Grocery stores as rural community hubs

The Center for Rural Affairs highlights the importance of local grocery stores to rural communities in a recent report. The report, written by Jon M. Bailey, provides this grocery story closure data from the Midwest and Great Plains:

• An Iowa State University study found that in Iowa the number of grocery stores with employees dropped by almost half from 1995 to 2005, from about 1,400 stores in 1995 to slightly over 700 just 10 years later. Meanwhile, “supercenter” grocery stores (Wal-Mart and Target, for example) increased by 175 percent in the 10-year period.
• In rural Iowa, 43 percent of grocery stores in towns with populations less than 1,000 have closed.
• According to Kansas State University, 82 grocery stores in communities of fewer than 2,500 people in Kansas have closed since 2007, and nearly one in five rural grocery stores have gone out of business since 2006. In total, 38 percent of the grocery stores in Kansas towns of less than 2,500 closed between 2006 and 2009.

A second CFRA report suggests how rural communities might respond to the prospective loss of grocery stores.

Interestingly, I recently read this story in relation to my November visit to Australia. It tells of how one Mallee (northwestern Victoria) town, Woomelang, saved its grocery store (a/k/a "shop"). An excerpt from Darren Gray's story follows:

[W]hen the town's only grocery store closed with about three hours' notice in May, residents decided they wanted to shop locally, rather than drive 109 kilometres to Swan Hill or 30 kilometres to other small towns in the region.

So people from the town, which has a population of 200, and the surrounding farming district, chipped in to raise enough money to create a community-owned grocery store. They converted an old farm machinery shop — which the town's development association bought two years ago — into a grocery store, advertised for a tenant, and late last month celebrated the shop's grand opening.

To get the shop up and running, the community raised $85,000, most of which was spent on renovating and fitting out the building. Donations, ranging from $10 to $10,000, came from individuals and families.

Sounds a bit like a cooperative, one of the models discussed in the CFRA Report.

Food deserts and their disproportionate effects on rural areas

Food deserts are both an urban and rural problem, but rural communities are disproportionately affected by a lack of access to food. Food deserts and their effects have been discussed before on this blog, but food deserts and food insecurity remain a persistent problem. Food insecurity affects millions of people in the United States. As of July 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that a staggering 27 million Americans are affected by food insecurity or a lack of access to food. In many instances, food insecurity comes from persistent poverty, but other times, food insecurity is caused by a lack of access to grocery stores. The latter disproportionately affects rural areas.

Food deserts are a form of food insecurity. Put succinctly, a food desert is an area where people do not have immediate access to a grocery store to purchase food. The United States Department of Agriculture has defined an urban food desert as one where 33% of the population is further than one mile from a supermarket and a rural food desert as one where 33% of people are more than 10 miles from a supermarket.

People in food deserts are faced with a lack of options as well. A local grocery store or supermarket may not have the variety or options that a large grocery store can provide. This limits people's access to fresh produce as well, which is a crucial part of a healthy diet. Instead, the few grocery stores located within a food desert may only have shelf-stable, processed foods. This further compounds the health issues that many communities, particularly rural communities, already face.

Rural areas are disproportionately affected by food deserts. A CoBank Study found that “rural communities comprise 63% of all U.S. counties but 87% of counties with the highest food insecurity rates.” Another study by Verwell Health found that “over one-fifth of people living in urban areas and one-third of people in rural areas are in food deserts.” The numbers show that food deserts disproportionately affect rural communities. Food insecurity in rural areas is due in part to food deserts.

A lack of access to grocery stores or supermarkets plays a major role in the formation and perpetuation of food deserts in rural America. Many rural individuals have to travel long distances to get to grocery stores. This travel can become even more difficult and dangerous during winter months when weather can impact travel. Furthermore, when people in rural communities get to their local grocery stores, they find themselves faced with a lack of options. Many rural grocery stores do not provide people with “access to a wide range of food and beverage options.”

As mentioned above, many local grocery stores or supermarkets in rural areas only have processed foods available to customers. Processed foods are cheaper and easier to transport compared to fresh produce. Typically, processed foods are higher in sodium, fat, and sugar. This leads to an unhealthy diet which has further health consequences outside of food insecurity.

