The New Natural Resource Economy and Rural Economic Development

By Susan Lurie (Oregon State University) and Michael Hibbard (University of Oregon)

 

 

Photo: Susan Lurie – 2012

 

A couple of years ago, while our research team was working on a project in Grant County in deep rural east-central Oregon (read our report or journal article), we had the opportunity to sit in on an “economic summit” for the county. The local extension agent pointed out that the two industries that formed the historic economic base of the county—timber and cattle—were both in long-term, permanent decline.

As a consequence, Grant County—like many resource dependent rural communities—is struggling with loss of jobs and local businesses and wealth, and generally declining community vitality. The problems are mainly due to forces beyond their control, such as globalization and economic restructuring, the dominance of the industrialized commodity production model, and changing societal demands for agricultural and natural resource products.

As we listened to the audience discussion of the presentation, we were struck by something. Everyone present had an abiding commitment to Grant County and was deeply worried about the future of the community. They also had a strong love for rural and small town life, especially as it related to making a living off the land.

A significant segment of the audience saw the only hope for the community in a return to traditional uses of natural resources. That last sentiment was not new to us, of course. What was new to the discussion was the significant fraction of the audience who were interested in considering alternative possibilities for natural resource management. They saw that there may be ways to make a living from natural resources based on emerging markets for products that reflect increasing societal expectations that natural capital should be managed and utilized in a more sustainable manner.

Photo: Country Natural Beef  

As researchers, we decided to look more closely into what this “new” natural resource economy (NNRE) comprises as a complement to traditional uses. We wondered whether it might help create a way for rural communities to think about economic development in response to contemporary economic and social realities.

Problems of Natural Resource-based Economies

The industrialized approach to agriculture and natural resource management—which includes specialization, standardization, and consolidation in pursuit of increased efficiency—has disconnected rural communities from the larger economy. At the same time, societal demands for protection and enhancement of rural communities’ key assets (their natural resources) has led to more stringent regulations affecting production.

Some rural communities with high amenity values have developed alternative economies as sites for tourism and retirement. For most communities, however, the decoupling from the larger economy has been an intractable socio-economic problem, and rural communities continue to lag behind urban areas.

How the New Natural Resource Economy (NNRE) is Different

The NNRE may offer a way out of the dilemma by reframing natural resources as assets to be managed for the long term. It emphasizes a multifunctional landscape that balances agricultural and natural resource production with amenities for recreation and cultural activities and protective natural services such as air and water purification, biodiversity, and flood and erosion control. Activities and businesses comprising the NNRE may not be new; what is new is accounting for them collectively as an emerging economic sector in its own right that can help diversify rural economies and increase local resilience and economic autonomy.

As we probed these ideas it quickly became apparent that the predicament is not limited to the U.S. Most developed countries are facing similar challenges and a variety of policy responses have emerged. To shed light on the U.S. situation, Oregon seemed a good place to start: many rural Oregon communities are struggling with economic change and the rural development grapevine gave us reason to believe there is quite a bit of NNRE activity at work, informally and without any overarching state or local strategy.

Preliminary Research

To get a sense of what types of enterprises currently comprise Oregon’s NNRE and what institutional challenges they face, we conducted a survey and three in-depth case studies of Oregon rural communities. Details of the study and policy issues identified can be found at the Rural Futures Lab website.

In summary, we found that some communities are engaged in NNRE economic development, although it is not typically identified as such. It was also clear that there is generally low or no understanding of how to define and develop a local or regional NNRE strategy in order to overcome existing barriers and foster institutional changes to help rural communities.

As research and action moves forward, it will be important to continue identifying institutional barriers that must be changed in order to encourage and nurture rural NNRE entrepreneurialism. We would like to search for answers to questions about the NNRE such as:

• What other challenges are NNRE enterprises encountering, and what steps can be taken to remove those barriers?
• What examples exist in different contexts that would help rural communities looking for innovative ways of building more sustainable futures?

