Feds want 1,000 rural hospitals to switch to electronic health records by 2014

The federal government wants 1,000 "critical access" and rural hospitals to adopt electronic health records by 2014, and is funneling about $30 million through its Regional Extension Center to make it happen. The money could help as many as 1,500 rural hospitals, or 90 percent of those covered by the Small Rural Hospital Improvement Program.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has already secured $32 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money for REC for IT improvement at critical access hospitals, which are classified as facilities with no more than 25 beds and an average of 10 patients a day, Neil Versel of Information Week reports.

The National Rural Health Association is enthusiastic about the funding, but still sees obstacles to implementation, Versel reports. "To realize this goal, we need all hands on deck. We need everyone rowing in sync, including leadership and staff in every critical access and rural hospital, electronic health records vendors, hospital associations and state offices of rural health in every state, Rural Health IT Network Development grantees, Office of the National Coordinator grantees, and many more public and private, federal and local partners," ONC Office of Provider Adoption Support director Mat Kendall, and ONC rural health IT coordinator at Leila Samy said. (Read more)

USDA beginning farmer grants awarded in 24 states

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced earlier this month it would give more than $18 million to beginning farmer programs in 24 states through its Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program. The money will go to groups that provide education, training, technical assistance and outreach programs to farmers or ranchers who've been working for less than 10 years.

The University of Kentucky College of Agriculture has been awarded a $561,000 grant for its KyFarmStart training program for those who are considering a farming career. Program director Lee Meyer told UKnow's Carol Spence that Kentucky's farm population is aging, with 30 percent of farmers over 65, higher than the national average of 57. "To keep farming viable in the state, we have to be able to replace these people," he said.

Rural Community Development Resources in Yakima, Wash. is another grant recipient, getting $562,500 to help Latino farmers in the Yakima Valley become interested farming. The grant will help the nonprofit host educational workshops about farm and financial management and expand its Center for Latino Farmers into the Wenatchee area to meet increasing demand, RCDR business counselor and loan specialist Maria Garcia told David Lester of the Yakima Herald-Republic.

A beginning farmer program in North Carolina received $180,000 and will give up to $8,000 each to farmers who create innovative opportunities in production, processing and marketing through the Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund. The program is administered by the Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA. The program is designed to keep farmers farming and maintain an economic base for North Carolina's traditional tobacco farming communities. (Read more)

Access and cultural issues make alcohol, prescription pills rural drugs of choice

"Alcohol and non-heroin opiates are the drugs of choice in rural populations ... while heroin and cocaine top the list in urban areas, according to a new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration," reports Aaron Levin of Psychiatric News. Methamphetamine usage was about the same in rural and urban areas, "despite the common assumption that meth is largely a rural problem," Levin writes. Rural people also use slightly more marijuana.

Higher use of alcohol and non-heroin opiates, or prescription painkillers, in rural areas may reflect access issues, SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment director H. Wesley Clark said. "Illegal drugs may be harder to conceal in the pipeline to rural areas, or legal substances may be less stigmatized." Rural people steal about 67 percent of the prescription pills they abuse from friends or family. The rest come from doctors, University of New Mexico psychiatry professor Snehal Bhatt told Levin.

About 67 percent of rural users started using before 18, compared to 53 percent of urban users. This probably leads to higher rates of rural youth binge drinking and driving drunk, according to a University of Southern Maine study. "Rural youth, their families and peers are less likely to disapprove of youth drinking than urban youth, risk factors that are associated with greater likelihood of adolescent alcohol use," researcher John Gale wrote in the study. (Read more)

Rural people more likely to die from colon cancer

Rural people with colon cancer are more likely to be diagnosed late and receive inferior treatment than their urban counterparts, according to a new University of Minnesota study. Rural colon cancer sufferers are also more likely to die from the disease. This is the first study of its kind to show that outcomes in colon cancer are affected by where a person lives, Tiffany Chao reports for ABC News.

The study focussed on more than 100,000 patients diagnosed with colon cancer from 1996 to 2008, with rural people making up 15 percent of the total. Rural patients were 4 percent more likely to get a late diagnosis, had 17 percent lower odds of receiving chemotherapy and had an 18 percent lower chance of getting lymph nodes removed during cancer-removal surgery, indicating that their treatment was most likely inadequate. Overall, rural patients were 5 percent more likely to die from colon cancer. (Read more)

Rural areas have higher percentage of uninsured

The share of rural people under 65 without health insurance increased 8 percent during the recession, and is now higher than in cities or suburbs, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Before 2005, rates of uninsured were about the same in rural and urban areas, but during the recession, the rate of uninsured rural people rose to 18.4 percent, compared to 17.7 percent in urban areas, Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder reports.

The data show "a huge variation in the percentage of uninsured by state," Bishop writes. In 16 states, at least one in five rural residents under 65 didn't have health insurance. From highest to lowest, they were: Texas, Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Georgia, Idaho, Colorado, Mississippi, Montana, South Carolina, Arkansas, Oregon, Louisiana and North Carolina. The rate of rural people without insurance was higher than in urban areas in all but six states: Illinois, California, Nevada, Connecticut, Florida and New York. (Read more)

Dairy farmers struggled through drought, now battle armyworms; will suffer without Farm Bill

Dairy farmers will lose up to 10 percent of their monthly income from milk beginning in October because the Milk Income Loss Contract expired when the Farm Bill wasn't renewed on Sept. 30. MILC is a program that provides dairy farmers with payments when the price of producing milk is more than the price for which it's sold. (Oklahoma Farm Report photo)

MILC payouts were cut to 34 percent, from 45 percent, when the Farm Bill expired, Melissa Miller of the Southeast Missourian in Cape Girardeau reports. High feed and gas prices have forced farmers to sell their least productive cows to slaughter, and some small farmers are considering leaving the business. Miller writes that the armyworm is adding to farmers' misery. The pest strips pasture grass, which often replaces expensive feed. Dairy Farmer John Schoen told Miller most farmers are likely losing $10,000 to $15,000 a month.

"Dairy is one of the few commodities that will get hit immediately by this [Farm Bill expiration] because we're on a monthly schedule," Jefferson County Farm Bureau president Michael Kiechle told Ted Booker of the Watertown Daily Times in far upstate New York. "We probably won't get anything now until the crops go in the ground next spring."

Commercial dairy farmers in Maine "depend on subsidies in the [Farm Bill] to help them get through tough times," reports Jay Field of Maine Public Broadcasting. They are selling milk for less than it costs to produce it because of high gas and feed prices. One farmer told Field he will spend $6,000 more on fuel this year, and is barely covering operating costs right now.

