Roundup: March 2, 2023
A regular feature of our growing online journal, The Rural Review, these roundup posts collect notable recent research, analysis, and related rural news and commentary. Feel free to send suggestions for future collections to us here. And, more details on other opportunities to contribute to The Rural Review can be found here.
Recent Publications
Julie N. Zimmerman and Karen Rignall (both of the Department of Community & Leadership Development, Kentucky) and Cameron McAlister (Sociology, Kentucky) explore the general conception that prices are lower in rural areas in The Enduring Price of Place: Revisiting the Rural Cost of Living. Verifying research from a decade-old study, the authors confirm that there is “no consistent pattern of lower prices in rural counties and no consistent pattern of a lower rural cost of living.” To the contrary, the authors acknowledge that, at least in some contexts, “differences in rural life create additional costs that extend beyond prices.”
The Journal of the Agricultural History Society has published a special issue entitled, “The 1980s Farm Crisis Reconsidered.” For example, in this issue, Rebecca Shimoni-Stoil (History, Clemson University) explores how the Farm Crisis united unexpected allies under an anti-federal ideology, and Pamela Riney-Kehrberg (History, Iowa State) analyzes Iowan farm families’ letters to government officials expressing a wide range of emotions as they faced losing their livelihoods in a piece called Farm Crisis/Identity Crisis: Letters from 1980s Iowa.
Some rural Georgia communities rely on a state prison program offering incarcerated people to work as local firefighters and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) to stabilize their rural emergency services in the absence of other personnel and support options. In “The Volunteering Days is Gone”: All-Hazard Incarcerated Firefighters and Rural Disinvestment, author J. Carlee Purdum (Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning, Texas A&M) examines the relationship between racial capitalism, carceral infrastructure, and emergency services as rural communities turn to the false promise of prisons and all-hazard incarcerated firefighters to keep their communities safe.
Wondering about women and land ownership? In Women on the Land: Perspectives on Women-Owned Forest Land in the Eastern United States, Olivia Lukacic (Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts Amherst), Paul Catanzaro (Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts Amherst), Emily S. Huff (Forestry, Michigan State University), and Katri Hamunen (Bioeconomy and Environment, Natural Resources Institute Finland) identify how women in the eastern U.S. navigate forest land management and what that may mean for the creation of programs and policies. Then, in Supporting Women Landowners in Wetland Conservation, Angie Carter (Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University) and Rebecca Christoffel (Christoffel Conservation) examine how Iowan women landownership is influencing the conservation and restoration of wetlands.
News & Commentary
The new definition of “waters of the United States” in the Clean Water Act has spurred a range of recent litigation. Organizations representing an array of interests — including construction, farm, and energy – have sued in a complaint available here. Several states, including Nebraska, have also sued to invalidate rules governing the new definition.
The Legal Ruralism blog, hosted by Lisa Pruitt (Law, UC-Davis), has an interesting new post about the rural jail boom and how prisons have been touted as a means of addressing the economic problems facing rural communities. A related Vera report found that jails in these rural counties are primarily holding people for minor charges. But what happens when rural communities cannot afford to sustain the jails they’ve considered integral to their communities? One small Missouri county, for example, was reportedly spending thousands of dollars a year to keep roughly one inmate housed.
Farm bill hearings have officially begun. The Rural Blog has a preview of food-program controversies here, with a special focus on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. This Politico article also highlights concerns over SNAP in this year’s negotiations. For more on recent trends in SNAP, there is new data in this study in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics by Pourya Valizadeh, Bart L. Fischer, and Henry L. Bryant (all of Agricultural Economics, and the Agricultural and Food Policy Center, Texas A&M).
Events & Recordings
The Rural News Network is hosting internships at nonprofit newsrooms throughout the United States via a program supported by the Scripps Howard Fund. More details here.
The National Farm Medicine Center and Ohio State University are seeking farmers and ranchers for a study examining how families balance child-raising and farm work. The results of the survey will be shared with farmers, farm organizations, agencies, and policy makers. This survey has many purposes, but in a Farm Bill year, it may be especially significant to policymakers as they debate whether affordable childcare in rural areas should be prioritized. Families can respond to the survey here.