As we continue to refine our understanding of the NNRE, comparative studies and examples of practicable NNRE economic development policies and programs will help create a framework that can be adapted to local circumstances in order to help the NNRE flourish and, with it, rural communities. 

 

 

Susan Lurie is a faculty research associate in the Policy Research Program at the Institute for Natural Resources, Oregon State University.

Michael Hibbard is Professor Emeritus, Department of Planning, Public Policy & Management, and Director, Institute for Policy Research & Innovation, at the University of Oregon.

Visit the RUPRI Rural Futures Lab here.

Resilience in the Face of Disaster

By Brian Dabson, Director, Rural Futures Lab

Tornadoes and violent storms ripped through the Midwest Plains states this weekend, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Once again, national attention turns to how communities such as Woodward, Oklahoma, and Thurman, Iowa, can rebuild and recover.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Biloxi, Mississippi and saw the progress that had been made in recovering from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. Six years on, the rebuilding continues and the stories of the people who survived the disaster in spite of losing their homes and businesses are testaments to the resilience of the communities along the Gulf Coast. Although many people left and have not returned, it is clear that there is a powerful human force at work which drives not only a desire to rebuild but also to create a better place.

In 2007, a tornado leveled Greensburg, Kansas. The city council passed a resolution stating that all city buildings would be built to LEED platinum standards, making it the first city in the nation to do so.

Regional Resilience Issues
Resilience is the term used to describe the process by which communities and regions bounce back after a disaster, and is the subject of a new report from the Rural Futures Lab. Regional Resilience: Research and Policy Brief was prepared for the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) to review the growing literature on the topic, the approaches being adopted by Federal agencies, and the work of public-private partnerships to improve community understanding and preparedness. The report also includes new analyses of economic, social, and infrastructure vulnerability across the nation.

Here are some of the report’s conclusions:

Research and experience over the past 20 years show a growing understanding of the complexity of anticipating, responding to, and recovering from disasters of all types. It is no longer possible, if it ever was, to focus on a particular type of disaster in isolation, such as terrorism or flooding, because communities increasingly are faced with multiple, and sometimes cascading hazards. This realization demands what is commonly termed an all-hazards approach. Although each hazard presents particular challenges, the processes of preparedness and planning are broadly consistent, and there is general consensus on the main components of these processes.

This map shows the number of FEMA Disaster Declarations per county
against the national average. It covers the time period from 1991 - 2011.

Some communities and regions are clearly more vulnerable than others to disasters, although no community is immune from some sort of threat. Settlements on coastlines, in river floodplains and valleys, in or adjacent to forestlands, on seismic faults, or in the regular paths of major storms can be particularly vulnerable. Some of these communities may well have placed themselves in harm’s way as a result of poor or short-sighted development decisions.

But vulnerability is more than a function of geography, it can also be economic. The disaster may be the closing of a plant or the collapse of a whole industry as a result of changing market conditions or the introduction of new technologies; or it may be a consequence of a natural disaster that has disrupted or even destroyed local businesses. Sustaining businesses and economies has been shown to be a critical part of regional and community recovery but often not give the priority deserved.

Vulnerability can also be social, as the events following Hurricane Katrina very publicly demonstrated. Differential impacts on segments of the population based on race, income, mobility, language capability, and other factors are not only unfair and unjust, but undermine recovery efforts.

National Policy
The federal policy response to disasters has been transformed over the past decade. Driven after 9/11 by heightened concerns over terrorism, it has evolved into an all-hazards approach following Hurricane Katrina and a succession of other major disasters both at home and abroad.

The development of the National Response and National Disaster Recovery Frameworks have brought to the forefront the need for seamless coordination of federal, state, and local efforts to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. Elaborate processes and structures have been introduced to pursue planning, coordination, training and exercises, and certification across the country.

Interestingly, this concerted federal effort has generated at least two very important initiatives that have engaged collaborations across the private, public, academic, and nonprofit sectors.