Child farm-labor rules, unchanged after lobbying, probably affect more children than statistics indicate

The recent debate about child farm-labor laws revolved around what many farm families said was an integral part of growing up on a farm: helping out around the fields. What many may have overlooked, though, is that the children of migrant workers don't grow up on farms; they just work on them. And advocates say "lax enforcement of underage labor laws and inadequate safety rules for teens are threatening the long-term health of thousands" of those migrant children, Anthony Schick of The Oregonian reports. (Oregonian photo by Faith Cathcart: Diana Cristal Mendoza Sanchez, 12, picks blackberries)

Farm lobbyists have blocked tighter restrictions on the work children may legally do, and efforts for closer monitoring have failed, Schick writes. The industry won a huge victory when the Obama administration stopped the Labor Department's plan to revise child labor rules written in 1974 and adopt in regulation a policy adopted by the second Bush administration more than 10 years ago. Most child labor in heavy agricultural states is largely hidden "because official data do not include underage workers," Schick reports. "Visits to fields and interviews with farmworkers indicate it is far more widespread than statistics show."

Schick continues: "Nearly everyone involved has an incentive to allow underage labor. Farmers need crops picked, farmworkers need money children bring home and advocates for workers risk alienating whole families if they broach the subject. The tenuous residency status of many Mexican-born workers also plays a role." Even though parents and farm owners say the jobs children do are relatively safe, but Schick reports that all children working on farms face "significant risks:" Child farmworkers suffer fatal injuries four times as often as in other industries, extreme heat, repetitive strain and exposure to toxic substances can create chronic health problems. (Read more)

Judge rejects bid to preserve site of coalfield battle

West Virginia's Blair Mountain, the site of the largest armed conflict in U.S. labor history, will remain off the National Register of Historic Places, a federal judge has ruled. The site was added to the list in 2009, but the Interior Department removed it after it was found that a majority of property owners didn't support the listing, Paul Nyden of The Charleston Gazette reports.

Coal companies may mine the area, and a lawsuit was filed in 2010 by several groups, including the Sierra Club, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Friends of Blair Mountain, seeking to restore the area to the register. Judge Reggie Walton of the District of Columbia ruled that the groups had no legal standing because no coal companies had announced "immediate plans to begin mining on Blair Mountain," Nyden reports. (Read more)

Ken Ward Jr. of the Gazette's Coal Tattoo puts it this way: "The judge ruled that the citizen groups could not meet one of the requirements to show 'standing' to bring the case, that of 'redressability,' or that a favorable ruling from the court would redress their injury." As a result, the judge said in his decision "that the surface mining would be permitted on the Blair Mountain Battlefield as a result of permits that were acquired prior to the historic district's inclusion on the National Register."

In 1921, more than 10,000 union miners fought with armed company employees and contractors along the ridge along the Logan-Boone County border for a number of things, including better working conditions. The battle lasted eight days, and only ended after federal troops and air support intervened.

High court OKs rule limiting roads in national forests

The Supreme Court upheld on Monday the "roadless rule," which limits road building and timber harvesting on 45 million acres of undeveloped national forest land. The state of Wyoming and the Colorado Mining Association challenged the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, saying it "unfairly jeopardized multiple industries and hampered economic development," notes Amy O'Donoghue of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City.

The rule was upheld by the 9th and 10th circuit courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Supporters of the rule said the court's move resolved "what has been a decade of uncertainly over management of inventoried roadless areas," O'Donoghue writes.

"Sound roadless conservation policies safeguard big-game habitat security, productive trout and salmon fisheries and our sporting traditions," said Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership Center for Western Lands director Joel Webster told the reporter. "The 2001 roadless rule remains a strong mechanism for conserving America’s outdoor heritage." (Read more)

College graduates with no farm experience are turning to careers in agriculture

The number of farms in the U.S. increased by 4 percent from 2002 to 2007, according to the last Census of Agriculture, and recent college graduates seem to be fueling this trend by returning to the land, sometimes learning farming as they go, Natalie Kitroeff of The New York Times reports. Many don't have agriculture-related degrees, but became interested in farming through other means, including working in food service or supermarkets. Several work as farmhands, learning the trade through a workers' perspective.

Hearty Roots Community Farm, which raises vegetables in upstate New York, hired 10 farmhands this past season, none of whom had agriculture backgrounds, and all of whom are young, college graduates. Some such farmhands go on to establish their own farms. The newcomers to farming are helping increase the number of farms, which had been steadily declining since 1920. (NYT photo by Nathaniel Brooks: Hearty Roots farm crew manager Jordan Schmidt harvests beets)

Hiring college graduates with no experience can have drawbacks, Kitroeff reports. "Most of the people here who work for me are here for one season and then move on to other farms, and so that's actually the biggest challenge, Hearty Roots owner Ben Shute said. "Every year it's like training new people." But he added that having such an ambitious staff who want to own their own farms someday is a benefit because they are very willing to learn. (Read more)

Common use of genetically modified crops leading to rise in pesticide, herbicide use

Use of genetically modified crops has become commonplace in agriculture, but has led to an increase in use of pesticides and herbicides, according to a new study. Weeds and pests have have adapted to the modified crops and become resistant to the chemicals used to protect them, so farmers have been forced to spray crops with increasing amounts of the chemicals. The use of pesticides increased by 404 million pounds from 1996 to 2011. Herbicide use increased by 527 million pounds, and insecticide use by 123 million pounds.

Charles Benbrook, lead author of the Washington State University study, said it "undermines the value of both herbicide-tolerant crops and insect-protected crops," Carey Gillam of Reuters reports. Monsanto's Roundup Ready seeds were a hit with farmers, who enjoyed the benefits of being able to spray their entire crop, killing weeds and bugs without hurting their crops. However, more than two dozen weed species have become resistant to Roundup.

The amount of herbicide needed to fight "superweeds" is increasing by about 25 percent every year, Benbrook said. The annual increase has risen to 90 million pounds in 2011, up from 1.5 million in 1990. Insecticide use dropped 28 percent from 1996 to 2011, but is now rising, Benbrook said. (Read more)

Harry Potter's J.K. Rowling takes a stab at rural life and politics in her first novel for grownups

The self-made literary master of the fantasy world of teenage witches and wizards has turned her attention to the real-life drama of rural politics in a new book out this month. The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling's first adult novel, explores the inner workings of small-town political and personal life in the fictional English village of Pagford, after the death of one of its council members. Though the story is set in England, it could resonate in the U.S. with those familiar with small-town politics. After all, it's our mother country.

Rowling has created "an old-fashioned novel, a thoughtful, angry and densely plotted story in the 19th-century tradition," in which Pagford "is small but its class and racial divisions run deep," Isabel Berwick of The Financial Times reports. The novel explores class divisions between "the posh houses" and inhabitants of Church Row and the Fields, "a sink estate on the outskirks of the neighboring town, Yarvil." The plot centers around the council chair's campaign to fill the vacancy with his son, and then use the council to relieve Pagford of any duty to the Fields. (Read more)

Daily Yonder, five years on rural, seeks donations

The Daily Yonder, which is all about rural news, policy and culture, is making its most direct appeal for money yet, saying it "is trying to raise $25,000 to see it through the next year."

"The Yonder has been around now for five years. We have only indirectly asked for money over that time. Now we’re asking for real," write Co-Editors Bill Bishop and Julie Ardery of Austin, Tex., who are also husband and wife -- and, we should add, friends and associates of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog. The Yonder is published by the foundation-supported Center for Rural Strategies, a nonprofit organization based in Whitesburg, Ky. Bishop and Dee Davis, director of the center, are both on the Institute's advisory board.

