Cropland values hit record highs, but skyrocketing prices for equipment and other inflation boost production costs

Agriculture Department chart; click to enlarge it

The Farm Belt is in a revival, with cropland values hitting record highs this year, but farmers worry about inflation and supply-chain disruptions, Jesse Newman and Bob Tita report for The Wall Street Journal.

"A months-long rally in prices for major agricultural commodities such as corn and soybeans is pushing up incomes for U.S. farmers and unleashing spending and investment that had been subdued for years, according to agricultural economists and executives," the Journal reports. The run-up in land and equipment prices that has followed could leave farmers exposed if big harvests send crop prices lower again, some economists said. Until recently, U.S. farmers were in the grips of an agricultural recession brought on by a world-wide crop glut. Starting last year, however, strong demand from China and poor weather in key growing regions fueled a sharp rise in prices for crops like corn and soybeans, which touched their highest levels in eight years during the spring. U.S. agricultural exports are expected to hit records in fiscal 2021 and 2022, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts."

The department's most recent Farm Income Forecast projected that net farm income would increase 20% this year to its highest level since 2013. But "inflation is also hitting the Farm Belt, boosting almost all farmers’ production expenses this year, including fertilizer and fuel," Newman and Tita report. "The USDA expects production expenses to rise by more than 7% in 2021, the agency said. Farmers’ bills for supplies such as seed and fertilizer bought for next year will be the highest ever," an agricultural economist at major farm lender Wells Fargo said.

National Newspaper Week, which starts Sunday, is a reminder of the value of newspapers to their communities

National Newspaper Week is coming up Oct. 3-9. This year marks the 81st year of the observance, a recognition of the value of newspapers to communities. It is sponsored by Newspaper Association Managers, the consortium of North American trade associations representing the industry.

This year's theme is "Community Forum," inspired by the work of NAM's Relevance Project, an advocacy program that touts the benefits of journalism to a community. The National Newspaper Week website has free commentaries, cartoons and house ads you can use in your publication. The organizers also encourage you to make it local by writing an editorial about your paper's unique relevance.

Expanded tax credit, which expires Dec. 31, helped rural children most; spending bill would make eligibility permanent

Percent of children likely to benefit from tax-credit changes
(Daily Yonder map; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version)

The recently expanded child tax credit struck the biggest blow to poverty in decades, and has disproportionately helped rural children, but the benefit could go away soon unless Congress acts.

"An analysis of census data shows that about 49% of rural children were likely to have received increased child tax credits because of changes affecting low-income families. In metropolitan areas, about 39% of children were likely to have benefited from those changes," Tim Marema reports for The Daily Yonder.

The credit was expanded by the American Recovery Plan Act, which Democrats passed early this year. "Under the changes, the maximum per-child credit rose from $2,000 per child to $3,600 for children under 6 and $3,000 for children 6 and up," the Yonder explains. "The credit was also expanded to include to 17-year-olds for the first time."

The expansion reached more children in poverty because new rules made it newly accessible to the poorest families. However, it will expire at the end of the year unless Congress cements it in law permanently. One spending package before Congress would make the eligibility changes permanent and "extend the increased per-child payment through 2025," Marema reports.

Iowa State professor gets 'genius grant,' will study water quality, sustainable row crops, biodiversity, soil conservation

Lisa Schulte Moore

Lisa Schulte Moore, an Iowa State University professor of natural resource ecology and management, has won a MacArthur Fellowship, sometimes called a "Genius grant." As a 2021 fellow, Schulte Moore will get $625,000 to spend as she pleases to further her study of sustainable agriculture. The MacArthur Foundation website says she'll use those funds to implement "locally relevant approaches to build soil, improve water quality, protect biodiversity, and strengthen the resilience of row-crop agriculture."

At Iowa State, Schulte Moore has "conducted groundbreaking research as a landscape ecologist working closely with farmers to build more sustainable and resilient agricultural systems," says an Iowa State press release. "She pushes the boundaries of her field by incorporating other disciplines traditionally thought of as beyond the scope of ecology – economics, engineering and sociology, for instance – to address critical challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, water quality and rural depopulation."

