Rural News

Baby Fish Prefer Plastic Over Natural Food

Larval perch gorge themselves on microplastics, which seems to be stunting growth and affecting natural instincts.  Earlier this year a report from the World Economic Forum claimed there could be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050 and president Obam signed a ban on plastic microbeads into law late last year. Now, a new study shows that the problem may be more urgent than first thought—some baby fish choose plastic microparticles over natural food, leading to stunted growth and changes in behavior.

Rural Disasters- Saving Lives and Livelihoods

Rural disasters often mobilize two self-described groups: “The red-light team” from the official ranks of fire, emergency medicine and law enforcement systems. And “the Carhartt and cowboy-hat army,” including agriculture producers and their children, friends, and relatives serving officially and unofficially as emergency responders. Both groups bring critical knowledge and skills. An inter-agency effort that includes land-grant university Extension offices is helping these groups work together to achieve better results.

Coordinating the strengths of emergency managers and agriculture producers is like stacking hay – you have to do it because there is a need.  A USDA Extension Service program is helping emergency responders and agricultural producers work together. In 2002, land-grant university Extension programs introduced the Strengthening Community Agro-Security Preparedness (SCAP) curriculum in cooperation with USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The program has led to better communication, coordination and training. Emergency managers and ag producers working with SCAP facilitators have drafted or updated agriculture disaster and other plans in 311 of the nation’s counties.

Elk, not bison, are spreading Brucellosis near Yellowstone

Since Wyoming first established its feedgrounds in 1912, thousands of elk have munched taxpayer-funded rations every winter. Conservationists have long warned that the crowding could spread brucellosis, which causes miscarriages. However, since state and federal agencies have long assumed that bison, not elk, transmit the disease to livestock, they’ve focused their attention on the bison, restricting their winter migration out of Yellowstone National Park and culling hundreds each year. Research by the U.S. Geological Survey and its partners found that elk — not bison — are the most likely source of brucellosis outbreaks in cattle around the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. DNA analysis revealed that strains found in feedground elk were much more widespread than the strain found in bison. “We found no direct links (of transmission) from bison to livestock,”

The Graying of Rural America

As young people increasingly move to cities, what happens to the people and places they leave behind? Over the past two decades, as cities have become job centers that attract diverse young people, rural America has become older, whiter, and less populated. Between 2010 and 2014, rural areas lost an average of 33,000 people a year. Today, just 19 percent of Americans live in areas the Census department classifies as rural, down from 44 percent in 1930. But roughly one-quarter of seniors live in rural communities, and 21 of the 25 oldest counties in the United States are rural. Over the past two decades, as cities have become job centers that attract diverse young people, rural America has become older, whiter, and less populated. Population decline in rural America is especially concentrated in the West. There’s a lot of wide-open land there, but most people, and young people especially, live in the cities. Half the jobs in Oregon, for example, are now in three counties in and around Portland.  Almost two-thirds of Utah’s jobs are along the Wasatch Front, which runs from Salt Lake City to Provo. Those who live there tend to like it, but they’re aging, and there aren’t enough jobs to keep younger people around. So kids and grandkids move to the cities, coming back on holidays, inheriting their parents’ homes and leaving them empty, wondering what will happen to the towns their parents say used to thrive. This is how rural America dies: not with a bang but a whimper.