Roundup: October 20, 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
Researchers Kathryn McConnell (Population Studies and Training Center, Brown University), J. Tom Mueller (Population Health, University of Kansas Medical Center), Alexis A. Merdjanoff (Global Public Health, New York University), Paul Berne Burow (Earth System Science, Stanford University), and Justin Farrell (Environment, Yale University) published Informal Modes of Social Support among Residents of the Rural American West during the COVID‐19 Pandemic in Rural Sociology. The study compares estimates of informal social support (including practices such as sharing financial assistance within social networks, moving into a friend or family member’s home, or seeking resources through non-governmental organizations) to formal government program use in the rural US West, identifying the critical role of person-to-person assistance among rural households during times of disruption.
The Brookings Institution published a research report analyzing the degree to which rural communities were meaningfully included in recent place-based economic development programs funded under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). In particular, the report commends tools used by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration to value and support rural expertise and leadership in its funding decisions under the billion-dollar Build Back Better Regional Challenge grant program, but also offers recommendations for future improvement.
The American Journal of Agricultural Economics published Land Use Impacts of the Conservation Reserve Program: An Analysis of Rejected Offers by Andrew B. Rosenberg and Bryan Pratt (both USDA) assessing the impacts of the largest agricultural land retirement program in the United States. By observing land use decisions for parcels using information provided by 2016 General Signup (a competitive auction) the authors estimate land use impacts based on the program’s selection and ranking mechanism to determine the resulting degree of reduction to water- and wind-driven erosion.
Rebecca Hall and Brandon Pryce (both Global Development Studies, Queen’s University, Ontario) published Colonial Continuities in Closure: Indigenous Mine Labour and the Canadian State in Antipode. The article explores how while the presumed benefits of employment are often touted in state rationales for resource extraction endeavors, the same consideration for workers is missing in discussions of mine closures. The authors focus on the effect of a forthcoming closure of a diamond mine in the Canadian Northwest Territories on the Indigenous Dene community to argue that the lack of coherence when representing the labor implications of mine closure further expresses settler-colonial social tensions.
In Critical Consciousness of Systemic Racism in Parks among Park Agency Directors and Policymakers: An Environmental Justice Tool for Recreation and Conservation Leaders, published in Society & Natural Resources, Sammie L. Powers (Sport, Recreation, and Tourism Management, George Mason University), Nicolas A. Pitas (Recreation, Sport, and Tourism, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and Andrew J. Mowen (Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management, Pennsylvania State University) consider how systemic racism has created environmental injustices. The researchers conducted a survey of park leaders to assess critical consciousness of systemic racism in local parks in Pennsylvania across the urban/rural spectrum.
A team of Australian-based researchers examined the role of farm advisors in facilitating interactions between scientists and farmers when faced with conflicting recommendations for implementing agricultural innovations to improve local sustainable soil management practices. Vaughan Higgins (Social Sciences, University of Tasmania), Melanie Bryant, Catherine Allan, Geoff Cockfield, Peat Leith, and Penny Cooke (all Cooperative Research Centre for High Performance Soils, Callaghan, New South Wales) published their findings in Frame Alignment Processes for Locally Useful Agricultural Soil Research and Extension: The Role of Farm Advisors in Sociologia Ruralis.
News & Commentary
An opinion piece in the Daily Yonder pondered the validity of perceptions of the political and social divide between rural and urban Americans and suggests that flagship universities, drawing together wide swaths of a region’s population, might serve as a place to address fissures perceived as unbreachable.
The 2023 Nebraska Rural Poll, conducted by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Department of Agricultural Economics, found that rural Nebraskans are increasingly pessimistic about their current and future well-being despite the waning disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. More of the poll’s findings are summarized here.
New Hampshire’s Valley News published an article reflecting on how farm auctions affect not just the individual landowners, but the entire community. The article traces how a 25-year span of farm auctions, beginning in the 1950s, reshaped the upper Connecticut River valley.
An article in Grist explores an agriculture practice called silvopasture, a preindustrial farming method which involves intentionally incorporating trees on the same land used by grazing livestock. Silvopastures protect the soil from wind and water and provide shade, while manure from grazing livestock adds nutrient-rich organic matter to the land.
An article in Politico considered how while farmers have bought into President Biden’s push to green agriculture through a $3 billion initiative that pays farmers to test out green practices rather than forcing them to pay for excessive carbon emissions, researchers have yet to see the results of these efforts.
Louisville Public Media covered recent, but belated, proposals to crack down on toxic silica dust found in coal mines. Critics worry the proposed regulations do not do enough to protect future workers from the tragic circumstances miners currently face.
Arkansas Money & Politics published an article highlighting the recent work of the Rural Community Alliance which has developed partnerships that allow training in IT and cybersecurity, providing remote job opportunities for rural residents.
Events & Recordings
Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition will host its Annual Meeting at the Stanford Sierra Conference Center at Fallen Leaf Lake in South Lake Tahoe, California from November 1-3, 2023. Sessions will explore the emerging vision for rural western communities rooted in a stewardship economy shaped by the need, and responsibility, to manage for the sustainability of both land and communities. Register by October 15, 2023, here.
Landscapes, a podcast by Adam Calo, a professor of Environmental Governance and Politics at the Radboud University in the Netherlands, explores areas in which social and environmental problems are considered through concerns of land, landscapes, and local governance. Recent episodes have covered France’s efforts to design policies that value public use of land over that of land owners and a discussion of property through the lens of legal geography.
CornellLab’s Migration Celebration 2023 offers fun ways to engage with bird migration season including webinars with trivia, Q&As hosted by ornithologists, and recommendations for how we can better protect birds during their often precarious migrations. In other animal-based news, The Washington Post posted a video of a 2,200-pound steer named Howdy Doody cruising through Nebraska with his owner in a specially modified vehicle.
A recent episode of the podcast, Repast, hosted by the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at UCLA Law, features a conversation about the stakes of trade policy and politics and the implications for food law and policy with Professor Ernesto Hernández-López from the Chapman University Fowler School of Law.
