Groups focused on food security are scrambling following the cancellation of federal programs supporting purchases from local farmers.
No rainmaker, aqueduct or prayer can save the Ogallala Aquifer from depletion. The battle over its decline pits good policy against powerful agricultural and political interests.
In the Cuyama Valley, north of Santa Barbara, water continues to be heavily pumped to irrigate thousands of acres of farmland. A plan to prevent over-pumping has sparked a legal battle.
Since 2010, 149 rural hospitals across the U.S. have either closed or stopped providing in-patient care. Often, communities are left with the empty husk of a hospital, but some communities have found ways to repurpose the buildings.
Kentucky’s Republican-controlled Legislature is sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Louisville this year. Local leaders hope strong cross-partisan relationships will help the city over the long term.
Storms that have devastated mountain communities and other inland regions are a reminder to prepare. New development in areas that were once thought unlikely to flood may be more susceptible as the climate heats up.
“Staying small is important to me,” says one of the microschool’s founders. “I value the small classes and the strong sense of community here. Everybody knows each other.”
About 150,000 people work in U.S. dairies. But as of May 22, just 40 people connected to dairy farms had been tested for the bird flu, a virus that has been spreading among cows.
The two are intertwined, yet too often they aren’t viewed that way. Aligning them is a strategy for creating strong rural and Native communities.
American Indians were not granted citizenship by Congress until 1924. A prominent attorney discusses civil rights progress since then.
The Louisiana Department of Health found that 81 percent of the state’s population were serviced with A or B grade water systems. But 115 of the state’s systems, mostly in rural areas, were ranked with a D or F.
The program offered financial incentives to those who were willing to move to the state’s rural areas, places with less than 50,000 residents, in hopes of boosting local economies and combating population decline.
The Panoche Water District allegedly stole 130,000 acre feet of water and redistributed it to farmland across Fresno and Merced counties. Now the feds want retribution but not everyone in the region agrees.
Rural America’s population grew by 108,000 last year. Ninety percent of that growth was in the South.
Bringing fiber infrastructure to rural areas is expensive and time consuming. Wise County, Texas, found a way to deliver high-speed Internet access without wires.
It’s a problem in urban and rural areas alike, but the greatest impact is in cities where it amounts to “food apartheid.” Our best chance of solving it is to get our communities engaged in creating solutions.
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