There is a direct correlation between food deserts, unhealthy diets, and health issues related to poor nutrition. Diets that are high in sodium, fat, and sugar lead to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and other health issues. Furthermore, a diet that lacks proper nutrition can also lead to complications during pregnancy.

Solving the food desert crisis is a complicated issue as well. One suggestion is that food delivery services may be able to fill the void of food deserts. A study from the Brookings Institute found that 90% of people living in food deserts could potentially have access to food delivery services such as Amazon, Instacart, Uber Eats, or Walmart. The study also acknowledges that a lack of internet access could make it difficult for rural areas to access food delivery services. Lack of internet access in rural areas, which has been discussed here, is not only a technological limitation but can also limit rural area's access to food.

Food deserts and food insecurity affect many millions of people in the United States but disproportionately affect rural communities. While there is no readily apparent solution to the food desert problem, hopefully, more people will be aware of how prevalent food insecurity is in the United States, particularly in rural areas.

Yet another post about the demise of rural grocery stores

Several folks called my attention to Jack Healy's story in the New York Times today--this one about the loss of rural grocery stores.  The headline is poignant, "Farm Country Feeds America.  But Just Try Buying Groceries There."  The dateline is Winchester, Illinois, population 1,650.   Here's the lede:

The only grocery store in his 1,500-person hometown in central Illinois had shut its doors, and [John Paul]  Coonrod, a local lawyer, was racing to get a community-run market off the ground. He had found space in an old shoe store, raised $85,000 from neighbors and even secured a liquor license to sell craft beer. 

Healy also provides anecdotes regarding grocery stores in Kansas, Florida and New Mexico.  And he talks about politics and terminology.  Here are two fascinating excerpts: 

Many of the places losing their grocery stores are conservative towns that value industrial agriculture and low taxes. About 75 percent of the people in the county containing Winchester voted for President Trump. But people in these communities have also approved public money to kick-start local markets, and they are supporting co-ops whose cloth-bag values and hand-stuffed packs of arugula can feel more Berkeley than Mayberry.

And on the marketing or terminology note: 

“Communities tell me: We don’t want to use the term co-op,” said Sean Park, a program manager for the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs. He has helped guide rural towns through setting up their own markets. “It’s ironic because it was farmers who pioneered co-ops. They’re O.K. with ‘community store.’ They’re the same thing, but you’ve got to speak the language.” 

It's a terrific story, but as I read it, I experienced "deja vu all over again" because I've read so many stories and written so many posts over the dozen-year life of Legal Ruralism about rural communities losing their grocery stores.  Indeed, when I searched legal ruralism for "grocery store," dozens of posts came up.  It also reminded me of this op-ed in thew New York Times a few years ago, "Vermont Town Seeks a Heart, Soul (Also Milk and  Eggs)."  I'd intended to write a post about it, in relation to this post about a Colorado grocery store during that same period, but I never got around to it.  Here's an excerpt from the piece about the Vermont store in danger of closing, in Ripton, population 588.

If towns could write personal ads, this one would be taking pen in hand for the first time in 42 years — making a pitch for companionship, a pitch aimed at finding someone who might be willing to take a chance on something a little out of the Twittery Trumpy twitchy mainstream.

* * * 

[W]e’re about to lose the heart and soul of our community, the husband and wife who have run our general store since 1976.

Dick and Sue Collitt are retiring, and we need someone to buy them out and take their place. Because if you don’t have a store, you can’t really have a town. True, we live in an age when stores seem like relics.

These stories all grapple with the consequences of a town losing its grocery store.  Can you have a town without one?  is it more or less critical than the post office?  or the school?  to sustaining a place?

Dollar Store entry has a bigger impact in rural markets than in urban ones

USDA ERS reports in Amber Waves under the headline, "Dollar Store Entry Affects Rural Grocery Stores More Than Urban":  

Independent grocery stores, or grocers whose owners operate fewer than four stores, have been a large part of the rural U.S. food retail landscape. In 2015, they represented about half of the food retailers in 44 percent of U.S. counties. Leading up to 2015, however, dollar stores were becoming increasingly visible in rural counties, experiencing the second-largest growth behind supercenters among food retailers from 1990 to 2015, according to research by USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS). Economists from ERS, North Dakota State University, and the University of Connecticut recently investigated the implications of the growth of dollar stores for more traditional, independent grocery stores using proprietary data from the National Establishment Time Series (NETS) database and the ERS Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) Codes.