• One is primarily focused on the security of critical infrastructure. It is called the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), and was published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2009. 
• The other initiative focuses on building the capacity of local communities and regions to drive preparedness, response, and recovery efforts in line with their own vision for their future. It is called the Community & Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI).

Disasters pay no attention to jurisdictional boundaries or to whether a place is designated urban or rural, metro or nonmetro. But in rural areas, many counties and localities do not have the personnel or technical or fiscal capacity to engage in planning and preparation. Many of these communities may be vulnerable. The national network of regional development organizations represents an infrastructure that can address this capacity and vulnerability challenge.

All regions and communities need to plan and prepare for disasters in ways that are holistic and fully engaging of all sectors of the community. It is fair to say that there is an ingrained suspicion of, if not outright resistance to, the idea of planning across much of America. But as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, oil spills, wildfires, floods, and other natural and human-made disaster continue to assail our communities, there may be a window of opportunity to recast old and worn-out planning efforts and to help communities and regions see a better future for themselves, with or without a disaster. Moreover, in times of fiscal stringency, where the public sector is less able to function as the principal protector and responder, engaging the resources and talents from all parts of communities and regions may be the best way to proceed.

Visit the Rural Futures Lab here.

A Way Home: Creating Pathways with Community Internships

By Darryl Birkenfeld, Director, Ogallala Commons

We are all on a journey that leads to destinations that we cannot foresee. Navigating the twists and turns of the roads that a person travels to arrive at a home requires mentoring and experience. Community Internships can be an effective tool to meet such requirements, enabling towns and neighborhoods to be proactive in connecting their assets and challenges with new generations of seekers.

In 2002, after 30 years away, I moved back to the Texas village where I grew up. While I was fulfilling my dream of living “back where I came from,” I returned to my hometown without a job in hand.

Thanks to contacts and mentors that I met in my former career, I found my way into nonprofit work, as Director of Ogallala Commons. I am amazed at how my current occupation fits my skills and passions, even though I could not see it on the horizon in earlier years.

At Ogallala Commons, our broad mission is to reinvigorate communities overlying the High Plains-Ogallala Aquifer as well as the vast Great Plains region. That work has led us to creating our Community Internship program. Our hope is that the connections the young interns create now may help them find a meaningful place in their home communities or region in the future.

The High Plains-Ogallala Aquifer reaches across parts of eight

Great Plains states and comprises the work area of Ogallala Commons.

 

Even the idea for our Community Internships started with the creativity and energy of a young person from our region. In 2007, a high school graduate from western Kansas community asked to do an internship with Ogallala Commons. We didn’t have an internship program at the time, but the experience of creating one opened a new door for our organization.

As we worked with those first interns, we recognized that most students seek an internship in their college years. An epiphany occurred. Instead of sending youth away to do internships, why not build a program where students and adults could intern in their hometowns or neighborhoods, applying their passion and skills to projects that could benefit communities?

As of 2012, Ogallala Commons has created more than 100 Community Internships in 38 communities and six states (Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma). We have partnered with towns, institutions, and businesses. Currently, we are working on launching 40 new Community Internships.

After six years, we can see that our internships have played a large role in helping people find pathways to their new home. Let’s refer back to the young intern from western Kansas. She went on to complete two more Community Internships, plus an internship with her Congressman during her senior year in college. In 2011, she took a job as Economic Development Director for Wichita County, Kansas. While not exactly back in her hometown, she is just two counties away, already making a huge contribution to western Kansas.

Ogallala Commons counts 13 other Community Interns who are either back in their hometowns, or a community that they choose to live in. An internship wasn’t the only reason for their choices, but it did create a vital pathway that might not have otherwise existed.

With the age and education levels of interns ranging from sophomores in high school to college and all the way to graduate students or adults looking to build skills, a flexible program is essential. Community Internships range from 200 to 240 hours, and can be structured over a period lasting four to 10 weeks. Some of our internships are also carried out over a semester, or during a six-month period.