While The Rural Blog is designed primarily for rural journalists, the Yonder is for everyone interested in rural. "Our job is to give rural people, writers, places and issues a place and a way to be heard," the editors write. "In the last five years, we’ve published thousands of stories by over 250 different authors, most of whom live in rural America. . . . We need your help to continue what we’re doing — and to make it bigger and better."

The Yonder's usual fun streak runs through its appeal, offering various premiums for donations, such as a banjo lesson, a musical jingle and a walking tour of Hazard, Ky., with natives Davis and Kentucky poet laureate Gurney Norman. And they're looking for folks to provide other premiums that they can offer. To read more, click here. To donate, go here. And if you want to help The Rural Blog and the Institute, here.

Pork producers struggle through drought, sending more young female hogs than ever to slaughter

More female hogs than ever are being sent to slaughter because producers can't afford high feed prices caused by this summer's oppressive drought. Sows are building blocks of herds, so slaughtering them not only shrinks herds but expands the pork supply, sending prices plummeting, P.J. Huffstutter and Theopolis Waters of Reuters report. Producers are left to either use savings to survive, or sell herds and leave the business.

Just under 10 million head of hogs were sent to slaughter in August, the most ever for that month, according to data analyzed by Reuters. But, the U.S. Department of Agriculture in its quarterly inventory of hogs and pigs on Friday said the number increased slightly through Sept. 1. There were 67.5 million head, up 3 percent from June 1.

Still, large producers are "scouring the Midwest to snap up whatever feed they can find, or are sinking tens of millions of dollars into importing [feed] from Brazil," Huffstutter and Theopolis report.

Climate change keeping pests alive through winter

Climate change is not only causing crop-killing drought, but its increasing the longevity of at least one species of pest that can devastate potato, tomato, pepper and about 40 other crops. The potato-tomato psyllid, right, sucks plants dry and can spread "zebra chip" disease in potatoes that causes potato chips to have a burnt flavor, Gabriela Quiros of Quest. That disease has cost producers in three states about $8 million so far. (University of California photo by Jack Clark)

Farmers have dealt with psyllids for more than 100 years, but rises in temperature are allowing them to survive through winter. "Our temperatures have increased by 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit, and that seems to be enough to keep them from being frozen out during the winter,” said University of California, Riverside entomologist John Trumble. If pests can live through winter, they can attack crops early in the growing season, which could leave to even more widespread loss of crops because of the bugs, Trumble said. (Read more)

Alabama's Hispanic farmworkers being replaced by African and Haitian refugees

Alabama farmers are turning to a different set of immigrants to help harvest after the state's controversial immigration law requiring police to check status drove many Hispanics to other states and caused a labor shortage. African and Haitian refugees, which were brought to the U.S. legally by labor brokers, are filling the gap, Margaret Newkirk of Bloomberg News reports.

Most of the refugees were recruited by poultry companies, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. They sought refugees because not enough local residents were interested or qualified to work in the plants, Wayne Farms spokesman Frank Singleton told Newkirk. The poultry company spent $5 million to replace and retrain workers after most of its Hispanic workers left. Alabama doesn't track the number of refugees who came to fill jobs, but it had about 95,000 illegal Hispanic immigrants in the workforce in 2010. (Read more)

Colorado officials, pressured by local officials, plan to strengthen oil and gas regulation

Driven by local pressure and public opposition, Colorado officials are poised to revise state oil and gas laws, much to the chagrin of industry groups, Bruce Finley of The Denver Post reports. The state has proposed buffer-zone restrictions on new wells and mandatory groundwater testing prior to drilling, but local officials worry those won't do enough to ease communities' concerns.

Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission director Matt Lepore, left, said he will ask commissioners to launch a new rule-making session to revise the rules last set in 2008. "We want to get it right, as best as we can, for as many people as we can," Lepore said. Colorado Oil and Gas Association attorney Andrew Casper said the group has identified "numerous concerns" with the proposed revisions and a new rule-making session. Homebuilders have also voiced concerns about bigger buffer zones, which could complicate urban planning.

Local and state lawmakers said their communities are complaining regularly about fracking. Democratic Rep. Su Ryden of Aurora said most of her constituents "want drilling as far away as possible." Colorado Conservation Voters director Pete Maysmith said during an invite-only community discussion with Gov. John Hickenlooper that "neighborhoods and fracking don't mix." Maysmith's group gave the governor a petition with 14,500 signatures from residents in Adams and Pueblo counties asking for their communities to be shielded from drilling. (Read more)

Healthy Foods, Local Farms Conference Oct. 13

The 13th annual Healthy Foods, Local Farms Conference in Louisville will feature such speakers as author-farmer-poet-philosopher Wendell Berry, Goldman Prize winner Lynn Henning, Environmental Protection Agency water administrator Nancy Stoner, and Dennis Dimick, National Geographic's executive editor for environment.

The conference will be held from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13 at Kentucky Country Day School in eastern Louisville. The registration fee is $40 and includes meals with locally and sustainably grown food. Scholarships are available. For information email or call Aloma Dew at 270-685-2034. A pre-conference Harvest Party on Friday evening, Oct. 12, at the Bashford Manor B & B, is $45. For information email or call  Joan Lindop at 502-836-3853.

BLM selling wild horses to slaughter advocate

The Bureau of Land Management, which is running short of space to keep wild horses, has sold more than 1,700 of them – up to 240 at a time, and for $10 a head this spring – to a longtime advocate of horse slaughter, Dave Philipps reports for ProPublica. (Phillips photo: Nevada mustang that escaped a BLM roundup last winter)

Tom Davis "signs contracts promising that animals bought from the program will not be slaughtered and insists he finds them good homes," Philipps writes, but he "has ducked Colorado law to move animals across state lines and will not say where they end up. He continues to buy wild horses for slaughter from Indian reservations, which are not protected by the same laws. And since 2010, he has been seeking investors for a slaughterhouse of his own."

"Hell, some of the finest meat you will ever eat is a fat yearling colt," Davis told Philipps. "What is wrong with taking all those BLM horses they got all fat and shiny and setting up a kill plant?"

BLM officials say they carefully screen buyers and have no indication that Davis is taking the horses to slaughter in Mexico, Canada or elsewhere. "Some BLM employees say privately that wild horse program officials may not want to look too closely at Davis," Philipps writes. "The agency has more wild horses than it knows what to do with, they say, and Davis has become a relief valve for a federal program plagued by conflict and cost over-runs." (Read more)

China's slowdown hits hard in some Appalachian communities that mine metallurgical coal

"Slowing growth in China is taking a brutal toll on Appalachian coal mines and coal towns," Kris Maher reports for The Wall Street Journal from Wharton, W.Va., where he photographed laid-off miner Phillip Powell, 38, and his family. "A lot of guys that I worked with are scared of losing everything they own," he said.