A prairie strip on an Iowa farm (Iowa State University photo)

Much of her work addresses integrating native prairie plants into farms to improve production and conserve resources and species. She has been instrumental in the university's Prairie STRIPS program, which aims to protect soil and water while providing narrow bands of habitat for prairie species. "She and her team's research have shown that strips of native prairie in agricultural fields can tremendously reduce soil loss and runoff of nitrogen and phosphorous by having more roots in the ground to hold soil and nutrients in place," Phillip Sitter reports for the Ames Tribune. "Prairie strips are now used on more than 115,000 acres of fields in 14 states, and the conservation practice has been federally recognized as eligible for government financial support by the 2018 Farm Bill."

Schulte Moore said, "I think of my work as putting together a puzzle, and I’m always looking for the missing puzzle piece. Where do I have to go or what do I have to learn to get the next piece? I’ve found that sometimes you have to build and paint the puzzle piece yourself, and that’s part of the fun of science."

Pandemic roundup: In-depth portrait of an Appalachian hospital; U.S. sees biggest drop in life expectancy in developed countries; vaccine mandates cut hospital staffs

A TV meteorologist of 33 years in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was fired after refusing to take a coronavirus vaccine. Read more here.

The Daily Yonder has an in-depth profile of how the surge in Covid patients is hammering the hospital in Morehead, Kentucky. Read more here.

What it's like working for Walmart, the nation's top rural employer, in a pandemic. Read more here.

The pandemic has caused one of the biggest global drops in life expectancy since World War II. A study of 29 developed countries revealed that Americans saw the largest drop, especially in men and people of color. The advanced nations that didn't see a drop (Denmark and Norway) both have comprehensive, universal health-care systems and implemented widespread, early "non-pharmaceutical interventions" with high compliance, such as social distancing and masking. Read more here.

Though 99% of its employees complied, North Carolina hospital system Novant Health fired about 175 people for not getting vaccinated. The company has 15 hospitals and 800 clinics, some in rural areas. Last week, 375 workers were suspended and given five days to comply. Nearly 200, including some who had been approved for exemptions, got their first dose by Friday and were reinstated. Novant's compliance numbers jibe with recent data that suggests employees who say they'll quit rather than get vaccinated aren't likely to follow through. However, dozens of state troopers in Massachusetts quit following a vaccine mandate, and hundreds of New York health-care workers have been suspended after its vaccine mandate went into effect. And meanwhile, leaders in a rural Colorado county are asking the governor for an exception to the vaccine mandate because too many health-care workers are quitting, worsening workforce shortages. Without local control of the vaccine mandate, they say many health-care facilities won't be able to stay open.

Some small towns refuse pandemic aid; why is that?

"Congress in March authorized $19.5 billion in aid for cities and towns with fewer than 50,000 residents ... Lawmakers wanted to help every town cover the cost of fighting a pandemic and recovering from last year’s recession," Sophie Quinton reports for Stateline. "But in some small, rural or conservative towns, local leaders are refusing the cash. They say they don’t need it, and in some cases, don’t feel comfortable accepting it."

Stateline highlights Bingham Township, Pennsylvania, as an example. The quiet community has mostly dirt-and-gravel roads, and many of its residents are Amish. Local leaders turned down about $69,000 in federal aid because they couldn't think of a way to spend it. "That’s the main reason why we opted not to do it,” Cheryl Young, the township's secretary, told Quinton. "There’s no sense having [the money] sit here for two years, then turn around and send it back, because you can’t spend it."

Most places take the money. "Across 14 states where data is available, just 171 communities out of 7,975 that have fewer than 50,000 residents rejected the funds, according to the National League of Cities, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for cities and towns," Quinton reports. "The average community that rejected the money has 540 residents, according to the group."

