After a judge last year ordered the state to tighten up permits aimed at keeping manure at dairy and livestock mega-farms across the state from fouling streams, rivers and lakes, hundreds of farmers switched over to a less-strict state permit instead. Nearly 230 farms that had federal  CWA permits prior to the court ruling have since changed over to less-stringent state Environmental Conservation Law (ECL) permits that cover manure systems specifically design to avoid manure discharge into nearby bodies of water. [node:read-more:link]

 Agriculture and environmental groups alike are not impressed with USDA's interim final rule on wetland conservation and highly erodible land posted in December. A public comment period on the rule closed on Tuesday. USDA made revisions to codify technical portions of the existing agency policy that had not undergone public review and comment. [node:read-more:link]

This brief examines demographic trends in rural America, a region often overlooked in a nation dominated by urban interests. Yet, 46 million people live in rural areas that encompass 72 percent of the land area of the United States. In all, 746 counties representing 24 percent of all U.S. counties are depopulating, and nearly all of them—91 percent—are rural. Just 9 percent of urban counties are depopulating (Figure 1). Such depopulation is a clear indicator of a lack of demographic vitality in a significant part of rural America. [node:read-more:link]

Nearly three-quarters of the downloads hitting Microsoft servers from nonmetropolitan counties are so slow they don’t meet the FCC definition of broadband. Microsoft’s county-level data shows a big gap between what the federal government says is available and what people actually use.Overall, according to Microsoft, half of the U.S. population, or about 162 million residents, did not use the internet at a minimum of 25 Mbps download. By comparison, that’s roughly seven times the size of the population that the official FCC data says does not have download speeds of at least 25 Mbps.  [node:read-more:link]

A horse named Justice sues former owner for more than $100,000 for neglect. [node:read-more:link]

So she’s not the sort of person you expect to lead folks into potentially uncomfortable conversations about contentious topics. But that’s exactly what she does with the Rural Climate Dialogues. The dialogues assemble a representative sample of rural community members to explore climate change and create a community response plan. The dialogues are not a feel-good pep talk for like-minded thinkers. They include people with starkly different opinions. [node:read-more:link]

Northern Initiatives covers a large 78-county service area primarily in rural Michigan, along with a few counties in northeast Wisconsin. While it worked over the years to provide capital and know-how to small business owners in Michigan and Wisconsin, the community development financial institution (CDFI) knew it had an issue: How could its staff best provide entrepreneurs with support services that improve a business’ chances of succeeding with a start up loan? [node:read-more:link]

A bill requiring Oregon government agencies to protect against “rollbacks” of federal environmental regulations has been dismissed as “political theater” by farm, ranch and timber organizations. [node:read-more:link]

Sanderson Farms Inc. is asking a federal judge in San Francisco to impose financial penalties on two advocacy groups suing the poultry processor for alleged false advertising claims. Sanderson wants Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim of the U.S. District Court for Northern California to levy a $11,275 penalty against Friends of the Earth and the Center for Food Safety. [node:read-more:link]

A wave of bankruptcies is sweeping the U.S. Farm Belt as trade disputes add pain to the low commodity prices that have been grinding down American farmers for years. Throughout much of the Midwest, U.S. farmers are filing for chapter 12 bankruptcy protection at levels not seen for at least a decade, a Wall Street Journal review of federal data shows.

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