"The Chinese economy is slowing and so is its steel industry. That has sent the price of coal used for steelmaking down nearly 50 percent to $170 a metric ton. Those coal producers who counted on Chinese sales are reeling," Maher writes. "While many have blamed the downturn in the U.S. coal industry on cheap natural gas supplanting coal and tougher environmental regulations, the slide in metallurgical coal demand has been equally devastating. Coal companies were caught flat-footed after ramping up production last year with the expectation that steep prices would cover their rising costs, despite coal's past cyclicality. Instead, demand in China began to falter just as Australian metallurgical coal production—interrupted by floods last year—surged back into the market." (Read more)

National Newspaper Week deserves attention

Oct. 7-13 is National Newspaper Week, an opportunity for newspapers to remind their readers of the important roles they play in their communities, especially rural places where the newspaper is the only reliable medium for local news and information.

In recent years, there has been another reason to share the observance with readers: the mistaken notion that newspapers are a dying industry. That is certainly not the case with community newspapers, and "In the interest of balance and fairness, how about we tell the other side of the story," asks Tom Larimer, executive director of the Arkansas Press Association, in his column in this week's Arkansas Publisher.

Tom and his fellow Newspaper Association Managers (the name of their group) coordinate the observance each year and make a promotional kit available for newspapers to use. "You could add to these an historical timeline of your local newspaper, when it was founded, who founded it and historical high points for the newspaper," Tom writes. "Run some old photos that involve the newspaper in your NNW observance. Some local newspapers once sponsored the local community band. I’ve seen some great photos of these bands posed up in front of the newspaper office. This is great stuff because it helps drive home the theme, that the local newspaper is the cornerstone of any community. In so many cases the newspaper is the oldest continually operating business in town. If that’s the case, say so in a feature. You could decorate your office with some old copies of the newspaper and invite the community to stop by and have a look. Keep the coffee pot on and put out a tray of cookies. Everybody likes that, and these types of events further connect the newspaper to the community." For the promotional kit, click here.

Three of eight Americans don't believe in science of climate change; debate more cultural than scientific

There is no denying that a strong scientific consensus about the existence of climate change exists, especially since scientists have documented a build-up of greenhouse gases and their findings have been endorsed by a large body of domestic and international scientific agencies. But what doesn't exist in the U.S. is a social consensus about climate change. Studies have shown that Americans' belief in the scientific findings of climate change has mostly declined over the last five years.

Between April 2008 and October 2009, belief in climate science dropped to 57 percent from 71, according to the Pew Research Center. This February, it had risen to 62 percent, which means 38 percent of Americans still do not trust it. "Such a significant number of dissenters tells us that we do not have a set of socially accepted beliefs on climate change," Andrew Hoffman, right, the Holcim Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan, writes for the Stanford Social Innovation Review. He says the debate is not so much about science as about culture, worldviews and ideology.

"Acceptance of the scientific consensus is now seen as an alignment with liberal views consistent with other 'cultural' issues that divide the country -- abortion, gun control, health care, and evolution," Hoffman writes. This partisan divide on the issue is a recent phenomenon, something that wasn't seen during the 1990s. Hoffman examined "the climate change debate through the lens of the social sciences," because he says "we need to understand the social and psychological processes by which people receive and understand the science of global warming."

He writes there are two "overriding conclusions" about the climate change debate: Climate change is not a "pollution" issue, and it is an existential challenge to our contemporary world views. He outlines three possible ways in which the ideological debate will manifest: the "Optimistic Form," in which "people do not have to change their values at all," the "Pessimistic Form," in which "people fight to protect their values," and the "Consensus-Based Form," in which "a reasoned societal debate, focused on the full scope of technical and social dimensions of the problem and the feasibility and desirability of multiple solutions," are discussed. (Read more)

Two-thirds of fracking-chemical disclosures omit at least one chemical on grounds of trade secrecy

Almost two-thirds of the disclosure statements filed by oil and gas companies about their hydraulic fracturing operations kept at least one chemical secret, according to a review of PIVOT Upstream Group's D-Frac database by Energywire. In 65 percent of fracking disclosures, companies said they needed to keep one or more chemicals secret to protect confidential business information, typically known as trade secrets.

Critics of drilling say widespread use of trade-secret exemptions undermines assurances by the industry that drillers are being open and honest with the communities where wells are fracked, Mike Soraghan of Energy and Environment News reports. Companies say they spend millions developing new fracking materials and don't want to give away their secret. Industry groups say the debate over trade secrets overshadows just how much companies have already disclosed.

Utah has the highest rate of trade-secret claims on disclosure statements at 94 percent, the highest of any state with more than 100 disclosures. Disclosure isn't mandatory in Utah, but in New Mexico, where it is, 84 percent of statements sent to FracFocus -- where PIVOT gets its information -- had a trade-secret claim.

All of BP America Production Co.'s 230 disclosures contained a trade-secret claim. BP and a small Texas company, Howell Oil & Gas, were the only companies with more than 100 wells that filed trade-secret claims on all of them. The rest of the top five companies are Exco Resources Inc., at 98 percent; Devon Energy Corp. and Noble Energy Inc., both at 97 percent. (Read more)

Murray Energy agrees to pay third-highest penalty for violations related to deaths in coal mines

Robert Murray, owner

"Two Murray Energy Co. subsidiaries will pay the third-largest penalty in the history of U.S. coal-mining disasters — almost $950,000 — to settle safety violations that federal regulators said contributed to nine deaths at Utah’s Crandall Canyon mine in August 2007," Mike Gorrell reports for The Salt Lake Tribune. The company has already paid a $500,000 criminal fine.

Murray accepted 17 of the 20 citations that the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration issued after its investigation in July 2008. MSHA levied fines of $1.64 million, and Murray will pay less than 58 percent of that amount. The company said it made the settlement to avoid "a contentious trial" and said evidence at trial would have shown that the violations didn't contribute to the disaster. But Labor Department Solicitor Patricia Smith told Gorrell the firm "acknowledged responsibility for the failures that led to the tragedy at Crandall Canyon. These failures resulted in the needless deaths of nine members of the mining community," including two miners killed in a failed rescue/recovery attempt. "We settled for what we thought we’d have gotten if we tried the case."

MSHA Director Joe Main told the Tribune that Murray admitted to three flagrant violations, the most serious type of infraction. "Two of those involved violations that resulted in the company pleading guilty in March in U.S. District Court to two misdemeanors for willfully violating mine-safety laws," Gorrell notes. "It paid a $500,000 fine to end that criminal case." 

The only larger settlements stemmed from deaths at West Virginia mines operated by now-defunct Massey Energy. Its successor, Alpha Natural Resources, paid $10.8 million for the April 2010 explosion that killed 29 at the Upper Big Branch mine. Earlier, Massey paid $1.7 million for the fire that killed two miners at the Aracoma mine in January 2006. (Read more)

Rural residents depend on papers for local news, but urbanites are more interested in local topics

Metropolitan, suburban, smaller town or rural, all types of places are big consumers of news -- be it local, national or international. But how and where we get that news and how much we "participate" in it differs between community types. And that may be more of a function of the digital and social media available to us than our desire to weigh in on the topics. Or so a recent study of local news and community types strongly indicates.

