To the Editor:<\/p>\n
(Jan. 2013) It\u2019s time for an adult conversation with rural Americans, said Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack. With our shrinking population, he said, we are becoming less relevant to American politics and we need to reverse it.<\/p>\n
He makes an important point. But it goes both ways: it\u2019s also time for us rural folks to have an adult conversation with our representatives, because their politics in Washington are becoming less relevant to the challenges that confront us.<\/p>\n
Take the farm bill, for example. The big fight was about whether farm payments would fit the form favored by Midwestern or southern interests. But the perfect payment won\u2019t help rural America if we lose our family farms. And as long as Washington provides unlimited farm and crop insurance subsidies to mega farms, it will subsidize them to drive family-sized farms out of business.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not being addressed.<\/p>\n
Our small towns are also fighting for their lives \u2013 but not for lack of potential. There are promising small business opportunities in small towns. And we have learned from experience that providing aspiring entrepreneurs with reasonable credit, business training and help with business planning sprouts successful rural businesses.<\/p>\n
But federal investment in rural small business and community development has fallen in half over the decade.<\/p>\n
We must invest in our future, if we are to have a future.<\/p>\n
But you don\u2019t hear that in the farm bill debate.<\/p>\n
Washington politics are losing relevance. It\u2019s up to us \u2013 as engaged citizens \u2013 to get them on course.<\/p>\n
Chuck Hassebrook, Center for Rural Affairs<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To the Editor: (Jan. 2013) It\u2019s time for an adult conversation with rural Americans, said Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack. With our shrinking population, he said, we are becoming less relevant to American politics and we need to reverse it. He makes an important point. But it goes both ways: it\u2019s also time for us rural […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23679],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agfarming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}