Though all our interns follow a common structure, each internship is uniquely tailored to what the partners, interns, and their communities need. As a result, candidates with diverse socio-economic and educational backgrounds have gained experiences in:

• community development and leadership,
• entrepreneurship,
• historical preservation,
• nonprofit outreach,
• agricultural careers,
• health care,
• renewable energy,
• social networking, and
• rebuilding local food systems.

Not every Community Internship has been a success. Some falter or are not fully completed due to limitations that arise with regard to three essential components of a Community Internship: a capable supervisor, an adequate set of projects, and a qualified intern.

Ogallala Commons Community Interns at their 2011 Orientation

Ultimately, the success of our program depends on how our partners answer these questions:

• What does my community or neighborhood need that an intern could readily address with their skills and desire to learn?
• Would I or an organization I represent be willing to invest financially and/or provide supervision for an internship?
• Is there a young person or adult that I can identify and that I would personally invite to consider applying for a community internship?

About the program

Visit our Community Interns page to learn more about our Community Internship Program, or to read blogs and see photos of what interns have accomplished in past years. Building such a large program takes significant financial resources. Ogallala Commons has been fortunate to receive annual funding from CHS Foundation, the major giving entity of CHS, an energy, grains and foods company with a stewardship focus of building vibrant communities. In addition to program support, CHS Foundation also provides match funding to leverage investments made by partners.

About the author

Darryl Birkenfeld completed a Ph.D. in social ethics from The Graduate Theological Union and the University of California in Berkeley. As Director of Ogallala Commons, he has worked extensively in youth engagement and entrepreneurship, rebuilding local and regional food systems, public education conferences, water education, and creating a Community Internship program. Darryl resides in Nazareth, TX, and has been married to Joann Starr since 2003. Together they built a home, Casa La Entereza, using many green construction techniques, such as solar electricity generation, energy efficient construction materials, rainwater collection, and xeric landscaping. You can contact him at: darrylb@amaonline.com.

 

Photos and images provided by the author.

 

 

Visit the Rural Futures Lab homepage here.

Youth Renewing the Countryside

By Jan Joannides, Executive Director, Renewing the Countryside

Young people are vital to maintaining vibrant, rural areas.
We need them for their ideas, their energy, and their ability to see things differently. We need them to steward our land and our history. We need them to grow food, harvest energy, and manage our forests. We need them to help create a new, more sustainable, more just economy.

These young leaders are contributing to their home places
by participating in New York's Sustainable Energy Development (SED).
(photo by Kevin Schulte)

Combine the lack of ready-made jobs in rural areas with young people’s zest to explore the world, and it is not surprising that many of our youth head off to urban centers for education, employment, adventure, and excitement. It is not their departure that is of concern, but the fact that most do not return.

While rural communities lament the loss of their young, I believe that they often are partly responsible. They frequently foster a climate that deters young people from joining their community. Sometimes it’s a patronizing attitude towards those who return; other times it’s a closed mind to new ideas or new leaders. On the farm, it can be the many barriers to land ownership for young farmers.

Supporting New & Young Farmers in the Countryside

Many farmland owners in the United States are well into retirement age, and there is going to be a big shift in what the next generation of farmers looks like. In Iowa, for example, nearly 30% of farmland is owned by people over the age of 70. To those of us at Renewing the Countryside, this looks like an opportunity for a new generation of young farmers to step up into the tractor seat and start farming. And we better get moving!

A few things must happen along the way to make this shift:

1. Aspiring farmers need a foundation in, well... farming. Not just production techniques, nor horticulture or even animal sciences per se, but also education in conservation ethics, sustainability, and humanity.
2. Existing farmers and farmland owners need to recognize that their entering into farming was aided by others, often through inheritance. They have worked hard and deserve to realize a profit from their investment, but they should also bear in mind that they could aid a beginning farmer in much the same way their parents did for them years ago--even if that new farmer isn’t one of their own family.
3. Consumers must demand food that is higher quality. The U.S. is wealthy by almost any standard, but our diet is dismal. We deserve better food.

