Roundup: March 9, 2021
Hannah Haksgaard (South Dakota Law) has posted Court-Appointment Compensation and Rural Access to Justice. This article critiques low hourly rates for court-appointed lawyers as an access to justice problem and analyzes how these problems are heighted in rural communities.
Jayson Beckman (ERS-USDA) and Amanda M. Countryman (Colorado State) have published The Importance of Agriculture in the Economy: Impacts from COVID‐19 in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. This article finds that, despite significant impacts to agricultural and food products during COVID, overall “agricultural production/trade markets have been very resilient during the pandemic.”
Hanna Love (Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings) and Tracy Hadden Loh (Center for Transformative Placemaking at the Brookings Institution) have posted a revealing piece in The Avenue, a Brookings policy blog, entitled The ‘rural-urban divide’ furthers myths about race and poverty—concealing effective policy solutions. (Thanks for sharing, Annie Eisenberg.)
Recordings from the “Big Ag & Antitrust: Competition Policy for a Sustainable and Humane Food System” conference hosted on January 16, 2021, by the Law, Ethics & Animals Program (LEAP) at Yale Law School and the Thurman Arnold Project at Yale School of Management co-hosted are now online.
Here is an interesting CNN report on rural pharmacy deserts, particularly important given current COVID vaccine distribution plans.
There is also a new report from Civic Nebraska on the work of two undergraduate interns in mapping rural civic assets. This is part of a new (and growing) Rural Civic Health Initiative.
The Spanish Association Against Depopulation (a nonprofit focused on rural depopulation and small-town loss in Spain) is launching a new school for female shepards. The project aims to respond to a Spanish trend of women “abandoning rural areas in greater numbers than men,” leading to villages “being masculinised.” (Where do I sign up?!)
The Resnick Center podcast, Repast, has a new interview of former Senator Tom Harkin.
Upcoming Events
The National Willa Cather Center is hosting a special full-day of programming on March 19 connecting the literature and life of Willa Cather with the beautiful Great Plains migration of the sandhill cranes. Friend of the project Larkin Powell promises a chance to hear him speak about sacred spaces and some special birds.