NETS provides geographic, employment, and sales information for every year an establishment is open for all sectors of the U.S. economy. The researchers focused on dollar stores and independent grocery stores and combined these data with the ERS RUCA codes’ measures of population density, urbanization, and daily commuting to classify census tracts; in this research, all nonmetropolitan core or commuting areas were classified as rural.

The researchers examined what happened to the number of independent grocery stores, as well as employment and sales statistics from these stores, from 2000–19, when a new dollar store opened in the same rural or urban census tract. Results showed that when a dollar store opened in a census tract independent grocery retailers were 2.3 percent more likely, on average, to exit the market. Employment at independent grocery stores fell about 3.7 percent, and sales declined by 5.7 percent.

However, there was significant variation between the impact of dollar stores on independent grocery stores in urban and rural census tracts. For instance, the likelihood of an independent grocery store exiting a rural census tract after a new dollar store opened was 5 percent, about three times greater than in urban census tracts. Similarly, the decline in employment in rural tracts was about 2.5 times as large as in urban tracts, and the decline in sales was nearly double in rural census tracts.

Food deserts: Not just an urban problem

I’ve always viewed rural America in a nostalgic fashion, a view that many Americans likely share. I perceived rural areas as quaint, safe, small towns where everyone knows each other. I imagined people living on sprawling farms and getting up early every morning to tend to the animals and crops. Rural life was a life free from problems. However, over the course of the last few months, I have learned that many of my preconceptions of rural areas have been wrong. Rural America suffers from many problems, including a lack of doctors and teachers, poverty, decreasing populations, and mental health issues, just to name a few. Recently, I learned about yet another problem that rural America faces: food deserts.

Food deserts are areas with limited access to affordable and healthy food, usually due to the absence of grocery stores within a convenient distance. While food deserts exist in both urban and rural communities, their definitions differ due to the different characteristics of each community. A rural food desert is defined as an area where residents must drive more than 10 miles to the closest grocery store or supermarket. According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, approximately 25% of Americans living in food deserts are located in rural areas. To find out if you live in a food desert, check out the USDA food desert map locator here.

Food deserts exist in rural areas for several reasons. One of the largest contributing factors is lack of reliable transportation. Driving more than 10 miles may not seem far to those who own vehicles, but for those without a car, getting to a grocery store can be a daunting task. If you live in a rural area, public transportation is likely lacking. That leaves the option of getting a ride from a friend, which can often be difficult, or finding other modes of transportation, such as a taxi. However, assuming taxis are even an option in certain rural areas, this mode of transportation can be expensive. If a grocery store is 10 miles away, assuming an average initial charge of $2.50 and per mile charge of $2, transportation costs alone would cost approximately $45 round trip. When finding transportation to a grocery store becomes prohibitively difficult and expensive, the only option left may be to shop at the local convenience store where fruits and vegetables are likely to be in short supply.

Low population density is also a contributing factor in rural areas. With low populations, supermarkets or grocery chains are less likely to exist. For example, rural counties in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi average only one supermarket per 153.5 square miles. If a rural area is lucky enough to have a supermarket, because populations in rural areas are declining, these markets may close down or relocate to more populous places. According to the Center for Rural Affairs, one in five grocery stores has gone out of business in the last four years in rural areas. For more statistics on grocery store loss in rural areas, see this post. With supermarkets being nonexistent or closing, the prospect of gaining access to healthy food is grim. 

The expense of fruits and vegetables and the inconvenience of cooking is another contributing factor to food deserts in rural areas. Healthier foods tend to be more expensive than unhealthy ones. For example, while the overall price of fruits and vegetables in the United States increased by nearly 75% between 1989 and 2005, the price of fatty foods dropped by more than 26% during the same period. Additionally, the cooking fresh meals can be time consuming, while picking up a fast food meal, a microwave meal, or even a bag of chips and soda is quick and filling due to high fat content. With unhealthful food being cheaper and more convenient than healthy options, people are less likely to purchase these healthy alternatives. Consequently, convenience stores are less likely to carry fruit and vegetables if customers rarely purchase them.

