U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today unveiled a new webpage featuring information about the importance of rural e-Connectivity and the ways the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing to help deploy high-speed broadband infrastructure in rural America. “Rural high-speed broadband e-Connectivity is as important for economic development as rail, roads, bridges and airports – and as vital as the buildouts of rural telephone networks were decades ago,” Perdue said. [node:read-more:link]

The ongoing battle over immigration could hit wine lovers in the wallet as many California vineyards are struggling to find seasonal workers to assist with harvesting the 2018 crop. Wine makers face a perfect storm of problems regarding the issue: The ongoing battle about U.S. immigration policies and competition from other higher-paying, local industries, such as construction, which are helping the area recover from last year’s wildfires. [node:read-more:link]

The findings, detailed in a study that he led, show that trees had yet to return to some of the driest edges of burn zones, which were dominated by shrubs and grasses. In other areas, trees did take root, but there were fewer of them than in moister, cooler times.On the east side, in forests dominated by thick-barked ponderosa pine, low-intensity fires in centuries past often came every five to 30 years, clearing out brush and small trees. [node:read-more:link]

“Trade, not aid.” That’s what farmers, ranchers and their elected officials keep telling the Trump administration they want. They have worked hard over the years to grow their export opportunities, forging critical relationships in China, Mexico, the European Union, Canada and other markets. [node:read-more:link]

All the talk around the farm bill is about the differences in proposals for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — a conversation we need to have. But, there is little talk about why so many families in rural America, including farm families, need food stamps in the first place. We have a bona fide farm crisis on our hands. According to the USDA, farm income has dropped for a fifth straight year, often below costs, and will be the lowest in 12 years. [node:read-more:link]

In face of the recent dairy price crisis, the focus has been on making the U.S. dairy support system more robust, with no real energy on the supply control side. Since dairy is increasingly a global market, it is hard to see a policy solution to this crisis. If low prices continue, that will reduce farmers' incentives to adopt new technologies, and over time demand might finally catch up with supply, but it could be a long hard slog to get there. [node:read-more:link]

Overall, the articles summarized here show that local food producers spend proportionately more on labor, other variable expenses (including hand tools, supplies, and farm shop power equipment; other unrecorded expenses; and vehicle registration fees) and utilities than do commodity producers; moreover, as scale of production increases, labor’s share of variable costs also increases. An implication of these findings is that local food production may create jobs as well as stimulate proportionately larger spillover impacts on the local economy than nonlocal production. [node:read-more:link]

One trend worth noting for local foods is that growth in some subsectors appears to be maturing, particularly in direct-to-consumer outlets. Despite a 5.5% increase in the number of farms utilizing direct-to-consumer marketing outlets between 2007 and 2012 observed in the Census of Agriculture, there was no change in overall sales as intermediated markets became a more significant channel for those marketing local (Low et al., 2015). [node:read-more:link]

Repayment rates for farm loans have declined every quarter since the second quarter of 2013, suggesting heightened stress in agricultural lending. If repayment rates continue to decline—and the outlook for the agricultural sector remains downbeat—agricultural banks could become less able to lend to creditworthy farm borrowers. Thus, declining repayment rates could lead to adverse outcomes for agricultural banks, farmers, and the rural economies they serve. [node:read-more:link]

Ever wonder why flat earthers, birthers, climate change and Holocaust deniers stick to their beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? New findings suggest that feedback, rather than hard evidence, boosts people's sense of certainty when learning new things or trying to tell right from wrong.Developmental psychologists have found that people's beliefs are more likely to be reinforced by the positive or negative reactions they receive in response to an opinion, task or interaction, than by logic, reasoning and scientific data. [node:read-more:link]