Rural News
Canadian food banks are growing their own food
Huffington Post | Posted on February 16, 2017In a bid to make up for a shortfall of high-quality nutritious food, some Canadian food banks are growing their own produce — and even farming fish. The Mississauga Food Bank recently launched AquaGrow Farms, where tilapia is being raised in tanks and lettuce is raised through hydroponics, or without soil.
Can Immigration Hurt the Economy? An Old Prejudice Returns
The New York Times | Posted on February 16, 2017This time, suspicion is being buttressed by some economists with a proposition not too dissimilar to Laughlin’s: that immigrants could sap America’s vitality by bringing inferior cultural traits from their dysfunctional home countries to erode American social norms. It’s an unsettling assertion. It is laid out with striking candor by Paul Collier, the noted British development economist from Oxford, in his 2013 book “Exodus: How Migration Is Changing Our World” (Oxford University Press). “Migrants bring their culture with them,” he wrote. Countries that receive them run the risk “that the social model will become blended in such a way that damagingly dilutes its functionality.” This idea has gained more currency in Europe — which until the recent influx from North Africa and the Middle East had experienced comparatively little immigration from poorer nations. But it is getting a hearing in the United States, too, giving shape to an argument that immigration, by bringing inferior norms and culture from abroad, may be eroding American productivity. Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, architect of the administration’s turn against immigration, might be drawn to some of this scholarship. The proposition that immigrants hamper productivity in their newfound homes could make a case for far more restrictive immigration controls than the United States has in place today. “Analogous to climate change, we do not know how large an unabsorbed diaspora would need to be before it significantly weakened the mutual regard on which the high-income societies depend,” Professor Collier wrote.
Bill would take away local control of agritourism
Concord Monitor | Posted on February 16, 2017Less than a year after legislators approved a bill defining how municipal bodies should treat agritourism, the New Hampshire Senate is considering another bill that would completely remove local regulation on the issue. During a Senate Public and Municipal Affairs Committee hearing, the bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Bob Giuda, argued that the law passed in 2016 didn’t go far enough to protect the commercial interests of farmers. “We are allowing our local communities ... to define commerce in our state,” he said. “That is not a power we give to our towns and communities.” Giuda said his proposed amendments to the law were necessary in light of several ongoing lawsuits that pit farmers who want to diversify and host weddings to stay in business against their neighbors who want peace and quiet on the weekend. “The law is being used against individuals by other individuals because we have not clearly defined what agritourism is or how it operates,” Giuda told the committee last week.
Trump indicates little change in U.S./Canada trade in NAFTA reset
Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on February 16, 2017Speaking to reporters after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, President Donald Trump yesterday downplayed the extent of changes he will seek in U.S./Canadian trade as he looks to re-negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). "We'll be tweaking it, we'll be doing certain things that are going to benefit both of our countries," Trump said at a joint news conference with Trudeau on Monday. "It's a much less severe situation than what's taken place on the southern border. On the southern border, for many, many years the transaction was not fair to the United States. It was an extremely unfair transaction."
Troopers Use ‘Big Data’ to Predict Crash Sites
Pew Charitable Trust | Posted on February 16, 2017As more and more states use “big data” for everything from catching fraudsters to reducing heath care costs, some highway patrols are tapping it to predict where serious or fatal traffic accidents are likely to take place so they can try to prevent them.
Iowa DNR plans second special harvest to test deer for chronic wasting disease
Des Moines Register | Posted on February 16, 2017The Iowa Department of Natural Resources will hold a second special harvest in northeast Iowa to collect deer that can be tested for chronic wasting disease. The state hopes to collect up to 300 samples from mature deer in Clayton County from Saturday to March 5. The state asks hunters, who will receive special scientific licenses, to focus on an area about 10 miles west of Elkader. It's the second special harvest this year.
Roadway and Bridge Improvement Calculator
Illinois Soybean Association | Posted on February 14, 2017The Illinois Soybean Association (ISA) checkoff program is launching a new Roadway and Bridge Improvement Calculator, an online service intended to help local communities better plan road and bridge projects. Simple, customizable and fast, the calculator will allow communities to save time and money during budgeting and planning stages so that more financial resources can be put toward the actual improvement of roads and bridges. Wagner acknowledges county and city engineers, town officials and others need to consider many factors when planning road and bridge projects. The Road and Bridge Improvement Calculator lets them quickly assess calculations, such as the cost of reconstructing versus resurfacing a road or analyzing safety benefits of efforts like widening a road shoulder or installing a traffic signal. The service even will generate an overall benefit-cost ratio of improvements, taking into account safety benefits, travel efficiency, emissions and life cycle construction costs.
Lawmakers aim to boost Central Illinois agricultural economy
Herald & Review | Posted on February 14, 2017Legislation introduced in Springfield could boost efforts to attract bio-based businesses to Decatur and Central Illinois.The legislation introduced by state Sens. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, and Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, would provide incentives to produce and sell new renewable products made from biomass and other renewable sources. The potential exists for Decatur to be at the center of a new $20 billion biotechnology industry, Rose said. “The potential for jobs is here,” Rose said. “We have something no one else has to offer. This bill will help us capitalize on this and bring these jobs to Central Illinois.”
Report: Privatized Medicaid program serves fewer people, costs more
Houston Chronicle | Posted on February 14, 2017The privatization of a state program that transports poor Texans to medical appointments has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars more while serving fewer than half as many people, according to a Legislative Budget Board report that some officials tried to withhold from the public. In the five years since Texas began privatizing the management of the Medical Transportation Program, the number of Medicaid recipients using the program has dropped from 350,000 to 150,000, the number of substantiated complaints has doubled, administrative costs have quadruped and the overall per-ride cost to the public has nearly tripled, the report authors found. The privatization effort was designed to reduce fraud, and anti-fraud measures may have caused some of the drop in users. Still, the budget board found, privatization has left out thousands of people and cost taxpayers an estimated $316 million more than would have been spent if the state still was running the program.
New study helps explain how garbage patches form in the world's oceans
Science Daily | Posted on February 14, 2017A new study on how ocean currents transport floating marine debris is helping to explain how garbage patches form in the world's oceans. Researchers developed a mathematical model that simulates the motion of small spherical objects floating at the ocean surface.