Another reason some communities may not take the money: they may need to work with states, municipal associations and/or local accountants to manage the grants, but such communities may not have enough staffing to handle that, Quinton reports.

"More established towns also have declined the funds. Town leaders who refused the latest federal grants say they lack infrastructure, struggling businesses, essential workers or public health efforts to spend the money on," Quinton. "Some local leaders refused the funds partly for ideological reasons." A leader in Algoma Township, in western Michigan, told Quinton they mainly said no because the nation is "going $29 trillion in debt, and we wanted to do our part to say: Hey, enough's enough."

Killer of 5 at Capital Gazette sentenced to life without parole

"An Anne Arundel County judge on Tuesday sentenced the man who blasted his way into the Capital Gazette newsroom and killed five people to six life sentences, five without the possibility of parole, plus 345 years — all to be served consecutively," Alex Mann and Lilly Price report for the Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland. "Judge Michael Wachs handed down the sentence after hearing from survivors of the mass shooting and the family members of Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters, who died in the attack."

At the hearing this morning, survivors of the 2018 attack and the loved ones of the victims delivered emotional impact statements as shooter Jarrod Ramos watched, Emily Davies and Katie Mettler report for The Washington Post. Reporter Selene San Felice, who hid under a desk during the shooting, spoke first. "There were days I wondered why I lived or if I should live at all ... I live to spread the truth," she said. "We will press on."

"This summer, a jury found Ramos had the mental and emotional capacity to be held criminally responsible for the mass shooting. Although Ramos had pleaded guilty to the murders, he had argued he was not legally sane at the time and should be sent to a psychiatric hospital with the potential for release instead of prison," the Post reports. "The jury had arrived at its verdict in less than two hours." The judge made a brief but heartfelt statement before announcing the sentence, the Gazette reports: "To say the defendant showed a callous and cruel disregard for the sanctity of human life is simply an understatement," Wachs said. "What I impose is what the defendant deserves."

Rural coronavirus vaccination grows at fastest rate since June, but the rural-urban vaccination gap also grows

Vaccination rates as of Sept. 23 compared to the national average, adjusted to account for vaccinations not assigned to specific counties. Map by The Daily Yonder; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

Nearly 450,000 rural Americans became fully vaccinated against the coronavirus during the week of Sept. 17-23; that's the largest single-week total since early June, and the rural vaccination rate is now 41.4 percent, a 1-point increase from the week before, Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. The metropolitan vaccination rate rose 1.1 points, to 53.3% of the metro population, meaning the rural-urban vaccination rate gap grew slightly, to 11.9 points.

"The number of vaccinations completed each week has been on the rise since mid-August. Rural counties reported completing 50% more vaccinations in September than in August. In metro counties, completed vaccinations were up 30% in September over August," Murphy and Marema report.

Click here for more charts, maps and regional analysis from the Yonder, including an interactive map.

DEA issues public warning about deadly black-market pain medications laced with fentanyl and methamphetamine

"The Drug Enforcement Administration issued a public warning Monday that a growing number of pain medications bought on the black market are laced with the synthetic opioid fentanyl or the stimulant methamphetamine, driving overdose deaths to record levels," Devlin Barrett reports for The Washington Post. "Officials said the DEA hasn’t issued such a public safety alert since 2015, when the agency warned that agents were seeing an alarming amount of heroin laced with fentanyl. Fentanyl, even in much smaller amounts, is deadlier than street heroin."

Drug overdose deaths in 2020 surpassed a record 93,000, up nearly 30 percent from 2019. "In recent years, the death toll has risen sharply, fueled in large part by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is relatively cheap to manufacture and distribute," Barrett reports. "Last year, drug overdoses killed more than twice as many Americans as car crashes."

Illegal drug trafficking is increasingly shifting from plant-based drugs such as cocaine and heroin to chemical-based drugs such as meth and fentanyl. "The DEA has seized 9.6 million counterfeit pills already this budget year, which is more than it seized in the previous two years combined, officials said. The number of seized counterfeit pills found to contain fentanyl has jumped 430 percent since 2019," Barrett reports.

