So much rural news, so little time to blog: health, local economic woes, tariffs

National Public Radio continues to cover the results of the rural survey/health poll it co-sponsored with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and others.  

One headline is "Methamphetamine Roils Rural Towns Again Across the United States."  The lede is:

The sharp rise in opioid abuse and fatal overdoses has overshadowed another mounting drug problem: Methamphetamine use is rising across the United States. 

"Usage of methamphetamine nationally is at an all-time high," says Erik Smith, assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Kansas City office. 

"It is back with a vengeance." he says. "And the reasons for that are twofold." The drug's now stronger, and cheaper, than it used to be. 

No longer chiefly made by "cooks" in makeshift labs in the U.S., methamphetamine is now the domain of Mexican drug cartels that are mass-producing high-quality quantities of the drug and pushing it into markets where it was previously unknown.

But even in rural communities ravaged by decades of experience with the drug, meth is on the upswing thanks to its relatively low price, availability and a shortage of treatment options. 

Frank Morris reports the story out of Quilin, Missouri, in the state's bootheel.  Other posts out of that down-and-out region are here and here.

Another story in that series on the poll/survey is headlined, "Rural Americans are OK with Outside Help to Beat Opioid Crisis and Boost the Economy."  Frank Morris is again reporting from Missouri, this time out of Belle, Missouri.  Here's an excerpt:

Small towns face big problems. In rural America, rugged individualism is still prized, but so is the pragmatism that has begun to trump traditional disdain for government. 

When NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the T.H. Chan School of Public Health polled rural Americans this summer, 58 percent said they want outside help with community problems. 

"I think that's a surprise for a lot of people," says [Robert] Blendon, [Professor of Health Policy and political analysis at Harvard] "that there is a willingness — by most, not all — to reach out for outside help." 

Many rural communities are facing two big, persistent issues: drugs and economic stagnation. Take Belle, Mo., with its population of 1,500. 

"Money is a big problem," says Kathy Stanfield, who is in her late 60s and raised her children here. "You don't have the tax base anymore that you used to have." 

Stanfield says Belle has struggled since the shoe factory closed decades ago. It was once the town's biggest employer. 

Increasingly, the town relies on grants to pay for basic maintenance, like replacing crumbling sidewalks or fixing faulty water lines. And that money is getting harder to come by. 

Belle has a drug problem, too, and Roxie Murphy, a newspaper reporter who covers Belle for the Maries County Advocate, says drug-related crime is on a lot of people's minds.

"Even though we're rural, the idea that we're safe isn't really there anymore," says Murphy.

I wrote this post about a third story in the health poll series here.

Another recent NPR story with a rural angle is about the impact of Trump's tariffs on farmers.  The dateline is Randall, Iowa, and here's the lede for Amy Mayer's story:

As Branon Osmundson harvests soybeans in Randall, Iowa, the combine's blades cut the stems, pods are pulled apart and the hard yellow beans fill the hopper. Osmundson's cousin pulls a matching red Case I-H tractor up alongside, positioning the attached grain cart to catch the beans as they're augured out of the combine. 

Osmundson is relieved to be in the field on a windy, clear day because he waited through weeks of heavy rain before his crops were dry enough to harvest. Beyond the rain, stubbornly low crop prices have been exacerbated by the trade war that decimated the once-lucrative Chinese market for soybeans. China used to be the biggest buyer of U.S.-grown soybeans. But this year, in retaliation for similar U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, China imposed a 25 percent tariff on imports of U.S. soybeans, resulting in a dramatic drop in shipments. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture still predicts a record soybean harvest, which only further complicates the situation. 

Osmundson says the price he will get is $2 per bushel lower than last year because of the uncertainty in the export market. That could end up costing him tens of thousands of dollars.

I'm excited to see so much recent media attention to rural America, and I can't help wonder if it'll taper off after the election--or be ramped up, depending on the rural vote.