Wendell Berry takes on “White Rural Rage,” farmers and environmentalists team up, and rural organizers contend with the opportunities, and aftermath, of an election year
This year Barn Raiser took on the complexities of the farm bill in our new column “Inside the Farm Bill,” launched new Special Reports like “Charting a Path of Rural Progress,” which featured interviews with rural policy experts and organizers from around the country, broke ground in our reporting on rural nursing homes and PFAS and expanded coverage of Native Life, the environment and culture.
Although we love all of our stories uniquely, here are a few that stood out:
Wendell Berry responds to “White Rural Rage” and Paul Krugman. “Those of us who speak for the country (‘rural America’) must never give up”
by Wendell Berry
The president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers explains why Vance’s extreme agenda runs counter to the rural culture of helping one’s neighbors.
by Melissa Cropper
Project 2025’s plans for a massive deregulation of federally-owned public land promises a lucrative payday for extractive industries that would lead to “total desecration” of sacred and ecologically rich land.
by Stephanie Woodard
Rural strategist Matt Barron reviews some of the year’s most influential books on rural voters, some good, others not so good, each attempting to decode the Democrats’ toxic brand in rural America.
by Matt L. Barron
In the immediate aftermath of Election Day, authors Bryce Oates and Jake Davis share their analysis about what didn’t work for Democrats with rural voters, as well as the results of important ballot measures for rural people like paid sick leave in Nebraska and raising the minimum wage in Missouri.
by Bryce Oates and Jake Davis
For more than a year before the 2024 election, Lance Wallnau, a leading strategist on the Christian Right, and the America First Policy Institute, a think tank staffed primarily by figures from the first Trump administration and past election campaigns, have targeted 19 counties, located in nine battleground states. This is the story inside the key strategic initiative.
by Frederick Clarkson
In many rural areas, races go uncontested. That’s changed in 2024 thanks to grassroots efforts put local rural progressive candidates on the ballot to contest elections across the country.
by Mason Adams
Carrying repatriated artifacts, a new generation of Lakota ride to honor those who died in the Wounded Knee Massacre. This was the first essay for Barn Raiser by Contributing Editor Winona LaDuke.
by Winona LaDuke
In April, Barn Raiser broke the story of an unsanctioned bulldozer contracted by AT&T digging a trench and trespassing on land of the Battle Mountain Band of Western Shoshone Indians. The incident brought to light a longstanding and systematic practice of individuals and corporations trespassing on Native property to plunder resources, with little accountability.
by Stephanie Woodard
With more than a trillion dollars at stake for vital food, farm, conservation and rural development spending programs in 2024, authors Bryce Oates and Jake Davis launched their first column of “Inside the Farm Bill.” As the authors wrote, “We hope to explain why you should care about acronyms like SNAP, CRP, LAMP and REAP. We will do our best to demystify some of these farm bill programs and, probably more interestingly, the politics that might decide their fate in 2024.”
by Bryce Oates and Jake Davis
Family farmers fear the Conservation Reserve Program, a steady source of income and reliable environmental incentive, could be eliminated by the incoming Trump administration’s governing blueprint Project 2025.
by Miles MacClure
Linley Dixon, executive director of the Real Organic Project, explains how her organization is leading a grassroots, farmer-led movement to restore credibility to organic certification in the United States.
by Linley Dixon
At the Farm Bureau’s “New Frontiers” conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, tensions flare over the future of farming.
by Emma Penrod
Land managers and restoration practitioners have long been concerned about the scarcity of native seeds required for restoring ecosystems. To meet this a web of diverse groups, including government agencies, Tribal Nations, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, botanic gardens and farmers, have joined forces to bolster the native seed supply for ecological restoration.
by Eve Allen
Farmers like Dustin Watson are turning toward new land-centered models to overcome the challenges of farm transfer and succession.
by Brooks Lamb
Barn Raiser Contributing Editor Laura Orlando explains why polluters should be held responsible for the billions per year in estimated cleanup costs.
by Laura Orlando
Farmer and Maine State Rep. Bill Pluecker argues why it is critical to support farmers in the fight against PFAS. According to Pluecker, it’s time for Congress to replicate nationwide what Maine has done across the state.
by Rep. Bill Pluecker
Several of Wisconsin’s last county-owned nursing homes now facing the possibility of being sold or closed. Yet rural citizens are organizing to keep their highly rated “county homes” from being privatized to ensure everyone has access to care. This story is part of a Barn Raiser Special Report “Rural Communities Respond to the Long-Term Care Crisis.”
by Henry Bleifuss
A network of right-wing billionaires have bankrolled a war against public education. Now they’re stepping up attacks on rural legislators—but communities are fighting back.
by Maurice Cunningham
A renewable energy push is bringing millions of dollars to Michigan’s rural communities. But not everyone is pleased. This is part one of a two-part series investigating the future of renewable energy in the state.
by Roger Kerson
False claims of “migrant crime” echo the Ku Klux Klan’s fear mongering.
by Rachael Hanel
A team at Western Illinois University, bolstered by a first-of-its-kind initiative, is helping towns across the state democratize their food economy
by Joe Engleman
New group mobilizes citizens to protect Iowa’s “last island of ecological integrity.”
by Nina Elkadi
An interview with anthropologist Thurka Sangaramoorthy on how the rural residents and immigrant communities are adapting to the broken rural health landscape in Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
by Paco Alvarez
Officials in Lake City, South Carolina, are now eyeing year-round arts initiatives to secure economic growth. This is part of an ongoing series of Barn Raiser Rural Dispatches by journalist Kristi Eaton.
by Kristi Eaton
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