The drug epidemic, mostly fueled by opioids, has been getting worse since 1999. "At first, that drug abuse centered around prescription pain pills, such as Oxycodone, Vicodin or Percocet," Barrett reports. "In recent years, the death toll has risen sharply, fueled in large part by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is relatively cheap to manufacture and distribute. Last year, drug overdoses killed more than twice as many Americans as car crashes."

Rural Mississippi paper sheds light on previous allegations against former deputy who led a deadly raid

A former deputy in Monroe County, Mississippi, who helped lead a deadly no-knock raid in a rural area, had previously faced allegations of false arrest, racism and theft, reports Caleb Bedillion of the Daily Journal, as part of an investigative series about the raid. The Daily Journal, formerly the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, is one of America’s largest rural newspapers and serves 17 counties in the northeastern part of the state. 

During the 2015 raid, Monroe County sheriff's deputies broke down the door to Ricky Keeton's Smithville mobile home, only identifying themselves as they were breaking through with a battering ram. They fired at least 49 gunshots toward Keeton, who was struck six times and died at the scene.

Monroe County narcotics officers had been investigating Keeton and believed he was using and selling drugs. And though methamphetamines were found in Keeton's home and in his body, his loved ones say the no-knock warrant unnecessarily resulted in his death. "In a federal lawsuit scheduled to go to trial in Greenville early next year, the daughters of Keeton say Monroe County law enforcement wrongfully killed their father and violated his constitutional rights," Bedillion reports. "The lawsuit names Monroe County and former deputy sheriff Eric Sloan as defendants."

Keeton's longtime girlfriend, Wanda Stegall, was present the night of the raid and said Keeton believed the deputies were intruders trying to break in. "All they had to do was knock on the door," she told Bedillion.

No-knock warrants have come under increasing scrutiny, especially since the 2020 death of Louisville, Ky. resident Brionna Taylor. Critics say such warrants are more likely to lead to violence and injury, from officers or the targets of the warrants. Some cities, states, and federal law enforcement arms have restricted or banned their use, but Mississippi has not.

Keeton's case is also under scrutiny because of questions whether Sloan, then the head of the narcotics division, was fit to be on the job at all. "At the time local law enforcement agents had Keeton staked out, Sloan was under investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation over misconduct allegations raised by an informant involving extortion," Bedillion reports. "Amid this investigation, Sloan resigned from the sheriff’s office by December 2015."

Sloan changed his story several times about what happened the night of Keeton's death, and failed to show that the legal authority existed for a no-knock warrant that night. A judge also found that the warrant didn't explicitly authorize no-knock entry, Bedillion reports. And though the sheriff's department had recently received body cameras, they had not yet been put into use and deputies were not wearing them.

As solar projects become more feasible in states like Ky., battle lines are drawn between farmers and preservationists

For the past six years, renewable energy companies have been approaching Kentucky farmers about leasing their land for three solar-power projects in different stages of development. "Solar energy represents a change for a commonwealth whose economic prospects have long been tied to labor-intensive industries like coal and tobacco. But that change is coming, through tax credits, infrastructure deals and climate change incentives," Melina Walling reports for Louisville's Courier Journal.

But not everyone is on board with the prospect. "As the projects move forward and more people learn about them, questions tend to arise — questions that the solar companies, which do not have a permanent liaison in this rural area, are not always on hand to answer," Walling reports.

That often leaves farmers who have signed up for solar leasing to educate and convince their neighbors that such a venture is legitimate—sometimes a difficult job when the projects aren't yet live and bringing in profits for farmers. But it's more than a question of whether solar power is viable. Many farmers feel that leasing their land is tantamount to losing it, Walling reports. Others just don't know enough about the process and say they need more input.

Solar is a winning idea, arguies Jim Waters of free-market think tank Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions. In a Courier Journal op-ed, he writes: "By embracing such plentiful but inexpensive power, Kentucky would have a clean, renewable supply of energy, allowing it to continue – as it’s did with coal – boasting some of the nation’s cheapest energy rates, keeping utility costs low and rendering ineffective calls for economically harmful policies like raising gas taxes for needed revenues."

