Rural

Health research has focused on younger, urban immigrants, leaving big gaps in knowledge about older, foreign-born residents who live in rural areas. [node:read-more:link]

What to make of the nearly back-to-back raids at meat plants in Tennessee and Ohio by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)? Let's set aside, for a moment, the discussion of the role of undocumented workers in an industry desperate for warm bodies to keep up with demand. They are here illegally, the law says they go back home. These raids set off a firestorm of debate over immigration and employment within the industry. From the perspective of those outside the industry — which is almost everybody — all meat processors look shady. [node:read-more:link]

At a basic level, our rural communities — just like cities and suburbs — need job opportunities that retain residents and attract new ones, quality schools, up-to-date infrastructure, accessible and affordable health care, broadband internet, financial institutions that are close by, and affordable housing. How we achieve these goals will require new approaches. We need to level the playing field to help smaller communities compete with larger cities. [node:read-more:link]

In rural Oregon, a lack of new and good quality housing hampers economic development in communities that are desperate for investment.   The lack of new housing means rural communities miss out on valuable property taxes that could be used to provide many of the amenities enjoyed by urban residents.   In the small eastern Oregon city of John Day, government officials have a plan to reverse this trend by offering generous financial incentives for new home construction and remodels. John Day, pop. 1,674, currently has 170 acres of underdeveloped land that has almost no tax value. [node:read-more:link]

Ag suicides are the greatest unreported tragedy of its kind in America and around the world. If veteran suicide in America is epidemic, ag suicide is pandemic. Here's the hard data: Suicides among a group labeled Farming/Fishing/Forestry totaled 84.5 per hundred thousand. Far behind in second place was Construction/Extraction at 53.3 per hundred thousand. A few weeks ago, Washington state legislators unanimously passed House Bill 2671 which establishes a pilot program for free suicide prevention for employees of the agriculture industry. [node:read-more:link]

The House is proposing to cut funding for school safety programs, even as Congress continually increases spending on its own security. Some lawmakers and education advocates question the logic of this amid a nationwide conversation on school security, gun violence and self-harm. [node:read-more:link]

The House overwhelmingly passed legislation Friday that would give several federal agencies more tools to fight opioid addiction and death in the U.S., and open the door to more treatment and prevention for the public. The SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act passed in an easy 396-14 vote following months of hearings and debate. The legislation helps to direct some of the $4 billion in funding for the crisis that Congress approved as part of a long-term spending deal this year. [node:read-more:link]

For a fourth straight month the overall index rose above growth neutral. On average, bankers expect farm loan defaultsto rise by only 3.0 percent over the next 12 months. • Over the past year, average annual cash rents on farmland declined by 3.0 percent to $239 per acre. More than one-third of bank CEOs identified rising regulatory costs as the top economic challenge to their banking operations over the next five years. [node:read-more:link]

Senate and House Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee on Wednesday released a report, "Investing in Rural America," on the needs of rural America and promised to push congress to invest more in rural areas.In a call to reporters, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., the ranking Democrat on the committee, said, "Many rural communities are still recovering from the Great Recession, more than 10 years after it hit us. Millions of rural residents lack reliable access to broadband. The rural population is aging and shrinking, and wages have been stuck for too long. [node:read-more:link]

As an Australian, I’ve have been resisting the temptation these past few months to react to the Trump Administration’s big infrastructure plans with “The U.S. could learn a lot from my country.” The international comparison gambit rarely works well in America, and I don’t want to appear too parochial. But I have learned a lot from the Australian example, and I think now is the time to share, as the Trump Administration pursues a plan of federal infrastructure investment intended to stimulate state, local and private investments. [node:read-more:link]