A look at some of our most-read stories of 2025. (Barn Raiser)
In 2025, Barn Raiser made a commitment to stories of resilience and resistance in rural America. Telling such stories meant responding to rapid and fundamental shifts in federal policy, helping rural communities understand how such changes impact them directly, and providing information that enables urban readers to understand why their future is intertwined with that of rural America. From tariffs to canceled federal funding to immigration raids to the ever-evolving federal farm, tax and food policies, Barn Raiser aimed to combine incisive analysis with our contextually driven reporting to meet the urgency of the moment.
Amid trying times, Barn Raiser has also turned to providing the wisdom of long-term perspectives. Our authors have sought to highlight community-driven solutions, amplify movements to protect the environment, and empower defenders of democracy against the threats of rising authoritarianism, Christian Nationalism and corporate control. We covered rural America from coast to coast, featuring citizens organizing in Republic, Washington to defend their local library, as well as immigrant communities in Maryland’s Eastern Shore striving for dignified working conditions and access to health care.
While we take pride in every story we publish, below are a few that stood out during this past year (click on the article title below to read the story):
A look at some of our most-read stories of 2025. (Barn Raiser)
The billionaire-led push to siphon public funds to private religious schools faces a backlash from rural voters whose public schools are the cornerstones of their community.
In 2022, Laramie County Moms for Liberty and Wyoming Family Alliance took control of the Cheyenne public school board and started banning books. Then, concerned citizens began to organize.
Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, explains how you can work to protect rural public schools amid the GOP’s efforts to push voucher programs across the nation.
The USDA’s Agricultural Research Service has issued a list of words and terms that may not be used. The list includes “safe drinking water,” “affordable housing” and “microplastics,” along with 107 others, some of which you won’t believe.
Kyla Bennett, a former EPA whistleblower and director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, says Trump and Musk’s dismantlement of the federal workforce threatens rural communities in an unprecedented way. “There’s a domino effect down to the state and the local level with what’s happening at the federal level that nobody is taking into consideration.”
The GOP proposal includes more than $4 trillion in tax breaks for the rich while cutting approximately $1 trillion to Medicaid, which could threaten the viability of rural hospitals across the country and force millions of low-income Americans off critical health insurance and food assistance programs.
A first-hand look at a burgeoning farmer-led movement in Maine, as small farmers and their allies push back against the Trump-Musk cuts and demand the USDA honor contracts already promised.
The Trump administration’s plans to import beef from Argentina may sound good to consumers looking to save money at the grocery store. But to farmers it’s a gut punch that couldn’t come at a worse time.
For rural communities hard-hit by decades of PFAS pollution, class-action lawsuits have aided recovery. But the victims of pollution are finding that courtroom victories don’t solve the problem.
House Republicans are seeking to permanently block an EPA risk assessment that acknowledges what communities, scientists and farmers have been saying for years: spreading sewage sludge (also known by the industry term “biosolids”) on land contaminates soil, crops, water and and livestock with PFAS, or forever chemicals.
The story of how corporate giants like 3M and DuPont created PFAS “forever chemicals” and one of the biggest environmental problems the world has ever seen.
Iowa’s decision to place the State Historical Society of Iowa under the governor’s control and close its archive in Iowa City could serve as a blueprint for Republican state governments to erase rural people’s history.
In October, as the government shutdown on in D.C. stretched to record length, 40 organizations, including regional, statewide and national groups from diverse geographies, released an action plan to guide organizers and policymakers.
Farm transfer is inherently complex. By 2040, an estimated 300 million acres of farmland is set to change hands. Enter Anna Sekine, who with the American Farmland Trust helps farmers pass their land to the next generation.
For 150 years, a family of Gullah Geechee descent has preserved their history on family land, where organic farming principles and stories of freedom have been handed down through six generations.
For rural families who lost their home in the Great Recession, the latest cuts to safety net programs bring back the specter of the housing crisis, as they continue to struggle with its enduring consequences.
At his confirmation hearing in January, Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, faced scattered questions from members of the U.S. Senate. Yet the Senate failed to ask about Hegseth’s revolutionary theocratic vision for society, which, if realized, threatens not just the religious freedoms we take for granted but also the U.S. Constitution.
As rural churches struggle to keep their doors open, megachurches like Minnesota’s Eagle Brook—one of the largest churches in the country—are embracing technology to fill the void. One scholar describes this rise of big box Christianity as the “Walmart effect.”
Mikey Weinstein has spent decades fighting for religious freedom in the U.S. military. Following Trump’s decision to bomb Iran and his promotion of Christian Nationalist leaders in the military, Weinstein’s mission has taken on new urgency.
In April, Barn Raiser Contributing Editor Winona LaDuke covered Energy Transfer’s lawsuit against Greenpeace for its protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. Corporations may be emboldened to strip away First Amendment freedoms, LaDuke writes, but the movement to protect water, air and land shows that the people can win in the long run.
After decades of struggle, indigenous leaders and organizers leading the fight to restore the Klamath river have shown how to win against billionaires and large corporations.
Dairy industry insiders quietly lobby the Trump administration to rethink its approach to immigration, as dairy workers fear more farms could be targeted.
At Minnesota State University, Mankato, students, teachers and staff work “day and night” to protect the rights of international students, who are often the lifeblood of rural college towns.
Maryland’s blue crab industry—celebrated as quintessentially local—depends on immigrant women who exercise agency within a system designed to extract maximum value from their labor. This story is the first of a Barn Raiser Special Report “Rethinking Immigration and Health in Rural America”
A state senator pulled funding from the Republic Library in Washington State after the library displayed a pride flag. Local citizens banded together to protect their library—and the town’s culture of inclusion.
In June, a federal court ruling cleared the way for the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against John Deere. The FTC alleges Deere’s monopoly over repair has led to multi-billion-dollar profits for the company while burdening farmers with extortionate costs.
J.D. Scholten, one of two rural Democrats in the Iowa State House, shares his plan to revive rural communities and to help farmers regain independence from multinational corporations. As the farm crisis deepens, he writes, “it is my conviction that we need to hold every office holder accountable to the standards outlined in this plan.”
The bobcat’s return to rural Ohio—and nationwide—has become a quiet success story. But as the U.S. Department of Agriculture prepares to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule on 59 million acres of public land, the bobcat’s future is far from certain.
The state of New York announced it would eliminate the 600-plus local agencies that administer its $9 billion consumer-directed home health care program and replace them with a single corporation. In many rural parts of the state, the program is the only form of home care available due to the worker shortage.