However, the notion brings iffy rewards and needs more study, writes Will Mayer, the executive director of Clark Coalition, a land-use advocacy organization. "While the developers are quick to paint a picture of struggling farmers needing the income (that supposedly only solar can provide) the truth is somewhat more complex. In fact, many of those under-contract for solar development are absentee landowners, not farmers. By contrast, many of the farmers who actually make their living from the land will invariably suffer from the loss of their farm leases," Mayer writes in an op-ed for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "The uneven consequences of large solar facilities are further brought to focus by their impact on adjoining property owners. Contrary to developers’ claims that their facilities do not negatively affect nearby properties, independent valuation studies demonstrate they cause a decline of up to 30%. Industrial solar proposals are neither uniformly bad nor good – rather they are complex and demand a transparent analysis to ensure that they are sited appropriately, and that the associated benefits do not disproportionately accrue to the developers and outside interests while the real financial and environmental costs are borne by Kentuckians."

Some local election officials buy into fraud-and-conspiracy theories; many election officials say they feel unsafe

America’s decentralized election system depends on the professionalism and integrity of local and state election officials. Now some worry that some of their colleagues have become a threat to the system.

In Grand Junction, Colo., Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters and her top deputy have allegedly embraced debunked right-wing conspiracy theories about elections. In April she required her employees to attend an after-hours gathering and listen to a speech by well-known conspiracist Douglas Frank. Also: "Over the course of the past month, in a lawsuit filed by the state’s top elections official, Peters and her deputy have been accused of sneaking someone into the county elections offices to copy the hard drives of Dominion Voting Systems machines," Emma Brown reports for The Washington Post. "Those copies later surfaced online and in the hands of election deniers. The local district attorney, state prosecutors and the FBI are investigating whether criminal charges are warranted."

UPDATE, Oct. 14: Peters and her deputy "cannot be involved in the administration of her county’s November election, a judge ruled Wednesday," Alex Burness of The Denver Post reports. "This means that former Republican Secretary of State Wayne Williams will oversee Mesa County elections this year. He was appointed by the Mesa County commissioners, under a temporary agreement that pays him $180 an hour. The commissioners supported Griswold’s suit."

Now that the audit of Arizona's Maricopa County ballots has failed to turn up evidence of fraud, conspiracists are looking to Peters' report, which she says she commissioned because it proves election irregularities. "The report, which Peters’ attorney, Scott Gessler, also included as part of defending her and Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley [from state efforts] to block the two from overseeing the fall elections, alleges that nearly 29,000 election files were deleted during a routine upgrade of the county’s now-decertified election equipment," Charles Ashby reports for Grand Junction's Daily Sentinel.

"I’ve always worried, working in this space, about people who want to harm our elections or sabotage them from the outside — the foreign actors trying to hack elections," Mike Beasley, a lobbyist for the Colorado County Clerks Association, told Brown. "I’ve never until now had to worry about what goes on on the inside. And now we’ve crossed that threshold."

Recent polling from The Brennan Center for Justice found that one in three election officials feel unsafe in their job, and one in five are worried about death threats. In recent months, Donald Trump "has endorsed several proponents of the 'big lie' to become secretaries of state in key battlegrounds. And experienced election administrators at the local level have been fleeing their jobs amid skyrocketing stress and threats to their personal safety," Brown reports.

Farm roundup: Bankruptcy map; anti-consolidation campaign; trafficking in farmworkers; suit targeting paraquat

Total Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings by county, 2013-2020
(Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting map; click on the image to enlarge it)

Here's a six-pack of farm news:

The nation's second-largest farm group, the National Farmers Union, is launching a campaign to expose how consolidation in agriculture hurts family farms and rural towns. "The campaign, which it said will include a public relations blitz and lobbying, is part of an effort to push Washington to crack down on monopolistic behavior in the industry as lawmakers propose legislation to bring more price and market transparency to highly consolidated farm markets," Reuters reports. Read more here.

