The maps have been showing for some time that manufacturing areas in the Southeast and Midwest have been the hardest hit in rural America during this recession. The communities that attracted factory jobs in the '70s and '80s are finding that those jobs are leaving. The Des Moines Register reports that towns in Iowa with fewer than 30,000 residents have lost 20,000 factory jobs since 2007. Iowa State University economist reports that this is twice as many factory jobs lost in the state's major metro areas of Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Davenport. 

"Production of grain bins, car crushers and cereal makes up the largest chunk of Iowa's economy at 21 percent, about $28.2 billion of the state's $135.7 billion gross domestic product, 2008 federal data show," write reporters Donnelle Eller and Jeff Eckhoff. "Manufacturing contributes more to Iowa's economy than insurance and finance, construction, and agriculture combined. Iowa's economic dependence on manufacturing ranks second in the nation only after Indiana."

The reporters go to Webster City, Iowa, where local officials are looking to wind power jobs to replace those lost at a large Electrolux plant that is closing. "The whole state and Midwest is going after wind," said Gary Sandholm, Webster City's economic development leader (above). "But we have a natural advantage, and we're going to try to exploit it."

A vote in the Canadian parliament to repeal the registry of long guns (rifles) has set our northern neighbors into a cultural and geographic squabble that we thought could only happen in the States. The vote was 164 to 137 to remove the requirement that rifles be registered. (Hand guns would continue to be registered.) The vote out of the biggest cities was in favor of registry. In the rest of Canada, no way.

The vote created a "hysterical overreaction of urban newspaper columnists and editorial boards against rural Canadians," according to columnist Lorne Gunter. He continues: "Apparently, if my fellow commentators at other outlets are any gauge, this country’s urban elites believe that beyond the boundaries of their megalopolises there reside only people too stupid to move into more sophisticated boroughs. People who live outside Canada’s three biggest cities have been routinely portrayed in the past week as unthinking, knuckle-dragging, cousin-marrying rubes whose voices should not be heard in national debates, whose opinions should not be counted — unless, of course, they agree with their enlightened urban superiors." 

Sound familiar? The latest news from up north, however, is that most Canadians agree with the knuckle draggers. A Canadian Press/Harris Decima poll released Thursday found that 46% of Canadians believe abolishing the registry of long guns to be a good idea.  Gunter continues: "Here’s a flash for all the sneering, snotty urbanites: Maybe those people you so derisively call “rural” are right. Maybe because they have direct experience with guns, they know more about how to control them effectively than urbanites who know little about guns." These people could be U.S. citizens!!

One of the arguments in favor of genetically modified seed is that it will increase yields. The world is filled with hungry people, the argument goes, and the way to feeding them is increasing yields. The evidence that new GMO seeds actually increase per acre yields is mixed. This week, Monsanto announced that its new Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans, planted on 1.5 million acres this year, boost yields 7.3 percent, on the low end of the company's forecast. 

The lagging yields is not helping Monsanto's stock price. The company had been hoping that its new seed would add $1 billion in profit by 2012. Bloomberg reported, "Some investors are losing confidence in Monsanto after growers and seed distributors told OTR Global, a Purchase, New York-based research firm, that the new soybeans aren’t meeting yield expectations."

“The shares will likely remain range-bound until the company addresses outstanding questions on Roundup Ready 2 Yield performance in 2009-2010 and pricing in both corn and soy,” Laurence Alexander, a New York-based analyst at Jefferies & Co., wrote in a report.

The town of West Liberty, in Eastern Kentucky, dedicated a monument this week commemorating women in the military. (See photo above.) Dori Hjalmarson of the Lexington Herald-Leader tells the wonderful story of how the statue of three service women came to stand in West Liberty's Tredway Memorial Park. 

The Morgan County Woman's Club has been working on the project for two years. The women collected some state money and raised funds locally to purchase the statue. The club has a veteran's committee, which should be growing, since women are the fastest-growing population of vets. "It's probably still considered a man's job," Emily Elam told Hjalmarson. Elam is the woman's club veterans chair who led the effort to install the monument."

Air Force Major Gen. Verna Fairchild, who spoke at the dedication, said women in the military struggle with a sense that they are invisible. But, she added, "Here's a group of women in small-town America, and they've taken such pride in establishing this monument."