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Organizing Rural and Small Town America for Affordable Housing and Racial Justice
Affordable housing is among the top issues for rural Americans. For this organizer, it’s also the starting point for building strong communities.
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Opinion
The Indigenous Growers Reviving Hemp’s Deep Roots
“Cannabis and hemp offer solutions to many challenges in an industrial society”
Partisan Clash or ‘Grand Bargain’? Dueling Proposals Set the Stage for the Farm Bill’s Uncertain Future
Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress appeal for support for their vision of the farm bill, yet a deep impasse looms ahead of an expected May 23 markup in the House
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Opinion
Will the EPA’s New PFAS Rules Protect Our Water, Farms and Health?
Polluters should be held responsible for the billions per year in estimated cleanup costs.
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Wendell Berry: What New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman Gets Wrong About Rural America
‘Those of us who speak for the country (“rural America”) must never give up’
Food & Agriculture
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Farmers Tell FTC Chair to Block Koch Industries’ $3.6 Billion Acquisition of Iowa Fertilizer Plant
“We’re looking for intervention,” say farmers as ag industry consolidation fuels calls for antitrust action
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Farmers Face a Precarious Future. Is the Farm Bureau on Their Side?
At the Farm Bureau’s “New Frontiers” conference, tensions flare over the future of farming
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Native Seed Network Takes Root in the Northeast
Diverse groups join forces to bolster the native seed supply for ecological restoration
Politics & Policy
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Electrifying Democracy in Rural America
For this energy policy expert, rural electric co-ops empower communities and strengthen democracy.
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Conservation Programs Are Popular with Farmers. Why Does the G.O.P. Want to Defund Them?
Republicans are targeting Inflation Reduction Act climate funding that mostly benefits red state farmers
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Practicing an ‘Insurgent Politics of Care’ in Rural America
How rural residents and immigrant communities are adapting to the broken rural health landscape on Maryland’s Eastern Shore
Special Reports
New
Charting a Path of Rural Progress
Interviews with the organizers who created a rural policy platform for 2024
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Rural Communities Respond to the Long-Term Care Crisis
Rural communities come together to respond to the crisis in long-term care
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Interviews with Rural Organizers
Meet the rural organizers and placemakers working for change and justice
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Rural Libraries
Rural libraries, under threat, are finding renewed purpose
More →Native Life
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Looting Tribal Land
Individuals and corporations trespass on Native property and plunder resources, with little accountability
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Tribes Call on NASA to Halt Desecration of the Moon
Indigenous leaders accuse NASA of using a loophole to bypass promises made to Native nations
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The Bad River Chippewa Take on an Oil Giant: Review of ‘Bad River: A Story of Defiance’
A new film chronicles how the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa are united in their opposition to Enbridge pipelines
Barn Raisers
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What Liberal Elites Don’t Know About Rural Americans Can Hurt Us
The New York Review of Books strikes out, again
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Jon Council: An Appalachian Carpenter Organizing Across Political Divides
“Everyone needs to be able to turn on the tap and have clean water in their home”
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Welcome to Barn Raiser: Your independent source for rural and small town news
A letter from the editors
Science & Environment
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A Coal Mine Has Upended Life in a Rural Alabama Town. Now A Fatal Home Explosion Has Residents Demanding Accountability
A mining company representative fled from a family’s home when a reporter arrived. Residents worry the company will also evade state regulation, as safety expert warns other explosions could happen.
Lee Hedgepeth & James Bruggers, Inside Climate News
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New York’s Green Amendment Faces Critical Test in New Lawsuit
Seneca Meadows, the state’s largest landfill, is running out of space and wants to expand. Community members say it violates their rights under the Green Amendment.
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Saving the Southeast’s Salt Marshes
Imperilled by rising seas and over-development, tidal wetlands in the region, crucial to it’s ecological, cultural and economic life, are gaining new protections through an array of ambitious local initiatives backed by federal dollars
History
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The 19th Century Haunting that Made This Small Tennessee Town Famous
Historian sheds new light on the dark tale of the Bell Witch
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Jim Hightower Confronts the 1980s Farm Crisis
"It's the same old story—Reagan helps the rich, and Lord help the rest of us."
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The Great Spirit (Why I am a Pagan)
Zitkála-Šá, born on the Yankton Indian Reservation in 1876, embraces the religion of her ancestors
Culture
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High-Speed Thrills and Warm Weather Blues at the ‘Snowmobile Capital of the World’
As snowmobile racers compete for the title of world champion in Eagle River, Wisconsin, warm weather signals an uncertain future for the sport and its community
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The Shrinking Mississippi Delta County Where Getting a Degree Means Leaving Home Behind
In Issaquena County, Mississippi, the entangled history of race, segregation and education raise hard questions about the county’s future
Molly Minta, Mississippi Today; photography by Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today
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A Wandering Spirit, A Driftless Heart
Remembering the life and novels of David Rhodes one year after his death
Religion
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In Short Measures Life May Perfect Be
In an age overrun by our relentless desire for more—whether more wealth or more productivity from limited soil—Wendell Berry’s writings offer a way to find wholeness in life’s finitude
David Barr, Sightings
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The Politics of Loving Your Neighbor in Rural America
Reflections of a Lutheran pastor in Dunn County, Wisconsin