Farm bankruptcies have been on the rise over the past decade, Sky Chadde reports for The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. Many factors contribute: climate change, increasing production costs, decreasing income, the trade war, high debt levels and suicide. Chapter 12 of the bankruptcy law is used to reorganize debts and save family farms through debt reorganization, but research shows it may be harder to reorganize debts under Chapter 12 than under other bankruptcy types. Read more here.

Farmworker and environmental groups have sued the Environmental Protection Agency for reapproving the weed killer paraquat, which they say puts farmworkers at an increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease. Read more here.

Farmworkers are trafficked by employers using the H-2A program, which "provides scaffolding for the agricultural system, allowing farms to bring in enough labor to pick fruits and vegetables Americans rely on," according to experts and activists, Amanda Perez Pintado reports for the Midwest Center. They "fear the Covid-19 pandemic has allowed the situation to grow."  Read more here.

A newly published study showed farmworkers in California's Salinas Valley had coronavirus infection rates four times higher than the rest of the local population. Read more here.

The Agriculture Department is launching an Equity Commission to address racial discrimination within the USDA and its programs. Read more here.

Education, political bent, skepticism, economic bases correlate with differences in rural vaccination rates: study

Rural/urban vaccination rates as of Aug. 12, compared to national average and adjusted to account for vaccinations not assigned to specific counties. (Map by The Daily Yonder; click the image to enlarge it or here for the interactive version.)

It's well known that coronavirus vaccination rates are generally lower in non-metropolitan counties, but a new data analysis cross-referenced rural vaccination data with other demographic markers, including votes for Donald Trump. to create a more granular picture of vaccination rates within rural counties.

According to the study, published in The Journal of Rural Health, "lower rural rates are explained by a combination of lower educational attainment and higher Trump vote share. Within rural counties, rates are lowest in farming and mining-dependent counties and highest in recreation-dependent counties, with differences explained by a combination of educational attainment, health care infrastructure, and Trump vote share." And, though vaccine resistance and hesitancy are primary reasons for the lower rural vaccination rates, the researchers note that lack of access is also frequently a problem.

"Differences in perceptions of risk and virus severity and differences in attitudes about personal choice versus collective responsibility may also be related," the researchers write. "Consistent with this explanation, rural residents have been less likely to adopt Covid-19 prevention behaviors, such as physical distancing, avoiding dining out, and wearing face masks. Smaller shares of rural residents report being worried about getting sick, and larger shares say that the severity is exaggerated, getting vaccinated is a personal choice, and believe in at least one myth about the vaccine."

The researchers assessed vaccination rates as of Aug. 11, 2021, for people ages 18 and up in the 2,869 counties for which Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data is available. For comparison's sake, here is The Daily Yonder's write-up on rural vaccination rates from that week (map above). The Yonder's numbers include all vaccinations, not just those for ages 18 and up, as this study does.

Gannett selling papers in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa to Cherry Road Media, increasing its list from 7 to 27

Gannett Co. Inc. continues to sell smaller newspapers that became part of the brand when GateHouse Media bought Gannett and adopted its name. The latest are 20, including five dailies in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, in line to be sold to CherryRoad Media Inc. Terms were not disclosed.

This will be the largest acquisition yet for CherryRoad Media, a subsidiary of CherryRoad Technologies, a New Jersey-based technology company that provides technical solutions and system integration services to large enterprises, particularly state and local governments. CEO Jeremy Gulban said in a press release from media broker Dirks, Van Essen & April that the company decided late last year to look at the local newspaper industry because they felt there was a need for an infusion of technology from a supportive side as opposed to a competitive side.

Cherry Road bought the weekly Cook County News-Herald in Minnesota in late 2020. It has since acquired four papers in Arkansas, one in Alabama, and started the Rainy Lake Gazette in International Falls, Minn., in July.

