In Empty Fields, Empty Promises: A State-by-State Guide to Understanding and Transforming the Right to Farm, Loka Ashwood (University of Kentucky, Sociology), Aimee Imlay (Mississippi State University, Sociology), Lindsay Kuehn (Farmers Legal Action Group), Allen Franco (Federal Public Defender), and Danielle Diamond (Harvard, Animal Law and Policy) use a mixed method approach to analysis and compare state right-to-farm (RTF) laws in practice.   

Event video of discussion among the Rural Reconciliation Project and friends about rural futures, inspired by an upcoming premier of the Angels Theatre Company’s new play, Eminent Domain.

In Regulating Location Incentives, Brian Highsmith (Harvard Law) develops a historical, economic, and institutional case for using the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act to study the market consequences of inefficient incentive megadeals.

The Rural Reconciliation Project was honored to host Dr. Nicholas Jacobs—professor, researcher, and resident of rural Maine—to discuss his new book on the political attitudes of rural communities. The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America, co-authored with Dr. Daniel Shea, examines both historical and modern factors that have influenced and shaped the ‘rural voter’ and is the end result of the largest-ever survey targeted at understanding rural political beliefs.

The electricity industry in the United States is undergoing a period of massive and turbulent transition. One recurring question is whether public regulation or public ownership can best serve public interest goals. Nearly every state has an agency with intensive regulatory powers to direct or influence the activities of electric utilities. However, even with state regulatory oversight, private utilities have faced persistent criticism, and public ownership of utilities is often touted as a potentially desirable alternative. In this debate about public ownership versus public control, Nebraska offers an interesting and underexamined case-study.

In Do Rural Places Matter?, Stephen Clowney (University of Arkansas Law School) explores various arguments in support of continued investment in rural places. Clowney questions the strength of these arguments but ultimately endorses renewed investment in rural spaces by proposing a new approach to addressing the challenges facing rural communities.

In Economic sanctions and agricultural trade, authors Mario Larch (Department of Law, Business Administration, and Economics, University of Bayreuth, Germany), Jeff Luckstead (School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University), and Yoto V. Yotov (School of Economics, Drexel University) discuss the impact of economic sanctions, particularly for farmers and agricultural trade.

In The Spatial and Scalar Politics of a Just Energy Transition in Illinois, Shannon Anderson and McKenzie Johnson (both Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) evaluate the political climate and decision-making processes surrounding Illinois’s 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), which established clean energy mandates with an emphasis on social equity.