rural community development

Gloomy skies and cold rain didn't put a damper on Monday's award ceremony at Croftburn Farm. Inside a cozy white cottage on the spacious 1,000-acre property, Gary Lee, Culpeper Chamber of Commerce chairman, presented Laura Ann Stevenson Campbell and her family with the 2010 Agribusiness of the Year award for their family beef and sheep operation. "On behalf of the chamber, we'd like to present you as a representative of Croftburn Farm our 23rd award," Lee said. "You've got a lot to be very proud of, a

On behalf of the chamber, we’d like to present you as a representative of Croftburn Farm our 23rd award   -Gary Lee

 

AN URBAN farm is taking shape in the heart of a rundown area of Burnley. Part of the community garden has already been created close to Stoneyholme Community Nursery School, in March Street. Now Pennine Lancashire Community Farm - the charity behind the scheme - is seeking permission to complete the facility.  

Berks previously served in a similar capacity in Nebraska and has over eight years of program experience with the Agency. "Ms. Berks has an impressive record of accomplishment and will be a vital member of our management team here in Kansas. She is a native Kansan so we are particularly happy to bring one of Kansas' best and brightest back to our state," State Director Patty Clark said. As Director, Berks administers programs that assist rural communities with job creation efforts through loan guarant

Ms. Berks has an impressive record of accomplishment and will be a vital member of our management team here in Kansas. She is a native Kansan so we are particularly happy to bring one of Kansas' best and brightest back to our state   -Patty Clark

 

Don Ranck said he hasn't changed his mind about Lancaster County's farm preservation program since it began three decades ago. "I don't see any redeeming value in it," the Paradise Township farmer and chairman of township supervisors said bluntly. "Let the marketplace work. Keep government out of it."

When I first came here in 1989, there was a real question as to whether the farming community was going to embrace farmland preservation in a big way   -Tom Daniels

 

Dave Pries stands near a decades-old weather siren in his hometown of Minneiska, Minnesota, worrying about when the next tornado will hit. Along with the weather, the city clerk voices another big concern here: slow Internet connections. "It's about as slow as sending it through the post office," he says.

That's really what broadband means to rural America   -Gary Evans

 

RAMPANT stock theft, high unemployment and landlessness among the /Khomanin clan of the Damara tribe drew together a group of people at a smallholding west of Windhoek on Saturday. The meeting was called by Chief Josephat Gawa!nab of the /Khomanin (people from Khomas) to not only ease the growing tension between his people and some commercial farmers in the Baumgartsbrunn area but brainstorm on solutions. Hundreds of small and large livestock of commercial and communal farmers in the area have been st  

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that USDA has selected the Community Transportation Association of America to receive grant funding that will be used to help bring transportation improvements to rural areas in seven states. "We know that areas with strong transportation systems attract and retain businesses and improve the quality of life in rural towns," Vilsack said. "These grants from USDA will help Native American communities in three states improve existing local passenger transpo

We know that areas with strong transportation systems attract and retain businesses and improve the quality of life in rural towns   -Tom Vilsack

 

Gary Van Dyke, a large animal veterinarian who lives in the village of Churchtown, began discussing land preservation with farmers in Caernarvon Township more than a decade ago. "We talked about how we could do something different here," he recalled. "We can't afford the infrastructure that goes along with sprawl."

We couldn't have preserved nearly as much land as we have without the underlying effective agriculture zoning that covers nearly two-thirds of the county   -Tom Daniels

 

The writer, of Lincoln, is president of the Nebraska Cooperative Council. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be holding joint workshops over the next several months to study antitrust issues in agriculture. One of the issues publicly raised by DOJ officials is whether the Capper-Volstead Act is still necessary in our agricultural economy.  

Lynn Sprague, one of the presenters at a regional symposium last week on protecting North Carolina's farmland, fills that role in Polk County. "Hop on the train or it's going to pass you by," Sprague told about 50 people gathered at the Statesville Civic Center to hear him and others share their initiatives. The LandTrust of Central North Carolina and the Foothills Conservancy organized the event, with funding from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.