Most the newspapers being acquired from Gannett are in Kansas: the Pratt Tribune, the Kiowa County Signal, the Hiawatha Penny Press, the Butler County Times-Gazette, the McPherson Sentinel, The Leavenworth Times, the Wellington Daily News, the Dodge City Daily Globe, the Newton Kansan, the Garden City Telegram, the St. John News, the Hays Daily News and the Ottawa Herald.

The Missouri acquisitions are the Independence Examiner, the Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune, the Boonville Daily News and the Linn County Leader. Other papers being sold are the Nebraska City News Press, the Syracuse (Neb.) Journal-Democrat and the Hamburg (Iowa) Reporter.

Rural news media need to promote vaccination, not just by delivering facts to quash misinformation, but by example

By Al Cross
Director, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

Millions of Americans say they have decided not to get vaccinated to protect themselves, their families and their neighbors from the coronavirus, but polling and anecdotal evidence show that some will change their minds. News media have a role to play in that, especially in rural America, where vaccination rates are lower than the rest of the nation, sometimes dangerously lower.

Few vaccine-hesitant or -resistant people are likely to be persuaded by a news story or editorial urging vaccination, but it's important to keep delivering facts about the vaccines, because social media are awash with misinformation about them. And there's another way to promote the shots: lead by example.

That's what Alan Gibson, editor and publisher of the Clinton County News in Albany, Kentucky, did this week. On the back page of the newspaper is a "house ad" telling readers that the paper's entire staff of five is vaccinated and urging readers to do likewise.

Gibson told me he got the idea from the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce's "Covid Stops Here" campaign, which provides signs that businesses can download and print to display their level of vaccination, and lets them post their logos to do likewise.

Gibson knew his staff was fully vaccinated. "I thought, we should promote this," he said. Why? "We're one of the hardest-hit counties in the nation but we're one of the slowest to get vaccinated." And he thought it would be better to persuade by example than to lecture: "Do as I do, you know? I'm tired of arguing with people, because the arguments aren’t valid." He said it's worth the effort "if just one or two people look at it and say, 'I need to go ahead and do this.'"

Clinton County (Wikipedia map)

Gibson could be called a beacon in a wilderness. Only two other newspapers have their logos posted on the Kentucky Chamber site, and they're in the state's most highly vaccinated counties: The State Journal of Frankfort, in Franklin County, and The Woodford Sun, in Versailles; 79% and 77% of the adjoining Bluegrass counties' vaccine-eligible residents, respectively, are fully vaccinated. In Clinton County, it's only 38%.

What are you doing to promote vaccination? In addition to editing and publishing The Rural Blog, I do likewise with Kentucky Health News, which sends a weekly update to Kentucky editors. A few weeks ago, I told them, "There is no more immediately pressing public interest in this country than persuading people to get vaccinated, and local medical professionals and news media are more trusted than those at state and national levels. Please do your part. It's a slog, but if the heroes of public health can do it, so can we."

Vote to crown the fattest of them all during Fat Bear Week, Sept. 29-Oct. 5; vote for Fat Bear Junior today

Fat Bear Week champion from 2020 (National Park Service photo)

Park rangers at Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve are gearing up for this year's Fat Bear Week, which goes Sept. 29 through Oct. 6.

They'll create a March Madness-style bracket pitting individual bears against each other, then the public votes to see who advances to the next round until one bear is crowned the fattest of them all. The annual contest is meant to celebrate Katmai's healthy ecosystem, since fat equals winter survival for bears. Last year the contest received more than 640,000 votes.

"In addition to voting during this week-long tournament, there will be a series of online chats on explore.org featuring Mike Fitz, explore.org's resident naturalist, and rangers from Katmai to learn more about the individual bears and Katmai's healthy ecosystem," according to the event website. "Throughout the season, you can also tune in to the explore.org bear cams which offer unprecedented access to the lives the bears of Brooks River. There are also special live events on a variety of topics hosted weekly as well."

