Organic groceries cost nearly 40 percent more than store-brand items, but the market for organic foods continues to increase, a study finds.

The study by IBISWorld says the average cost of a cart of store-brand groceries in the United States is about $100, while organic groceries cost $140.

Is the price difference worth it? Consumers think so. The market for organic groceries has increased by 4 percent this year. But consumers are more apt to buy organic or natural products when the prices are comparable to traditionally produced groceries, a separate study says.

And an online publication that covers traditional production agriculture called the price difference in the IBISWorld study "staggering" and argued that there's no nutritional difference between organic and regular groceries.

A monthly survey of bankers in the rural Midwest showed continued to show "significant economic weakness," the 18th month the Rural Mainstreet economy index has shown a troubled economy. The Rural Mainstreet index, operated by economists at Creighton University, appeared to bottom out in February of this year, but the last three months have shown declining prospects. The university economists survey bankers in more than 200 small towns in 11 Midwestern states. In this survey, the bankers were asked about upcoming crop yields. More than three out of five bankers expect crop yields to be "significantly up" from last year — but lower commodity prices will mean that farm income will be down.

Most of the bankers (83%) said the "cash for clunkers" car rebate program had had little or no impact on car sales in their communities. Hiring also remained weak. “Over the past 12 months, rural areas of the region have lost almost 5 percent of their jobs,” said Goss, the Jack A. MacAllister Chair in Regional Economics at Creighton. 

Retail sales were up slightly in August over July in these more than 200 rural communities. Home sales volumes were lower this August compared to a year ago.  Kurt Henstorf, president of the First National Bank in Shenandoah, Iowa, said, “Home sales seem to be improving, but our commercial sector remains steady in the doldrums.”

"It goes without saying that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who spent his educational career in big-city settings, is not as attuned to the needs of rural districts as the needs of urban ones," writes Education Week blogger Michele McNeil. McNeil recounts a town hall meeting Duncan held with Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack in Hamlet, North Carolina, 90 minutes outside Charlotte. Somebody at the forum asked Duncan about housing problems faced by rural educators and, McNeil writes, Duncan, who headed the schools in Chicago, said he was talking with Housing and Urban Development about what might be done. "To which Vilsack amusingly chided his peer that HUD is for urban housing, and that his ag department could actually be a resource for rural housing issues," McNeil recalls. 

Duncan was asked about the problem of recruiting new principals and superintendents to rural areas. He replied that recruiting good leaders isn't "unique to rural communities." McNeil writes, "But certainly the context is different" between urban and rural, a fact that seems beyond Duncan at this point. Duncan promotes charter schools, for example, but nobody at the forum asked about them because they won't work well in an area with few students.

"I'm told that Duncan's staff is trying to figure out how to ensure that the rural perspective factors into their policymaking," McNeil writes. "What's still unclear is whether contextual factors, such as the rural or urban character of a state, will factor into that all-important $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition." 

Britain, like the U.S., is trying to extend broadband to rural areas. A United Kingdom paper reports this morning that "people who live in the countryside could face paying more for the same Internet access as those in towns and cities, the Government has admitted." The Western Morning News reports. "Plans to ensure 'universal' broadband provision applies only to the speed and not the price – leaving the way open for commercial firms to target city-dwellers with better deals. Rural campaigners say the move amounts to a 'broadband tax' on people in the countryside." 

The British government has made a pledge similar to that made in the U.S. — that everyone would have access to broadband Internet. The UK Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw announced in June that there was a "universal obligation" to provide every citizen with  two megabits per second broadband access by 2012. The British figure that 10 percent of the population doesn't have that level of access now. Yesterday, a government spokesman said it was "possible" that rural communities would have to pay more for access.

The Country Land and Business Association has warned that "rural not-spots," areas without broadband, could "suffocate" businesses and cut off people from services. "What we're campaigning for is that everybody should have inexpensive high-speed broadband in the countryside and the Government should put in place policies that make that possible," a CLA spokesman said. "We think everybody should pay the same. There shouldn't be a broadband tax on people in the countryside because they don't have access that people in the cities do."