Over the past decade, there has been a new surge in interest in farming and much of it isn’t coming from farm country. This growth is largely in the small and diversified farming sector. The majority of these new small farms contributing to the local & regional food movement are in or near urban centers. At the same time, growth is also taking place in industrial scale monoculture and confinement protein operations. Today it only requires one farmer per 740 acres compared, to a century ago when the ratio was closer to one farmer per 30 acres. 
 
“Renewing the Countryside” in Action
 
Renewing the Countryside has been working with the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) to help bring out aspiring young farmers through our joint effort: Young Organic Stewards (YOS). YOS not only provides education on the practice and business of farming but also provides a path for young farmers to band together and support each other through social media and in-person events.
 
 

 
Renewing the Countryside is also partnering with the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota in an effort to encourage existing farmers to plan for their eventual farm transition to the next generation. We are at the beginning of a three-tiered project to prepare farmers to transition off their land, identify good emerging farmers to co-farm with a goal of farm ownership, and developing a new model for bringing new farmers online with access to land and micro financing.
 
Beyond the Farm
 
But it won’t just be these new farmers alone who move back and give new life to rural communities - it will be artists, teachers, shop keepers, and engaged community members from every corner of our culture. The good news is that not all smart, hardworking young people land in Seattle, Atlanta, or other urban hubs. A growing number are embracing life in rural communities and small towns. 

Many young people take advantage of rural "amenities"
like backcountry trails and adventures.
(photo by Leslie Ross)

We set out to find them and we were inspired—not only by how many we found, but by their ambition and dedication. Renewing the Countryside has been telling the stories of the countryside for over a decade. In that tradition, we recently published a book with Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (SARE) titled “Youth: Renewing the Countryside”.
 

 
Many of the inspiring stories are about young farmers, like small grain farmers in Montana and value-added dairy products sold from an on-farm shop. Many more of the stories are about the young people in rural places building on their history and culture. Others are creating uniquely, 21st century opportunities like renewable energy businesses or Internet-based companies. Some are fighting for environmental or social justice. Many have found a foothold in building a stronger, healthier food system.
 
Yet a small town with a gas station, church, and a couple of bars are not enough to attract youth back to the countryside. Young people want to feel welcome and supported by their communities. And once they get there, they want communities with things to do and a family atmosphere.
 
To address these issues, Renewing the Countryside has been working in Southeastern Minnesota on just this issue. Efforts include helping small towns recognize and foster their interdependence and not their provincialism. Communities need to work toward a vibrant, warm and inviting place as a way to encourage growth in both business investment and population.
 
 
What are your communities doing to attract and support younger people? Who are the young entrepreneurs in your communities? How are they doing? Why are they there? What do they add?
 

Photos provided by Renewing the Countryside.
 
About the Author:
 
Jan Joannides is the Executive Director and co-founder of Renewing the Countryside. For the past ten years, she has been an advocate and organizer for rural communities and citizens who are working to stimulate economic growth and enhance their communities through sustainable uses of their landscapes and resources. Prior to her work with Renewing the Countryside, Jan coordinated the Community Assistantship Program at the University of Minnesota and helped found and directed the Center for Integrated Natural Resources and Agricultural Management.
 
Visit the Rural Futures Lab website here.

Rural Design: A New Design Discipline

By: Dewey Thorbeck, Director, University of Minnesota Center for Rural Design

Rural design and urban design both embrace "quality of life" as a primary goal. Rural design is, however, fundamentally different: It incorporates the unique characteristics of open landscapes and ecosystems. Buildings and towns are components of the larger landscape, rather than shaping community infrastructure and public space.

Rural regions in America and around the world are experiencing considerable stress in responding to global issues, changing demographics, changing agricultural practices, population growth, and urban expansion. However, the design schools and professions have generally ignored rural issues by concentrating on urban issues because that is where most people live. And, when involved in a rural issue, they generally bring an urban perspective to the endeavor.