A just-released national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that rural residents did indeed still rely on newspapers for most of their local news. Researchers speculated that is because most rural areas get little coverage from other media, and many "micropolitan" towns of fewer than 50,000 people have no television station.

However, they noted that "the choices about information acquisition are not necessarily the same in all communities. For instance, it might be the case in rural areas that the local newspaper and broadcast outlets are not online or have a very limited online presence and that is a determinant in whether residents get local information online or not."

And, perhaps surprisingly, researchers found that those who live in rural communities are "less interested in almost all local topics than those in other communities. The one exception is taxes. They are also are less likely . . . to say it is easier now to keep up with local information."

Interestingly, rural people were more likely than most to say they are willing to pay for local news content through a paid subscription to a local paper; 37 percent said so, a larger share than any but suburbanites, at 40 percent.

The study, co-authored by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and Internet & American Life Project, in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also reported these findings:

• Urban and suburban residents on average use more sources of local news than their small town and rural counterparts and are more likely to consume local news on mobile devices.
• The most active “local news participators” also tend to reside in suburban and urban communities where they email local stories to others, post material on sites, comment, post or e-report.
• Suburbanites are most likely to use radio as a news source -- researchers postulated this might be a consequence of longer commutes. They are the most likely of the four distinct community types to use the Internet for information about local restaurants, businesses and jobs.

To read the full report, go here.

Study: Rural residents have equal access to health care -- if they have insurance and like the drive

A health-care study in Tennessee, which started with the premise that people in rural areas have less access to care than urban dwellers, ended with a rather surprising conclusion: They don't. Not if they have health insurance. "When it comes to commercially insured patients, there’s little disparity in access to health care between residents of rural communities and urban areas in Tennessee," said Dr. Steven L. Counter, president of the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Health Institute.

How can this be? The study found that almost half of rural residents pass up the hospitals closest to their homes to go to larger urban hospitals, even if the same services are available locally, writes Getahn Ward of The Tenneseean. "The conclusion we came to is that we’re living in a very mobile society, and the distance is not necessarily a determinant factor in whether people get care or not," said Coulter.

Because the survey did not include consumers, it's only a guess about why they chose to take the time and trouble to go to the big town, but experts says it's a combination of services not being available or a perception that they aren't, even if they are. This raises, again, age-old questions about the viability of rural hospitals, some of which often don’t have the money for capital-intensive technology and services. However, Coulter told the Tennessean that "a recent increase in alliances between rural hospitals and larger hospitals and urban health systems raises hopes that non-urban hospitals may be able to expand their menus of services."

Such partnerships between non-profits and for-profit chains are becoming more common, reports Ward, and some say those efforts will change the perception of those in far-flung regions that great medicine is being practiced close-by. This could be especially important, said Wes Littrell, chief strategy officer and president of Nashville-based Saint Thomas Health, in the new world of health reform. “We expect that when you get more into population management that you need to take care of the patient closer to home in the lower-cost setting,” he said. (Read more)

Dish Network to offer broadband-Internet services to 14.5 million rural folks

Rural customers are getting more broadband choices, but they're still not cheap. Dish Network Corp., the second- largest U.S. satellite-television provider, has introduced a nationwide broadband-Internet service called DishNet that’s aimed at rural customers. According to Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Alex Sherman, Dish is targeting the 14.5 million rural Americans who have slower Internet access or no online connection at all.

While the Internet speed it plans to offer these customers -- 10 megabits per second -- is a fraction of what’s offered by cable and fiber-optic lines in urban areas, "it’s fast enough for most applications, such as social networking, video streaming and Internet-based phone calls," Dish representatives told Sherman. The cost of the service should be between $40 and $50 a month. (Read more) 

Seven states with significant rural populations ask for No Child Left Behind waiver approval

Coast Guard Lt. Tom Pauser visits
a rural Alaskan classroom to give
safety training. (Coast Guard photo)

So far, the U.S. Department of Education has granted No Child Left Behind Act waivers to 33 states plus the District of Columbia. Seven additional states met the Sept. 6 deadline for the third round of exemptions from the law. Five of those states -- Alaska, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota  and West Virginia -- are considered rural by the National Center for Education Statistics. Alabama and Hawaii have significant rural populations. This means, writes Education Week reporter Michele McNeil, that these applications ensure that the department's "experiment in awarding flexibility in exchange for certain education-improvement promises will play out in a diverse set of states with vastly different geographies and student populations."  This brings to 44 the number of states that have asked for flexibility in administering the law.

McNeil reports that those states hoping to win waiver approval have to agree to revamp "their teacher-evaluation systems, have to adopt college- and career-ready standards and tie state tests to them, and adopt a differentiated accountability system that focuses on 15 percent of their most troubled schools. In return, states will no longer have to face the 2014 deadline for bringing all students to proficiency in math and reading, and their schools will no longer face NCLB-law sanctions such as providing school choice. District officials also will have more freedom to move around federal Title I money for disadvantaged students." (Read more)

New fracking film starring Matt Damon set for release in December

A new film about hydraulic fracturing will hit theaters this December, but this time it's a feature film, not a documentary. "Promised Land" stars Matt Damon as Steve Butler, a gas company representative who comes to a rural, economically depressed town offering financial salvation in exchange for natural gas drilling leases. The film is being directed by Oscar-nominated director Gus Van Sant, who directed Damon in "Good Will Hunting."


The story behind "Promised Land" is very similar to that of real-life rural town, Dimock, Pa., where a group of residents complained that injection-well drilling caused gas to leak into their water, Mike Soraghan of Energy and Environment News reports. State officials said shoddy drilling contaminated 18 properties, and shut down the company, Cabot Oil & Gas Corp for more than two years. A $4.1 million settlement was eventually reached, giving the homeowners twice the value of their homes and restoring their mineral rights.

The film also stars Frances McDormand and Hal Holbrook, and was written by Dave Eggers, who wrote the book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The movie is likely to please environmentalists and critics of drilling while angering drilling companies, Soraghan reports. Energy and Environment News is behind a paywall, but free trials can be accessed here.

Publication collecting compensation figures from ag non-profit CEOS sees recent rise in salaries

The compensation for most nonprofit chief executive officers in the U.S. dropped along with the economy in recent years, but those numbers are starting to climb again, Agri-Pulse reports. The online publication has compiled a list of CEO compensations at nonprofit organizations that try to shape farm and rural policy from the recently released 2012 GuideStar Nonprofit Compensation Report.

GuideStar vice-president of research Chuck McLean told Agri-Pulse that "long established compensation patterns turned upside down" between 2008 and 2010. Over that period, compensation for 41 percent of incumbent CEOs was static or declined. Washington, D.C., had the highest overall median salary of the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas studied, likely because most of the big agriculture group are based in Washington. Median compensation of women continued to lag behind men when comparing similar organizations, and very few women are CEOs. But Pamela Bailey, head of Grocery Manufacturers Association, had the highest base salary in 2011 of all groups surveyed: just more than $1.1 million.

