Rural America’s slow recovery from the Great Recession isn’t entirely bad news, says the founder of the Rural Opportunity Initiative. For smart public and private investors, it could provide a chance to get ahead of the pack.Rural companies and entrepreneurs in the U.S. share many similarities and common challenges with those in the developing world, McKenna says, a fact that made Georgetown, with its global economic development focus, a natural home for the initiative. One of those common challenges? [node:read-more:link]

While government agencies have developed guidance documents with specific recommendations for early detection and rapid response (National Invasive Species Council, 2016; U.S. Department of the Interior, 2016) and some international agreements mention invasive species, there are no clear science-based national policies to deal with invasive species in the United States. [node:read-more:link]

China approved five genetically modified (GM) crops for import on Tuesday, the first in about 18 months in a move that could boost its overseas grains purchases and ease pressure from the United States to open its markets to more farm goods. [node:read-more:link]

Senate leader Tim Ashe challenged his colleagues on Wednesday to bring legislation to the table this session that will raise the standard of living for the “other Vermont,” those in rural areas or urban pockets struggling to get by. “I challenge each of you,” Ashe said upon being re-elected as the Senate president pro tem, “I challenge each committee you will serve on, and I challenge myself, to never let go of this one question, what can we do to improve life in the other Vermont?” [node:read-more:link]

Big cities have shielded their residents from the impact of China’s decision last year to curtail the solid waste it will accept from other countries. But rural and small-town residents are starting to get squeezed by a change that is wreaking havoc on the global recycling market. Hannibal, Missouri, population 18,000, has stopped accepting recyclable plastics labeled with the numbers 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7, such as yogurt containers and shampoo bottles. Villages near Erie, Pennsylvania, no longer take glass. [node:read-more:link]

Last month, on the same day that the Senate passed the Farm Bill Conference Report, and a day before the House took similar action, the Trump Administration released a new proposed waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule.  Today’s update highlights news items that focused on the new proposal. [node:read-more:link]

The USDA’s Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) recently released a report title, “Agricultural Conservation on Working Lands: Trends From 2004 to Present.”  A fact sheet that accompanied the report explained that, “The first step toward increasing adoption of conservation practices is to establish a baseline of current adoption rates;” and added that the report, “uses survey data to track U.S. [node:read-more:link]

In the early 1990s, Acton Lake in southwestern Ohio had a muddy problem. Large amounts of sediment from nearby farms were entering the lake’s watershed. These sediments traveled through streams draining the landscape and were filling up the lake. So, the USDA gave local farmers incentives to change some of their farming practices.One of these practices was conservation tillage, which can reduce sediment runoff. A new study examines how the switch to conservation tillage has impacted Acton Lake over the past decades. [node:read-more:link]

But according to a new report from the Institute for Local Self Reliance, the dollar store model isn’t just another cheap place to pick up toilet paper. It’s a symptom of some of the most pernicious forms of neighborhood decline—and, ILSR argues, it’s actually speeding that decline in a race to extract the last traces of wealth from failing communities. In this episode of Upzoned, Chuck and Kea dig into ILSR’s findings, and talk about where they agree (and don’t) with the institute’s policy prescriptions that might help end the dollar store scourge. [node:read-more:link]

“That’s the thing about rural Kansas,” Corie Brown wrote. “No one lives there, not anymore.” The Los Angeles author’s assessment on rural Kansas in particular and Kansans in general was the outcome of an odyssey across the state for an online article published in April 2018. Its title, “Rural Kansas is Dying: I Drove 1,800 Miles to Find Out Why,” set the stage for her thesis.She interviewed farmers, university professors, politicians, local food system supporters and farm group leaders about the state’s rural population and community decline and what could be done to mitigate it. [node:read-more:link]