To rectify this omission I founded the University of Minnesota Center for Rural Design in 1997 as a program jointly sponsored by the College of Design and the College of Foods, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences.

Design is a powerful tool for integrating knowledge and making connections across disciplines, and rural design brings the problem-solving process of design to rural issues. If urban design is one side of a coin then rural design is the other.

Community Design & Engagement

It is essential that urban and rural issues be considered together without concern for boundaries. The well understood notion of community design as a methodology for community engagement may be an effective vehicle to bridge the gap between urban and rural issues.

Community design is often considered as design involvement with a single urban community. However, the “community” can have many different definitions in rural regions, ranging from an agricultural production group in one region to a cluster of small towns working together for economic advantage in another. Rural design can use community design to resolve a rural (or regional) problem by seeking to connect the dots, cross borders, and create synergy.

An Example of Rural Design in Action

The City of Roseau, Minnesota, is located near the Canadian border on the large, flat geographical area formed by glacial Lake Agassiz 11,000 years ago. On June 8, 2002, fourteen inches of rain fell on the surrounding area. The flood damage to the city was enormous, with significant damage to 150 commercial buildings and over 50 homes destroyed.

Roseau, MN, during the flood of 2002.



The leadership in the city wanted to engage citizens in the reconstruction process. They called on the Center for Rural Design to help develop a community-based vision for the future. The vision plan was the result of a broad-based steering committee consisting of community leaders representing the city, county and township working closely with the Center for Rural Design. The power of community-based planning and citizen participation in identifying values and making choices as stakeholders in the planning process proved to be very successful.

Eight years after the flood, Todd Peterson, the Community Development Director, described what happened:

The City of Roseau could not have achieved success in reconstructing the community without having public buy-in of the vision plan prepared by the Center for Rural Design. The City did 100 years of building in 6 years because the plan had strong public support.

Symbolic of the reconstruction is the new Roseau City Center building
constructed on top of new levees adjacent to the river.
It replaced the destroyed city hall, county museum, and library,
along with a new ice arena.

An Emerging Design Field 

My book, Rural Design: A New Design Discipline, recently published by Routledge, is the first ever book on rural design as an emerging new design field. The book establishes the theoretical base for rural design and outlines ways that rural communities can work together to resolve issues and shape their future. The impact of rural design, however, is yet to be determined.

As defined in the book, the guiding ethic of rural design is not imposing a vision or solution on a community, but rather to:

• Provide the tools, information, and support that rural communities need to address their problem;
• Help rural citizens manage change caused by economic, cultural, or environmental reasons;
• Assist in connecting the dots to create synergy for environmental wellbeing, rural prosperity, and quality of life;
• Clearly envision and help citizens achieve the quality of rural future for their community that they deserve.

Rural design, as a new design discipline, can help rural communities manage change through the lens of spatial arrangement. In the process, it provides a link between science and society to improve rural quality of life.

The principles of rural design, as evolved by the Center for Rural Design and outlined in the book, can help in understanding, analyzing, and creating solutions for sustainable rural environments worldwide. These rural design principles include:

• Social, cultural, artistic, and environmental diversity is rewarding for all people who live, work, and play in rural communities and their quality of life. The arts can become a vehicle for learning, social interaction, entertainment and inspiration and an integral aspect of economic development.
• Empowering women to become community leaders is more likely to provide effective resolution of the complexity of rural issues.
• Making connections between human, animal, and environmental health is crucial to understanding wellness. Keeping people, animals, and environments healthy is economically preferable to taking care of them when they are sick.
• Sustainable rural development is directly connected to sustainable rural production. It is finding and enhancing the connections between them that will best impact social, economic and environmental issues.
• Design of sustainable buildings and landscapes must reflect uniqueness of cultural and landscape character—form follows function, climate, and place.
• Food, including its supply, production, distribution, and security, is an interdisciplinary rural design problem. Rural food systems can be mapped and their interactions studied to develop strategic plans and farming practices that are unique to place, helping to ensure safe and adequate food supplies in the future.
• Economic and community viability is crucial for short-term as well as long-term rural design endeavors; however, long-term objectives must take precedence over short-term gain.
• Renewable energy from solar, wind and biomass can be considered as an integral aspect of rural agriculture by “harvesting” the sun and wind. This includes using agriculture for carbon sequestration and reduction of greenhouse gases.
• Improving rural quality of life is the primary goal of rural design.