This compensation report is a service provided by Agri-Pulse, and a lot of work goes into it. That's why the publication makes this request: "We’ve invested a lot of time in collecting this data in conjunction with GuideStar, and hope you will continue to respect our copyright by not forwarding the information to those who do not subscribe. We offer a four-week free trial for those who are interested in investing in our content." That free trial can be accessed here.

Inspired by Wendell Berry, successful farmer has remade his family's farm with the future in mind

Will Harris III, owner of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Ga., may seem like a typical rancher: Stetson hat, gruff voice, beat-up Jeep he uses to drive his more than 1,000 acre farm. But, he "doesn't always sound the part," John Kessler of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. For example, he quotes George Washington Carver on the order of nature, and Michael Pollan on the dangers of industrial agriculture. He's immensely proud of his farm's organic certification and of the new solar panels he's installing. (AJC photo by Brant Sanderlin: Harris inspects chicken)

"Row by row, Harris is breaking the mold on farming in Georgia," Kessler writes. His organic grass-fed cattle are slaughtered in ways approved by animal welfare advocates. Steaks from his farm are sold in Atlanta's finest restaurants, and Whole Foods features White Oak Pastures' beef in its stores. But 15 years ago, Harris' farm was a far cry from organic. The fourth-generation farmer had to reverse decades of damage to the land perpetrated by his father, who "pushed the farm as far as he could, pumping any and all chemicals into the earth and into the animals," Kessler reports.

Harris is a first-generation college graduate, with a degree in animal science from the University of Georgia. But it wasn't a book he read for one of his classes that made him want to change the family farm; it was Kentuckian Wendell Berry's 1977 book, The Unsettling of America, that left a great impression on him. The book "argued agribusiness was destroying the cultural and family context of farming," Kessler writes. Harris said it "made him wonder what kind of system his father had prescribed to, and what kind of legacy he was leaving" to his children. It was the spark that Harris needed to change the direction of his farm. (Read more)

UPDATE: Wendell Berry had this to say about Harris, and farmers like him, in a letter to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues: "[Harris] represents at a very high level what is going on all over the country: Local citizens, both rural and urban, who have seen something that needed to be done and have simply set about doing it, without official advice or approval or help and without writing a grant application. If the world lasts long enough, these people will find the real solutions to our problems. I think this is the great story unfolding now everywhere in our country, but only occasionally does some journalist notice that it is happening. So far, no politician of consequence has noticed it." 

Coal and the vote: Worried about Obama regulations, more ads, money and a new plant?

"A handful of utility companies are determined to buck the trend toward natural gas and break ground on what could be the last new conventional coal-fired power plants in the U.S.," Tennille Tracy of The Wall Street Journal reports. (Getty Images photo: Miners at Romney rally in southeastern Ohio)

"The moves come as the presidential campaigns spar over the future of coal power," and as they worry about an April deadline to begin construction, created by the Obama administration's limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. "They say separate government rules on mercury emissions are making it tough to hit that deadline," because the mercury rules are not due to be final until March.

Tracy notes that Republican Mitt Romney is running a TV commercial in coal states with "mournful images of coal miners facing the industry's decline. . . . With some parts of battleground states like Ohio reliant on coal jobs, the White House has started to defend itself more vigorously against the 'war on coal' allegation" being made by Republicans and coal interests. (Read more)

Also weighing in this week: Time magazine with an usual look at the debate through the eyes of controversial Ohio coal executive Robert E. Murray who "may be Obama's biggest headache in a state where he leads by about 4 points." Time's Michael Scherer gives Murray and the pro-coal alliance which has spent millions to defend Obama lots of space to vent about the president's policies. 

Lesser-educated white people, especially women, are living shorter lives, study finds

The life expectancy of white people without a high school diploma fell from 1990 to 2008, with women losing the most, an average of five years, according to a new University of Illinois at Chicago study. These demographics (older and less educated) are disproportionately rural.

The average life expectancy for white women without a high-school diploma was 73.5 years, compared to 83.9 for those with a four-year college degree or more. White men who did not fionish high school are living an average of 67.5 years, compared to 80.4 for those with a four-year degree or more.

"The reasons for the decline remain unclear, but researchers offered possible explanations, including a spike in prescription-drug overdoses among young whites, higher rates of smoking among less-educated white women, rising obesity, and a steady increase in the number of the least-educated Americans who lack health insurance," reports Sabrina Tavernise of The New York Times.

"Some cautioned that the results could be overstated because Americans without a high school diploma — about 12 percent of the population, down from about 22 percent in 1990, according to the Census Bureau — were a shrinking group that was now more likely to be disadvantaged in ways besides education, compared with past generations," Tavernise reports.

The study was published last month in the journal Health Affairs, and the National Academy of Sciences is investigating the decline to better determine its cause. (Read more)

Watertown Daily Times sets the Atlantic straight

When the Watertown Daily Times in northern New York saw that Malcolm Burnley of the Atlantic had been horribly off base on a story about large-scale agriculture, the Amish and land prices in rural St. Lawrence County, it set out to set the record straight, and did so Sunday in a 3,300-word story by Christopher Robbins.

"It is a model of good reporting and the importance of having reporters living, breathing and writing in rural communities," Daily Yonder co-editor Bill Bishop writes as he retells the story. "This is a great story, and tells so much about journalism, the relationship between city and country and how important it is to listen."

Times Managing Editor Robert D. Gorman says in the story, “The writer didn’t know the difference between bail and bale, teats and udders, DePeyster and Canton, and wrote that huge agribusinesses have moved into St. Lawrence County, which is simply not true. Despite acknowledging Mr. Burnley’s factual errors, his editors are still convinced he methodically unraveled an incredibly complex socioeconomic trend in regional farming. I have told them Mr. Burnley got that wrong, too, but to no avail.” The Atlantic has corrected six errors but the story remains posted.

Presidential candidates talk policy in Farm Bureau survey, but don't fully answer some questions

The answers are in to the American Farm Bureau Federation presidential candidate questionnaire. In it, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama give their views on several issues, including energy, environment and farm policy, with all questions revolving around agriculture.

Here are excerpts from the extensive questionnaire. The full-length version is available here. 

AFBF: Agriculture is an energy-intensive industry and volatile prices significantly affect the cost of growing crops. What policies will you support to meet our energy needs and strengthen energy security? What role do you see for agricultural-based biofuels in the nation’s energy supply?

Obama: U.S. biofuel production is at its highest level in history. Last year, rural America produced enough renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel to meet roughly 8 percent of our needs, helping us increase our energy independence to its highest level in 20 years. We are increasing the level of ethanol that can be blended into gasoline, and the new Renewable Fuel Standard helped boost biodiesel production to nearly 1 billion gallons in 2011, supporting 39,000 jobs.

Romney: I have a vision for an America that is an energy superpower, rapidly increasing our own production and partnering with our allies, Canada and Mexico, to achieve energy independence on this continent by 2020. . . . America’s energy resources can be a long-term competitive advantage for American agriculture and their development is key to the success of the industry.

AFBF: A new Farm Bill will be enacted and implemented over the next four years during a time of significant evolution in agriculture. What policy and risk management tools do you propose to ensure that agriculture is a profitable, competitive and viable industry? 

