverty rate for children in married-couple families is 9 percent compared to 21 percent for those in male-headed and 43 percent for those in female-headed families," note William P. O’Hare and Allison Churilla in a Carsey Institute report from the University of New Hampshire. "Consequently, the decline in the share of rural children living in married-couple families since 2000 may help explain the 3 percentage point rise in child poverty in rural America between 2000 and 2006." (Read more)

Southwest Virginia has a shortage of psychiatrists, a problem in rural areas, especially for veterans

Here's a story that needs to be done in many rural areas. The Roanoke Times is reporting on a shortage of psychiatrists in Southwest Virginia.

Sarah Bruyn Jones reports that the New River Valley has only 17 licensed psychiatrists, fewer than 1 for every 10,000 residents. The Roanoke area has a better ratio, but almost 25 percent are at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Salem. In Virginia as a whole, the average is 2.9 per 10,000 residents. (Read more)

This is a story that is increasingly important to write, as veterans continue to return from combat overseas. Returning war veterans have psychological problems and are disproportionately rural. As we have noted, a recent study in West Virginia found rural veterans there returning from Iraq or Afghanistan with high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression compared to their urban counterparts. This discrepancy was blamed on a lack of mental-health care providers in rural areas.

City takes meatpacker out of city limits so it can qualify for a rural business loan from USDA

The City Council of Corpus Christi, Tex., has lopped off part of the city limits so a meatpacking company can get a rural business loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It's the latest lesson in how the widely varying federal definitions of "rural" can be manipulated.

Sam Kane Beef Processors has been in the city limits for many years, but said it needed federal help to stay in business because of the credit crunch, reports Beth Wilson of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times: "A loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture was the company's only option, President Jerry Kane said. Without the refinancing that this loan guarantee will allow, Kane said, the company likely would be forced to close." The company has 850 employees. (Read more)

The loan will come from USDA's Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program, which is for "properties are rural in character and adjacent to rural properties," writes Tom Johnston of MeatingPlace. (Read more) Johnston reports that city economic-development director Irma Caballero told him the plant is surrounded by large tracts of agricultural land, but that does not appear to be the case. Put the plant's address, 9001 Leopard St., into an interactive map service and you will see it's less than half a mile from Interstate 37 and less than a mile from an oil refinery. The MapQuest map shows that the nearest city limit is almost two miles from the plant; the stories don't make clear whether the plant is now in a "doughnut hole" in the city limits or if a corridor leading to the plant was de-annexed.

'Partial capture' of carbon dioxide cleans coal, costs less, say researchers at MIT

With many states requiring or considering requiring coal-fired power plants to capture at least 90 percent of their carbon-dioxide emissions, and Congress considering likewise, the high cost of full capture means that few new power plants are being built in the U.S. Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says an intermediate carbon-capture step may provide a way to stimulate construction of coal plants, and help existing plants move to a full-capture system later.

Nancy Stauffer of the MIT Energy Initiative writes, "Depending on the type of plant, carbon capture alone can increase the initial capital cost by 30 to 60 percent and decrease plant efficiency so that the cost per kilowatt-hour rises. That high cost would reduce — or possibly eliminate — the hours the plant will be called on to run." Plus, no one knows exactly how full capture programs work for a large-scale power plant.

"Our approach — 'partial capture' — can get CO₂ emissions from coal-burning plants down to emissions levels of natural gas power plants," said Ashleigh Hildebrand, a graduate student in chemical engineering and the Technology and Policy Program. This step would still capture a significant portion of carbon emissions, but would reduce the initial cost of implementing the program, provide higher plant efficiency than full capture programs, and allow power plants to test carbon capture programs on a smaller scale before moving to a full capture program. (Read more)

Rescue, restructuring of automakers could cost rural areas a big civic, economic engine: dealers

Restructuring of the automobile industry could be bad news for smaller communities. Some experts are suggesting that the Big 3 automakers need to slash their dealership rolls, a move that would take a significant economic and civic engine from rural areas.

Paul Ingrassia, former Detroit bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" this morning that General Motors needs to have about 1,500 dealers instead of 7,000. He wrote in the Journal Friday, "Far too many valid contractual claims remain on the car companies' revenue streams from dealers, employees, retirees and others for these companies to survive -- even if we get a modest economic recovery soon." (Read more)

"Meet" host Tom Brokaw, who grew up in small towns in South Dakota, pointed out the key role that auto dealers play in small towns: "a part of the heartbeat of their local economy," as he put it. Dealers also play a major civic role, and are in some cases are local newspapers' and broadcast stations' biggest advertisers. But Ingrassia insisted, "It's going to take someone who can really invalidate contracts with dealers."

Ingrassia wrote in the Journal on Nov. 10 that abrogation of dealer and labor contracts is an essential part of a federally supported restructuring plan. "In return for any direct government aid, the board and the management should go," he wrote. "Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver -- someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical -- should have broad power to revamp GM with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others, and downsizing the company." (Read more)

On today's program, Ingrassia called for a law for a "hybrid bankruptcy" of GM, creating a job held by "someone who has the power to invalidate the union contracts and the dealer franchise laws," which "make it virtually impossible" for the companies to slash their dealer rolls. Sounds like a big lobbying challenge for the National Automobile Dealers Association, and something for small-town media to follow.

Many small towns have lost dealerships in the last decade, and the economic downturn has forced may to close. Kevin Tibbles of NBC News reported tonight that 700 of the nation's 20,700 dealers have close this year, and "a further 1,000 are expected to disappear in 2009 as dealerships fall like dominoes." (View story)