Rural

A legislative panel focused on the challenges facing rural Georgia has proposed a slate of changes meant to spark job growth and reverse population declines in the state’s beleaguered counties.A report, approved Wednesday by the House Rural Development Council, takes on such mammoth issues as rural health care and spotty broadband Internet service.   That document provides a framework for the initiatives that will be debated in the coming legislative session, which starts next month.Specific ideas include proposals such as creating a tax break for people who move to counties with a steady s [node:read-more:link]

The Promoting Real Opportunity, Success and Prosperity Through Education Reform Act – unveiled this month by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) – would effectively eliminate PSLF. This could devastate our public service veterinary workforce. The simple truth is that veterinarians carry high student debt loads that necessitate the consideration of financial factors in career decisions, and any cuts to PSLF could render public service careers financially unfeasible for many. [node:read-more:link]

This report provides an overview of U.S. farms, including the latest statistics on production, financial performance, and farm household characteristics by farm size categories. Among the findings are that 99 percent of U.S. farms are family farms, and they accounted for 90 percent of farm production in 2016. [node:read-more:link]

You might’ve heard that the internet is going to get more expensive.For most of us, that’s really big news. But the bigger issue in rural areas, and especially on farms, is getting high-speed access in the first place. Paying high prices for internet connectivity to any site, at all, is something that residents of rural areas have been dealing with for years.Sure, there’s a digital divide. Ninety-six percent of urbanites have access to high-speed broadband internet access, compared to only 39 percent of rural Americans, according to the FCC. [node:read-more:link]

The number of local ordinances across the country banning the sale of pets from commercial breeders, defined as large operations that raise pets for wholesale distribution, has grown from about a hundred last year to about 250. “The momentum is there,” said Goodwin, senior director of the Humane Society’s Stop Puppy Mills campaign. California this fall became the first state to outright ban sales of commercially raised animals in retail shops — a new success for activists working across the country to transform the way pets are taken in by families.Although the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

The forests you see today are not what you will see in the future. That's the overarching finding from a new study on the resilience of Rocky Mountain forests.Researchers analyzed data from nearly 1,500 sites in five states -- Colorado, Wyoming, Washington, Idaho, and Montana -- and measured more than 63,000 seedlings after 52 wildfires that burned over the past three decades. [node:read-more:link]

Human waste accounts for a high percentage of nutrients consumed by some animals and plants in suburban ponds, new research indicates. Researchers found that residential, suburban land use is altering the dynamics of the food chain, as well as where nutrients originate and how they move through pond ecosystems. [node:read-more:link]

The topic of net neutrality provides an opportunity to talk about potentially contentious issues without triggering our fight or flight response. Perhaps there’s a lesson here all of us could apply to other public discussions. [node:read-more:link]

Officials were scheduled to gather in a large open field in rural Harper County at 2 p.m. Sunday to break ground on a new $41 million medical complex that its developers say will introduce an entirely new model for rural health care. [node:read-more:link]

Political strategists could learn much from the work of farm communities who have fought racism and corporate control.Scapegoating leaves us at a standstill. It also ignores a rich history: In the 1980s, when rural life was rapidly becoming as bleak as it is today, a perfect storm of politics and economics hit middle America, in the form of the farm crisis. [node:read-more:link]