The world is changing very rapidly, with most people living in cities that are expanding and adapting to global impacts. Likewise, rural regions are changing, with people who are passionate about rural life and their connections to the land. Managing change is critical to rural futures and the time is right for rural design to emerge as a new design discipline.

Do you see ways that rural design principles can be applied in your home community? Do you use arts to promote community participation in planning and visioning for the future?

Dewey Thorbeck founded the University of Minnesota Center for Rural Design. He has a new book out, which you can find here, if you want to learn more about rural design and its applications.

Visit the Rural Futures Lab home website here.

Photos and images provided by the author.

Mission-Focused Health Care for Rural America

By Brian Dabson, Director, Rural Futures Lab

A few days ago, I was fascinated by a news feature on my local public radio station about a novel way of recruiting doctors and other medical staff to rural Ashland, Kansas (population 855). There the health center director, Benjamin Anderson, realizing that the normal recruiting incentives were not going to work for this small, remote community hit upon the idea of “mission-focused medicine.” Doctors are offered up to eight weeks off each year for missionary work in a developing country – “…a doctor who is willing to sleep on a cot in the Amazon or treat earthquake victims in Haiti is ready to serve in rural Kansas.” The approach has worked and is now being used to attract a nurse and a dentist to the town.

The Ashland, Kansas, medical center (photo: Peggy Lowe/Harvest Public Media)

This story made me think about how the noise and discord around the implementation of the Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare” has pushed to the side serious and informed discussion about how to tackle some of the barriers to an affordable, accessible, high quality health care system. Recruiting doctors is just one symptom of a crisis in rural health care, and it is to be hoped that there are other Benjamin Andersons out there looking for innovative solutions that work for their communities.

Clint MacKinney and Keith Mueller, in a new Rural Futures Lab paper, Pursuing High Performance in Rural Health Care, propose a set of actions that could lead to better and more affordable care and to healthier people and communities. 

• Rural residents should have local access to public health, emergency medical, and primary services, as well as access to regional health systems for hospital and specialty care necessary for a continuum of care. How these are designed and delivered needs to respond to the unique local and regional resources in each rural area.
• Primary care has to be expanded and transformed. Current actions to strengthen rural care through clinic payments, bonuses to overcome professional shortages, and training, need to be supplemented by efforts to redesign medical education, reshape payments to providers, and to restructure primary care as patient-centered models such as Medical Home.
• Health information technologies are essential to achieve seamless transfer of clinical and administrative information among providers, and to ensure transparency in cost and quality information. This is especially true in rural areas to achieve a continuum of care.
• Payments for medical services should reflect the value of those services not just their volume. Financing and delivery systems should reward collaborations, efficiencies, quality, and patient care.
• Community health planning is the foundation for healthy communities. This requires primary care providers and their patients to connect to a wide range of community health resources such as public health agencies, school districts, local employers, Area Agencies on Aging, community colleges, social services, and so on.

To keep up with what is happening, both good and bad, in rural health care and in particular to see if MacKinney and Mueller’s ideas are gaining traction, try the National Rural Health Association’s blog.

What does the public health system look like in your region or home community? Do you know innovators in rural health?

Visit the Rural Futures Lab here.

