Presidential candidates don't focus on rural issues

"As they campaign, presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney pretty much ignore rural-specific issues," even though they have plenty of opportunity to focus on those issues, Don Davis of the Grand Forks Herald reports, noting that some major swing states that are frequent stops on campaign trails are "heavy on agriculture."

The House Agriculture Committee ranking Democrat, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, told Davis that the gist of each candidate's stance on agriculture is this: Mitt Romney favors fewer regulations, as do many rural residents; Obama is better at supporting the Farm Bill, which includes disaster relief for farmers and funding for rural development projects. University of North Dakota economics professor David Flynn told Davis rural people are "'forced' to back the candidate of their favorite parties ... because neither delivers enough information for them to make good decisions."

"Neither candidate is laying out any specifics regarding rural-specific policies, even the consequences of other policy ideas such as energy on rural economies," Flynn said. "There is no attention being paid to it. At some level, it is a disservice." Ed Schafer, former agriculture secretary and a member of Romney's Agriculture Advisory Team, said the candidates miss an opportunity to talk about the strength of U.S. farming when they don't focus on rural issues. Obama focuses on renewable energy when talking farm issues, but other parts of the farm-sector "can't get an ear anywhere," Schafer said.

"Rural America is not on the front burner for one main reason: votes," Davis writes. Center for Rural Strategies President Dee Davis said the issues facing rural America are complex and not easy to solve, and candidates know they get most of their votes from urban areas. (Read more)

More than half of Georgia in exceptional or extreme drought, but governor seems to deny it exists

Georgia has been dealing with extreme to exceptional drought through the summer at the same level or worse than states in the Midwest and Great Plains, but its farmers' plight has been largely ignored by the news media, and at least publicly by its own governor. The state has spent more years in drought than in normal conditions since 1999, and more than half of it is now in extreme or exceptional drought. Yet, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal says there is no drought and hasn't yet declared one. (U.S. Department of Agriculture map: Red shows exceptional drought, dark red shows exceptional)

Environmentalists, scientists and farmers say drying rivers, streams and reservoirs and rainfall data are proof of the drought, but the state's resistance to more drastic measures to remedy drought "stems from its desire to protect its business-friendly image," Neela Banerjee of the Los Angeles Times reports. "Atlanta is the brightest symbol of the 'New South,' and the Southern miracle depends on the use of natural resources, and the key resource is water," said Flint Riverkeeper Executive Director Gordon Rogers. Georgia's political agenda is largely set by Atlanta and surrounding areas, inhibiting attention to issues facing smaller, more rural communities to the south, Banerjee reports.

When the drought of 2007-08 hit Atlanta hard, Banerjee reports the government took "dire steps" to ensure adequate water supplies, but the state is downplaying the current drought. The state Environmental Protection Division's official position is that asking urban residents to conserve water would not help the drought-riddled part of the state, even though hydrologists say it would increase stream flows and improve water quality, which typically deteriorates during drought. Deal has annexed the state climatologist's office from the University of Georgia into his administration, leaving some to charge that it reduces the office's independence. (Read more)

Texas water authority cuts off supply to rice farmers due to drought, and rural economies suffer

Rice farmers in southeastern Texas are switching from growing that water-intensive grain to crops that require less water, mostly because the Lower Colorado River Authority cut off water for most downstream farmers for the rest of this season so the city of Austin could recover from drought, Ashley Price of the Austin American-Statesman reports. As a result, rice production in rural counties along the river has fallen drastically. It's down by 75 percent in Eagle Lake, and has decreased to 1,500 acres this year compared to 24,000 acres last year in Matagorda County. (Wikipedia map: Lower Colorado River watershed)

Austin-based LCRA is the "chief arbiter" of who gets water and who doesn't, and the move to cut off water for downstream farmers was perhaps an inevitable move, Price reports. If the drought continues into 2013, those farmers could be cut off again. LCRA adopted stricter guidelines this February that reduces the amount of water released to farmers while almost doubling the amount for cities and power plants.

Most rice farmers aren't feeling the pinch, because their fields are insured, but the consequences of a "no-rice year" are reverberating in rural towns whose economy is tied to the crop's production, Price reports: "The woman who sells diesel oil for farm equipment; the pilots who eke out commissions spraying fungicide from tiny duster planes; the chicken farmer who buys rice hulls, the protective layer of the grain, for litter; the calf-cattle rancher who buys the bran, the hard outer bit that gets polished off when rice is made white, for cattle feed -- these people all find business is off as the rice crop has dwindled." (Read more)

Small Illinois town feels betrayed by closure of prison, major employer in their underemployed town

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn

The people in the tiny rural town of Tamms, Ill., with 11 percent unemployment and its main source of jobs the state's maximum-security prison, just got word that the big-city governor they supported is mothballing the "supermax" facility. Jim Suhr of the Associated Press reports that the Southern Illinois town feels more than a bit betrayed by Gov. Pat Quinn's decision, made though lawmakers approved money to maintain the site, as well as a second facility in the north-central Illinois town of Dwight. Calling the closure “a profound and staggering loss,” the five-county Southern Five Regional Planning District and Development Commission forecast that eliminating the Tamms' prison’s 250 jobs ultimately would cost more than 200 more indirectly.

Quinn has offered to sell the 14-year-old facility to the federal government, but the pending closure has fostered ill will, "fanning the perception that Quinn and other Chicago powerbrokers don’t care much about folks outside the Windy City," writes Suhr. Illinois has been under pressure to close Tamms from activists who argue "its tough security measures are inhumane, and lawmakers have had to make a number of painful spending decisions given the state’s enormous budget crisis. Quinn aides say the Tamms prison is half-empty and three times as expensive to run as other facilities. Quinn signed the new state budget Saturday, saying he would use money from the shuttered prisons to restore funding to the Department of Children and Family Services, the agency in charge of maintaining child welfare in the state." In offering to see the prison to the federal government,  Quinn noted its isolated location and access to an interstate as selling points.