If people in rural areas still have access to food in convenience stores, why should we care that so many rural communities are now considered food deserts? The answer is because food deserts are correlated with high rates of diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. This also has a major impact on America’s wallet; according to a nationwide study in 2012, the cost of diagnosed diabetes is approximately $176 billion each year in medical expenses alone.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned how my previously nostalgic views of rural life have changed over the last few months as I’ve become aware of the many problems that rural communities face, such as poverty, decreasing populations, and now, food deserts. I open and close with this thought because I believe it’s important for us to at least recognize that life in rural areas isn't as simple and carefree as shown in the media, but rural communities face many obstacles that are often intertwined. Hopefully, with increased public awareness, people will push policy makers to create policies that help increase access to fresh foods, improve public transportation (for example, options like the Brunswick Explorer as discussed in this post), and help with the myriad of other issues that rural communities face.

Grocery stores in poor areas (rural and urban)

I came across these two articles and I thought they complimented each other nicely.

The first discusses the difficulties that people in rural areas have accessing grocery stores. Because grocery stores are often long distances away, people shop at them only occasionally. Locals do much more shopping at convenience stores, which have more junk food, higher prices and less fruits and vegetables. This impacts finances and health. The image of Fannie Charles pushing her shopping cart six miles to the nearest grocery store about once a month seems much more like an urban image to me than a rural one. According to the study the article is based on, 75% of the stores that sell food in Orangeburg County, SC, are convenience stores. So much for the bucolic images of rural farmers living off the land. http://www.newsweek.com/id/76929

At the same time, I found this article about how San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood is finally getting a full service grocery store after a ten year battle. The issues in Bayview are largely the same as above. Bayview has limited grocery stores and lots of fast food options. People need to travel to get to large grocery stores. Here, what is different, is that this is part of the city's plan to improve the neighborhood and neighborhood health. Still, despite city funding, the major chains all said no before this agreement with Tesco, a British chain expanding into the U.S. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/12/BUI5TSD7U.DTL

Perhaps the issue isn't really rurality, but poverty. The advantage in the city is that there might be, at times, the political will to solve these kinds of problems. These problems may also be easier to solve without distance playing a part. Certainly, the neighbors in Bayview do not have to push their shopping carts six miles along unpaved paths to get to Safeway, but their healthy, economical choices are still limited. And despite the differences, I suspect the new Fresh & Easy store may find a few patrons pushing shopping carts home.

Kansas town seeks return of a grocery store, partly with crowd-funding

The New York Times today features a story about the use of crowd funding, via Kanstarter.com, to support projects like a grocery store in Plains, Kansas, population 1,146.  That would-be grocery store is the focus of Mitch Smith's report, but the bigger idea is the use of crowd funding to support rural development.  Kanstarter's motto is "Strengthening Kansas communities--one project at a time."  

As for the specifics of Plains and its quest for a grocery store, the town lost its last store more than a decade ago.  The lede for Smith's story helps put into context what is happening in Plains, across the Great Plains and Midwest, and in some other rural places, too.   

Here in southwest Kansas, where small communities have struggled since the Dust Bowl to retain businesses and residents, a town’s viability is measured by what has not yet closed. Losing a post office is considered the kiss of death. Losing a school can be a terminal diagnosis.

(For more on closures of rural U.S. Post Offices, read here, here, and here.  For more on school closures, read here, here and here.  For more on rural grocery stores, read here).

Smith quotes Jeanne Roberts, who is leading the charge to buy land for and build a new store.  

A grocery store is the heart of the town.  In small towns, it’s the social gathering place. And when you don’t have that social gathering place and you’re going outside, then you don’t feel connected.

But the data provided in the story are a sobering reminder of how big a challenge Roberts and her group have taken on.  They must raise $450,000 just to buy the land where the store would be built, and they have $400K of that secured, with the help of grants, donations, fund raisers, and tax credits.  (No mention is made of why they would not adapt existing vacant properties).  Beyond that initial goal, however, the group would need another $1 million to equip, stock and staff the store.  

The story quotes a number of residents and experts (such as professors opining on the "Walmart effect") about the likely success of the store should it open.  Even back when Plains had two stores, may folks drove the 50 mile round trip to Liberal (population 20,525) for groceries, and it's not clear that Plains residents would change given a local option.   

Of Kanstarter.com, the woman behind it, Marci Penner of Newton, Kansas (population 19,132) states:

[Small Kansas communities] don’t have a paid city manager, they don’t have a paid chamber of commerce. No one is paid to figure out how to sustain the town. Volunteers are left to figure out how to sustain the town.