Reaching Out on Rural & Regional Issues: (An Online) Work in Progress

By Timothy Collins, Assistant Director, Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs, Western Illinois University

The Upper Mississippi Valley Rural Partners LinkedIn Group, which I helped to found in 2010, is an ongoing experiment in social networking and regional cooperation. The group was to be a foundation for a regional information exchange that inspires people to act. Results so far have been mixed.

The online partnership emerged as part of the Partners for Rural America - North Central Convening held in May 2010. The meeting’s broad but fixed agenda was based on USDA priorities, but they did not suit my passion for sustainable land use and my desire to do research on the relationships of Mississippi Valley’s people and ecology.

 

Backwaters of the Upper Mississippi River National Fish and Wildlife Refuge
in northwestern Illinois shimmer on a late spring morning in 2011.

 

It turned out that a small group of like-minded participants was interested in forming some sort of regional partnership focused on the river. Gary Becker, Executive Director at Local Government Institute of Wisconsin, got us started with the LinkedIn site as our meeting was in progress. We had picked low-hanging fruit, with something tangible to report.

 

Everyone knows what it’s like to leave a meeting energized and full of good intentions. We also know that returning to work is a reality check. We have our commitments (often over commitments). We have our habits. Breaking out is so very hard to do.

 

In this case, I decided to make a commitment to do something that takes little time: seed the site with an item or two each month. I won’t deny a bit of self interest. First, it forces me to keep up with my reading. Second, when I write one of my regular essays for the Daily Yonder on watersheds or land use, I have an outlet for letting people know about it.

 

On another level, the LinkedIn site offers exposure to the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs in its policy role of disseminating information. This function is part of my job and meshes nicely with my life’s work of trying to understand and do something positive for rural areas.

 

Screen shot of the Upper Mississippi Valley Rural Partners LinkedIn site.

 

The Upper Mississippi River Rural Partners site experiment raises two sets of questions. One concerns the collaborative goals of the 2010 Partners for Rural America regional meeting. In its jargon, the website promised:

 

As each team works on specific projects, they remain part of the greater whole allowing synergistic regional activities to develop that may cross the topic silos. The [steering committee for the] North Central Region also concentrated on resources already available to build new partnerships and coalitions, helping to achieve immediate and near‐future deliverables. As the projects develop, additional partners and resources will be identified and included.

 

In response to this stated mission, I wrote an essay in the Daily Yonder (sorry for the shameless plug) asking three questions:

• Will the partnerships built at the regional meetings grow and persist?
• Will they be able to create the opportunities to stem the loss of people and jobs in rural areas?
• Ultimately, will federal and state governments be willing to provide targeted resources to the partnerships to make this happen?”

Beyond the existence of our LinkedIn group as an example of persisting partnership, the answer to these might not be too positive. Frankly, I don’t know. A fourth question, the most significant of all, has emerged since 2010: What happened to federal leadership?

 

The other set of questions emerges from the Upper Mississippi River Rural Partners LinkedIn site itself:

• Is the site providing useful information to its members? What types of information do members want?
• Has the site empowered people to act? If so, how?
• What spark will it take for the site to become part of a larger, more active network of people interested in the region and the sustainability of its landscape?

In a small way, the site is something positive. It has more than 90 members from all over the world. Would more contributors be a good thing? Maybe. Then again, maybe the more leisurely approach of an item or two a month might get more attention from members because we are all inundated by the amount of information we deal with each day.

 

Sounds like a topic for a poll when I get around to it.

 

 

Does your rural organization maintain a web presence? Does your experience with social media help or hinder your professional relationships? What can we do as rural advocates to best use social media?

 

 

About the Author

Timothy Collins has been assistant director of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs since 2005. His roles include research, policy, outreach, and sustainability. He has authored more than 125 publications, reports, and essays on rural issues, including environmental policy, development, sustainable land use, and education. Opinions expressed here are his and his alone.

 

Norma Jean, a circus elephant struck by lightning in 1972,
rests under this monument in the Mississippi River town of Oquawka, IL.

All photos provided by the author.

 

 

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