Obama: I understand the need for a strong farm safety net. That’s why I increased the availability of crop insurance and emergency disaster assistance to help over 590,000 farmers and ranchers keep their farms in business after natural disasters and crop loss. My administration expanded farm credit to help more than 100,000 farmers struggling during the financial crisis to keep their family farms and provide for their families. And as farmers continue to go through hard times because of this drought, we are expanding access to low-interest loans, encouraging insurance companies to extend payment deadlines and opening new lands for livestock farmers to graze their herds. And I know that any Farm Bill passed this year . . . needs to have adequate protections for America’s farmers. That’s why I have called for maintaining a strong crop insurance program and an extended disaster assistance program.  . . . Instead of making farmers pay more for crop insurance, we will do it by cutting subsidies to crop insurance companies and better targeting conservation funding.

Romney:  I support passage of a strong Farm Bill that provides the appropriate risk-management tools that will work for farmers and ranchers throughout the country. In the near term, my immediate priority should be given to enacting disaster relief for those not traditionally covered by crop insurance as this year’s drought has worsened. . . .  Other nations subsidize their farmers, so we must be careful not to unilaterally change our policies in a way that would disadvantage agriculture here in our country. In addition, we want to make sure that we don’t ever find ourselves in a circumstance where we depend on foreign nations for our food the way we do with energy. Ultimately, it is in everyone’s interest is achieve a level playing field on which American farmers can compete.

AFBF: U.S. agriculture has a long history of relying on temporary workers to help plant and harvest crops, tend orchards and manage livestock. What would you do to solve agriculture’s labor shortage problem? 

Obama: We must design a system that provides legal channels for U.S. employers to hire needed foreign workers. This system must protect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers and only be used when U.S. workers are not available. I have called on Congress to pass and implement the AgJOBS Act, which allows farmers to hire the workers they rely on, and provides a path to citizenship for those workers. But we cannot wait for Congress to act, which is why my administration is already taking action to improve the existing system for temporary agricultural workers. We are also standing up a new Office on Farmworker Opportunities at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the first office for farmer workers in the agency’s history.

Romney: Our current system for issuing visas to temporary, seasonal workers is broken. Too often, harvest or tourist season passes before temporary worker visas are approved. Indeed, in 2006 and 2007, 43 percent of all applications for temporary agricultural workers were not processed on time. As president, I will make the system for bringing in temporary agricultural workers and other seasonal workers functional for both employers and workers ... A legal immigration system that works will provide a lawful alternative to workers who would otherwise enter illegally and employers who face the choice of either reducing operations or turning to illegal labor to address labor shortage problems. 

Some Dollar General stores now sell beer; one Kentucky town, caught off guard, doesn't want it

Dollar General Corp., a mainstay in rural areas, many of which ban the sale of alcoholic beverages, has started selling beer in nearly 4,000 of its stores, where it's legal and where company officials think there's a demand, reports Nick Tabor of the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville. Of the company's 381 Kentucky stores, most of which are in rural areas, many of them "dry," 26 now sell beer.

That includes one in Crofton, population 750 and declining, a few miles north of Hopkinsville, where the city council officially declared six months ago that it didn't want alcohol sales in town. The city sent Dollar General a letter asking it to cancel plans to sell alcohol there, but has received no response, Mayor Dan Lacy told Tabor. “We have enough problems with drugs and everything now without something else coming in there,” he said. “It’s supposed to be a family store. So that’s what the people in Crofton expect.” (Wikipedia map)

As state law requires, the company posted a small legal notice in the New Era that it was applying for a beer license, as state law requires, giving the public 30 days to protest. But many residents of Crofton don't get the daily paper from the county seat, so they didn't see the notice or heard about it too late to meet the deadline.

The city hopes to hear back from Dollar General before taking further action, but County Attorney Mike Foster said it's likely too late for legal action because it "would be unusual for Kentucky's Alcoholic Beverage Control Licensure Board to consider a petition that was filed too late," Tabor reports. The New Era is mainly behind a paywall, but the story can be found here.

Rural people in swing states agree with Democrats on immigration -- if they don't see the party label

A National Rural Assembly poll shows that rural people in nine swing states in the presidential election have complex views of immigration, and they are often skewed by party lines. If the party affiliation is hidden, rural voters agree more with the Democratic Party's immigration position than with the Republican Party's. When the affiliation is revealed, a majority of rural voters in the nine states agree with the Republican Party's position. Partisan labels influence how people feel about immigration positions by more than 10 percentage points. (Daily Yonder graph)

"Immigration isn't being talked about much in this campaign, and you can see why in the poll," reports Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder. "The issue is much too slippery. Rural Americans, who are largely Republican, don’t think this is a huge problem and they have very mixed opinions about immigration." Rural voters in this poll believe Mitt Romney better represents their views on illegal immigration, besting President Obama 49 percent to 31. But, 60 percent of those polled said illegal immigration was a small problem in their community. (Read more)

White children exposed to high level of chemical BPA five times more likely to be obese, study finds

White children exposed to high levels of bisphenol A, better known as BPA, are five times more likely to be obese than children with low levels, according to a study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study by the New York University School of Medicine is the first to link the chemical to obesity in children, which is more prevalent in rural areas.

Environment Health News reporter Brien Bienkowski reports that scientists found traces of BPA, which are used in some canned food and beverages, paper receipts and dental sealants, "are found in virtually every U.S. adult and child. In the study of body mass and BPA data from 2,838 youths aged 6 to 19, only white children were found to have significant increases in obesity prevalence as their BPA levels increased. Those with the highest concentrations in their urine were five times more likely to be obese than children with the lowest levels. Black children with higher BPA levels were 1.25 times more likely to be obese than those with lower levels, which the scientists said is not statistically significant. Hispanic children had the same rates of obesity at the highest and lowest levels."

Bienkowski reports that "representatives from the chemical industry said the study had too many weaknesses to prove any connection. Steven Hentges, from the American Chemistry Council's Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group, said that attempts 'to link our national obesity problem to minute exposures to chemicals found in common, everyday products are a distraction from the real efforts underway to address this important national health issue.' "

One study of preschoolers in North Carolina and Ohio found that 99 percent of BPA exposure was through food. But since the chemical is in many plastics and other products, this is difficult for scientists to pin down. “People are always told if you just stop eating or exercise more, you will lose weight. But there may be more to it … and I think there is,” said Retha Newbold, a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, who specializes in BPA and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals.  (Read more)

Walmart offers discount to Humana plan members for purchase of healthier grocery items

Starting Oct. 15, more than 1 million members of Humana Inc.'s Healthy Rewards program will start getting a 5 percent credit on about 1,300 healthy food items at all U.S. Walmart stores.  The credit can be used against future purchases at Walmart, which has about half its stores in rural areas.

