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Ag and Trade | Main Street Economics
Letter From Langdon: In the End, It's All About Food
07/03/2008

"In this town, they know the cost of everything but the value of nothing," Cong. Tim Walz told rural residents gathered at the National Rural Assembly in Washington, D.C.

Education
Speak Your Piece: Rural Students Pull and Push for AP
07/02/2008
chemistry class thumbHow does an Advanced Placement program begin in a rural high school? In Clear Fork, West Virginia, it took an ambitious student, observant classmates, and a supportive, energetic teacher.
Education
Higher Gas Prices Are Changing Community College Plans
07/02/2008
The high price of gas is making it tough for rural community college students to continue their studies, according to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. "Food and shelter  — that's what we're hearing from the students who are withdrawing," says Paul Kraft, director of student services at the University of New Mexico at Gallup, a two-year institution in the high desert of western New Mexico.

Community colleges are doing more courses online or on camera. Some students are trying to cram all their courses into one day of dawn to dark work. And others, of course, just drop out.

Students driving across Yonder have problems city residents can't imagine. One West Texas student would like to drive a smaller car, but she's hit three deer in the last three years. She takes her pickup on the 70-mile trip from Big Lake to Big Spring "because it's just safer."
Ag and Trade
Land of Cotton is Long Forgotten as Planting Declines
07/01/2008
Maybe the next shortage will be cotton. That seems possible with reports released Monday showing that the number of U.S. acres planted in cotton is at the lowest level in 25 years.

You can't blame farmers. They see the higher prices paid for corn and soybeans and they are switching to these more lucrative plots. Friends driving through Mississippi have reported that those magnificent views of the broad, flat Delta are being blocked by towering fields of corn.

The decline in cotton acreage will reverberate through rural communities. Some cotton gins in Louisiana haven't opened. In Mississippi, the number of gins dropped from 89 to 80 last year.
Main Street Economics
Rural Stocks Wallop Dow, S&P Over Last 12 Months
07/01/2008
Barack Obama may not show much interest in rural America, but investors have found good value here. The Yonder 40, a collection of companies doing business in rural America, has had a (relatively) good year.
Racing For '08/Archive
The Indian Summer of (Political) Love
06/30/2008
indian car thumbBoth Republicans and Democrats have sought out the Indian vote. It's nice to be wanted, and all the attention can even score a spot on the Colbert Report. But reservations await the details.
Arts and Culture | Education | Immigration
Teenage Photographers: Migration of the Minds
06/29/2008
sombrero girl thumbWhen an art project in rural Tennessee combines the visions of youth -- local teenagers and the children of migrant workers -- everybody's the wiser.
Ag and Trade
Maryland Growers Discover Financial Power in Flowers
06/29/2008
Maybe growing flowers is a better deal than raising chickens or topping tobacco. Some growers in Maryland are giving it a go, and so far blooms are more profitable than feathers.

The Washington Post reports this morning that a family-owned nursery in Maryland has a big contract to supply flowers to Home Depot. The nursery works with farmers to build greenhouses and trains them in the trade. The farmers buy the seedlings from the nursery and sells back mature plants for twice the price. It's the same kind of relationship farmers in the area have with poultry producers.

So far, so good. The returns are enough to pay off the cost of the greenhouses and supply a profit. One farmer reports annual profits of $175,000 on four greenhouses filling two acres. Best of all, the farmer says he now takes vacations!
Education | Main Street Economics
The Class of '08: Less Pomp, More Circumstance
06/27/2008
judy and jon thumbThe ban on school prayer and out-migration have shrunk the senior class of Middlesboro High School. Judy Owens (Class of 1974) gets unsentimental at a beloved nephew's graduation.
Ag and Trade | Food
Food Producers Urge Congress to Fund Bee Research
06/26/2008
Thirty-six percent of the country's commercial bee colonies have been lost this year. That's a record decline — and nobody knows why the bees are disappearing. The collapse of the commercial bee industry was the subject of a congressional hearing Thursday, as farmers, bee keepers and food producers implored Congress to spend more money on research into the case of the disappearing bees.

Bees started disappearing in 2006. Last year there was a 31 percent decline in commercial bee colonies. At the hearing Thursday both Haagen-Dazs, the ice cream maker, and North Carolina's Burt's Bees asked Congress for help in discovering the malady that affects the nation's bees. "Pollinators are an essential part of our business," Haagen-Dazs brand manager Katty Pien said.

The Farm Bill (passed over a presidential veto) authorizes spending on bee research but sets aside no specific money for the work.
Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural
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