Opinion

Jim Hightower Confronts the 1980s Farm Crisis

"It's the same old story—Reagan helps the rich, and Lord help the rest of us."
Jim Hightower

Election Deniers Focus Recruitment in ‘Out of the Way Places’

Election officials fear conspiracy theories are undermining civic infrastructure in rural America
Claire Carlson, The Daily Yonder

To Reach Rural Voters, Democrats Need a Place-Driven Strategy

Matt L. Barron
One rural political strategist details a plan
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Pioneer Letitia Carson Escaped Slavery to Became One of Oregon’s First Farmers

Racial justice advocates work to memorialize the historic homestead of Letitia and her white husband David Carson
Jaclyn Moyer, High Country News

Politics & Policy

Rural Tennessee County Uses Opioid Settlement Funds to Collect Highway Litter

None of the $2.7 million Greene County has received has been used to address its epidemic of drug overdose deaths
Aneri Pattani, KFF Health News
Hans Breitenmoser, a Wisconsin Dairy farmer, sits in his office

Hans Breitenmoser: Dairy Farmer for Fair Maps

“Wisconsin is so severely gerrymandered that you can't even hardly think straight.”
Joel Bleifuss & Justin Perkins

The Emerging Movement to Build Multi-Racial Power in Rural Communities

What the D.C. establishment gets wrong about rural politics
Michael Chameides, Danny Diaz, W. Mondale Robinson & Celina Culver
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Science & Environment

Luis Reyes, CEO of Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, cuts a red ribbon with local officials celebrating a new solar array.

Empowering Rural Electric Co-ops with Renewable Energy

How $10.7 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act offers the largest investment since the New Deal for rural electrification.
Kristi Eaton

Appalachian Trout Struggle To Survive Climate Change

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians fear their tribal fisheries are under threat
Dan Chapman
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Culture

a blue bus is parked next to a bus stop

Rural Idaho County Thrives with Free Bus Service

While rural public transportation can be scarce, Bonner County has found a solution
Sydney Chamberlain
Library books sit on a shelf crossed with caution tape and flame-shaped bookmarks.

“We’ve Had Death Threats, Bomb Threats”

Rural libraries, often a lifeline, now face efforts to ban books and restrict funding
s.e. smith
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Native Life

Tribes Take the Lead on Regenerative Agriculture

Ioway, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Quapaw share their traditional practices with both Native and nonnative farmers to improve the soil and water for everyone
Eva Tesfaye, Harvest Public Media
A close-up photo of a manoomin (wild rice) plant

Five Native Groups Have Established Rights of Nature

"For Ho-Chunk, rights of nature has always been around.”
Craig M. Kauffman & Pamela L. Martin
Monica Cady moved to Michigan's Upper Peninsula eight years ago.

The Black Snake Threatens Turtle Island

When I moved to the Great Lakes, I did not know a pipeline threatened my ancestral homeland
Monica Cady
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Barn Raisers

What Liberal Elites Don’t Know About Rural Americans Can Hurt Us

The New York Review of Books strikes out, again
Wendell Berry

Finding Common Ground at a Montana Barn Raising

The former Montana House speaker and Missoula mayor reflects on working together across differences
Daniel Kemmis
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Religion

Pigs on a truck on their way to a slaughterhouse

God and Hogs

The vertical integration of faith and death at Tyson Foods
Kristy Nabhan-Warren
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Food & Agriculture

Drought Resistant Millet, a Crop for a Changing Climate

"I've never seen a crop that stood the heat and stood the drought and still made me money," says Matt Little, who grows millet in Ellis County, Oklahoma
Eva Tesfaye, Harvest Public Media
Sign that says, "For Sale 5+ Acre Mini Farms"

Not Every Farmer Wants to “Get Big or Get Out”

As land ownership continues to consolidate into fewer and wealthier hands, some small farmers vow to stay in place
Brooks Lamb

Could Raw Milk Reinvent the Future of Dairy?

Through small-scale production, farmers can make more money and their customers can get better milk
Abby Rockefeller
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History

The Forgotten Victims Downwind of Oppenheimer’s Bomb

How popular narratives obscure the victims of America's first dirty bomb.
Joshua Wheeler & Reto Sterchi

The Great Spirit (Why I am a Pagan)

Zitkála-Šá, born on the Yankton Indian Reservation in 1876, embraces the religion of her ancestors
Zitkála-Šá
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