Walmart, the largest U.S. food retailer, has taken note that "one of the biggest barriers to healthy nutrition is cost," Dr. John Agwunobi, president of health and wellness at Walmart, told Reuters. His company, he said, is trying an overall approach to improve the nutritional value of the food it sells. And because food accounts for more than half of Walmart's annual sales, and since it has tremendous clout in the U.S. market, the hope is that changes at its stores can influence other supermarket chains to do more about healthy eating.

Walmart products eligible for the credit include fresh fruits, vegetables, lean cuts of meat, skim milk, brown rice and packaged goods, the company told Reuters. The program works with a HumanaVitality card provided to members of Humana's rewards unit who receive points for meeting health goals. (Read more)

Drought slows rural economy in 10 central states

The economy in rural areas of 10 Midwestern and Western states continued to look weak this month as the region begins a slow recovery from this summer's oppressive drought, according to The Rural Mainstreet Index, an economic survey of rural bankers by Creighton University in Omaha. The economic index for this month is 48.3, up slightly from August, but still in negative-growth territory. The index ranges from 0 to 100, with 50 being growth-neutral.

"The drought continues to dampen economic activity for businesses linked to agriculture such as ethanol, and agriculture-equipment seller," Creighton economist Ernie Goss told the Nebraska City News Press. "I expect food processors to take a hit later in the year as higher food prices work their way through the system." The index examines rural economies in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, the Dakotas and Wyoming. (Read more)

Water-conservation PSAs do a drip-drip-drip on Internet as drought recovery slowly begins

This summer's massive drought has infiltrated the national consciousness and now resonates within our video culture. YouTube has become inundated with public-service announcements about water conservation, Felicity Barringer of The New York Times reports. Making a video seems to be "the school project du jour," she writes, but others stand out.

"Often, contributions to the art form show someone cavalierly overusing water in the sink or shower and are supplemented by statistics about the amount of water wasted every year. One variant features water wardens — like the 'Saturday Night Live' comedians Horatio Sanz and Rachel Dratch — dropping in on the bathrooms and kitchens of unsuspecting water spendthrifts," Barringer reports. There is one featuring toddlers from France, and another from Malaysia. Some use music; "Sesame Street" characters assist on others.

This following comes from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro:



Here's another from Kennesaw State University in Georgia:

New list spotlights 10 towns that are small in population but big for quality of life

The online magazine Livability came up with top 10 best small towns in the U.S., defined as "places where life can still be simple, quiet and complete, but with more places for folks to gather than just a barber shop." In other words,"small in population yet big for their quality of life." (Livability photo by Clay Jackson: Danville, Ky., No. 9)

The search began with the magazine's already compiled list of the 500 best places to live, from which towns with 25,000 or fewer residents were selected. A list of criteria, including median household income, home prices, crime rates, unemployment rates, average commutes and distances to large cities was used to whittle the list further. Lifestyle amenities including outdoor activities, restaurants, community events, museums, art galleries and performance venues were considered to determine the top 10.

The list, in ascending order, is: Sheridan, Wyo.; Danville, Ky.; Clive, Iowa; Yankton, S.D.; Bedford, Va.; Chardon, Ohio; Boerne, Tex.; Brattleboro, Vt.; Golden, Colo., and Papillion, Neb., which Livability says has "excellent schools, a successful agriculture industry and diverse economy," plus "the lowest unemployment rate and one of the lowest crime rates of any city on this list." (Read more)

Wind energy installations could stop if federal tax break isn't renewed

Installations of new wind turbines could stop without renewal of an energy-production tax credit that expires at the end of the year, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Some wind-energy installations have already shut down, and there will likely be a rush to complete projects before the cut-off date, Matthew Wald of The New York Times reports.

The importance of subsidies is highlighted in the Shepherds Flat wind farm in north-central Oregon (Department of Energy photo), which officially opened Saturday. The $1.9 billion project was financed with a $1.3 billion federal loan. Wind was one of the largest recipients of federal subsidies for electricity production in 2007, receiving much more than coal or  natural gas.

Extension of the wind subsidy is unclear. Congress did not act to extend it before it recessed for the election season, and it's unlikely it will be discussed during the lame-duck session after the election. (Read more)

Scientists' survey of last year concludes that Fox, Wall Street Journal misled on climate change

A new study contends that Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, both owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., have greatly misled their audiences about climate change. The Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that 93 percent of Fox broadcasts and "Wall Street Journal Editorial Report" TV programs about climate change from February through July, and 81 percent of Journal editorial pages from August 2011 through July 2012, were misleading.

The survey defined inaccurate information about climate change as citations that "questioned either the reality of climate change or the fact that recent climate change is largely due to human activities, or they advanced other arguments that dismissed established climate science."  Tim McDonnell of Mother Jones writes, "The climate change debate in America is still mired in bickering over whether the problem even exists or not." (Read more)

Des Moines' KCCI-TV takes top small-market photography award again; Bakersfield is runner-up

The National Press Photographers Association announced late last week that KCCI-TV in Des Moines was its the small-market Station of the Year in TV news photography. The station also won in 2007 and 2009. The judges remarked that its work showed a willingness "to travel to far away places to get great stories" and "demonstrated an understanding of storytelling."

The runner up was KBAK-TV in Bakersfield, Calif. NPPA says it gives the award is given for consistency in providing outstanding news photography coverage for and about the audience it serves. It is an award aimed at raising the standards of the industry. To see a video compilation of KCCI's submitted work and the judge's full comments, go here.

Poll of rural voters in swing states shows Romney doing better against Obama than John McCain did

Republican Mitt Romney is doing better among rural voters than John McCain did in his race with Democrat Barack Obama four years ago, according to a bipartiasn poll of rural voters in nine swing states.

Romney leads Obama by 14 points, 54 percent to 40 percent, in the poll for the National Rural Assembly, a network that promotes more effective rural policy. Four years ago in a poll of the same nine states, McCain got 50 percent and Obama 46.7 percent. "Rural counties are keeping Romney competitive in the states that are now up for grabs," Howard Berkes reports for NPR. "Romney appears to have the rural margin he needs to be competitive in battleground states. And Obama has failed, it seems, to hold on to enough of the rural voters who helped him become president."

The poll was commissioned by the Center for Rural Strategies, a nonpartisan organization, with money from the Carnegie Corp. of New York, and was conducted by Democrat Anna Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and Republican Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies. It surveyed 600 likely voters in non-metropolitan counties in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. Its error margin is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

“The challenge for President [Obama] is just not to get beat too badly in the rural areas,” Bolger said. “This presages a very close election because, as well as Obama did in the rural areas in 2008, he's clearly not replicating that.” Democrat Greenberg said, “Rural areas in this country are very tough for President Obama. It was tough four years ago and they’re even tougher now. I think that that is obviously important in a very close presidential race because it’s really Mitt Romney’s geographic base.”

The poll found that half the respondents favored the Democratic position statement on immigration, while only 39 percent of respondents agreed with the Republican position. “These rural voters are not particularly exorcised about immigration issues,” said Dee Davis, president of the Center for Rural Strategies. “If you drill down you see they are conflicted. On one hand they want cops to be able to check immigrant papers, but at the same time they favor the DREAM Act promise of full citizenship for all kids who go to college or serve in the military.” For more details, click here.