And, there's a new wrinkle this year: the Fat Bear Junior competition. Voting began Sept. 23, but you can still vote today until 9 p.m. ET. We're rooting for the admirably chunky 132's Spring Cub.

Click here for more information or to vote.

Rural Covid-19 death rate grew by 1/3 last week, highest since March and 117% higher than urban rate; infections up

NEW CORONAVIRUS INFECTIONS, in ranges by county, Sept. 12-18
Daily Yonder map; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

During the week of Sept. 12-18, rural counties reported 2,906 more deaths from Covid-19, nearly one-third higher than the 2,210 deaths recorded two weeks ago, and the most since early March. That's according to an analysis by The Daily Yonder of USA Facts reports. But, since Florida deaths have not been recorded in the USA Facts reports for the past two weeks, the real death rate is likely even higher. "A crosscheck with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that Florida had about 2,500 Covid-related deaths each of the last two weeks, meaning the actual death rates are potentially 20 percent higher than the USA Facts data," the Yonder's Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report.

New rural infections rose by 5% last week, compared to a 3% fall in the metro rate. The rural infection rate is about 60% higher than the metro rate. "A third of rural counties have rates of more than 500 new cases per 100,000 for the week – or five times the red-zone threshold," Murphy and Marema report. "Only about a fifth of metropolitan counties have new-infection rates that high."

Among the 100 counties with the highest new infection rates last week, 83 were rural, and 29 states had all their rural counties in the red zone, meaning there were at least 100 new daily cases per 100,000 residents over a week's time. Only four states had fewer than 90% of their counties in the red zone: Alaska, New Mexico, South Dakota and Utah.

Click here for an interactive county-level map, regional analysis and charts from the Yonder.

Quick hits: Missing factory parts slow supply chains; telehealth could help rural prisoners stop smoking...

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email heather.chapman@uky.edu.

One reason for the supply-chain issues plaguing the U.S. (and other countries): factories are having a hard time finding replacement mechanical and computer parts, which slows or halts production. Read more here.

The poultry muscle disease called white striping was nearly nonexistent 10 years ago, but today 99% of U.S. store-brand chickens have it, according to a newly published study from an animal welfare group. Meat from afflicted chickens has up to 224% more fat and 9% more protein than others, but doesn't taste any different. Since the stresses of factory farming cause the ailment, its frequency serves as a rough yardstick for the increasing popularity of such methods. Read more here.

The most common type of liver cancer is on the rise in rural America but trending down in cities, according to newly published research. Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common type of liver cancer and the fastest-growing cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. Diagnoses are increasing at an annual rate of nearly 6%, approaching rates seen in cities. Rural residents most likely to be diagnosed include men aged 60-69, Black people, Alaskan Natives who live in high-poverty areas or Native Americans who live in the South and/or high-poverty areas. Meanwhile, lung, breast and colon cancer rates are falling in rural America. Read more here.

Telehealth may help smokers in rural prisons kick the habit, a study has found. Read more here.

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Pandemic highlights weaknesses in meat supply chains

Percentage of meatpacking and processing sectors controlled by top four companies in the U.S.
(Politico chart using Family Farm Action Alliance data)

"Covid-19 was a shock up and down America’s supply chain for meat, from farmers and ranchers who couldn’t find buyers for their livestock and lost revenue and animals, to grocery shoppers who encountered steep meat prices, item limits and empty shelves. But it wasn’t the first or only such shock. Just a handful of giant companies process the vast majority of America’s beef, pork and poultry," Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico. "Take the beef sector: Four companies process about 85 percent of all the cattle fed and slaughtered for boxed beef, namely muscle cuts like ribs and steaks. That means that when one or more large meatpacking site is forced to shut down, it has ripple effects across the entire country, interrupting supplies and often raising prices. Just in the last three years, the meat supply chain has also been disrupted by a fire at a major Tyson Foods plant in Kansas and a ransomware attack that shut down JBS plants that process a fifth of the U.S. beef supply."

Read more here.