Perhaps Penner is too much the optimist, having visited every town in Kansas when she was writing a guidebook.  Penner has a distinct ability to appreciate that each town's story is unique, even as so many of these places struggle with the shared challenge of viability.

Town missing local grocer

The term ‘food desert’ is often associated with urban neighborhoods lacking access to healthy food markets. These neighborhoods are ridden with corner liquor stores. This phenomenon has a lot to do with the fact that during the height of urban redevelopment in post-WWII Americas many insurance companies and city planners red lined whole communities, deeming them too risky to insure. This translated into grocery stores not willing to set up shop because they were unable to get insurance for their stores in certain neighborhoods. Unfortunately, this redlining was based on racist and classist stereotypes, the neighborhoods most affected by these redlining policies were populated by poor working class people and people of color. To this day, these policies have severely affected the communities’ abilities to access healthy food.

Many rural communities are experiencing a growing problem similar to that of the urban ‘food desert.’ As rural population numbers continue to dwindle (as discussed in this PBS article), services like the local grocer are also skipping town, leaving communities hungry for their business. According to a 2007 study by the Rural Sociological Society, lack of access to healthy food in the rural context is defined by the following

Rural areas risk becoming “food deserts” as young families move away and market pressures continue to squeeze small grocers and retailers. Food deserts are defined as counties in which all residents must drive more than 10 miles to the nearest supermarket chain or supercenter.

The 2007 study also identifies communities that are more likely to be food insecure. They are more likely to have a larger percentage of people who do not have high school degrees; higher individual and family poverty rates; greater percentage of people living in sparsely populated areas; and are more likely to be older populations. In addition, the study looked at all of U.S. counties marking 418 as food deserts, 98% located in non-metropolitan areas, most in areas with towns or cities of fewer than 10,000 people.

This NPR story looks at the case of Ogana, a Kansas town of 700 that lost its grocery store to a fire. The previous grocers decided not to rebuild, and the community was left without its sole grocer. People had to drive more than 25 miles to the nearest grocery store. No one in town had the financial capability to build a new grocery store. City officials stepped in and decided to foot the bill, an investment they claim they had to make. Mayor Gary Holthaus commented

"I feel you need to do those things in rural communities if you want to survive," Holthaus said. "You can't just ignore the issue and say it'll be alright . . . it won't be."

The city of Ogana decided to take a road less traveled, the private-public partnership to set up a business to provide this basic service for its community. This model is a familiar site in urban settings. Taking cues from the urban food security movement, the Rural Grocery Store Initiative explores various models and strategies available to bring back a thriving local grocer to small towns otherwise left without those services.

However, unlike their urban counterpart, rural communities find themselves in a unique spatial setting that begs a questioning of this concept of food desert. Does this food insecurity dilemma manifest in the same ways in both the urban and rural settings? One factor that needs to be considered in some rural communities is that they may have access to land to grow their own food or hunt. Taking into account the rising cost of food in supermarkets, families will often grow subsistence gardens or farms. The alternative could also be to turn to fish and game to supplement. Another indicator of food insecurity in rural communities is the distance a person may be from a supermarket. These markets are becoming major chains like Walmart. Should we hold food insecurity measures on the distance a person has to drive to the closest Walmart, Target, or Safeway?

People in rural areas may not have access to these supermarket chains, but it doesn't mean they should be lumped entirely under the food insecure category. As the vice president of a local bank in Ogana, Kansas, Dan Peters, indicated, investing in a local grocer (even a small business) will also ensure the livelihood of the whole community.

"People now [think], 'I have to drive and get my groceries . . . so instead of coming to the local hardware store I'll just stop at Home Depot or some hardware store out of town while I'm there," Peters said. Without a grocery store, he says, it's hard to keep residents."When you start losing population, you start losing the ability to keep your infrastructure in town going," Peters said. "Property valuations go down and it just snowballs until what's left of the town? There's not much there."

Looking at distance, mobility (as discussed in this blog post), cultural relativism, and poverty may give us better indicators to understand the lack of access to healthy food in rural areas than the same existing measures set up for urban areas. Overall, I think "food insecurity" or healthy food scarcity should be measured differently in rural areas as there is a world of a difference in why people eat what they eat or what they cannot or will not eat.

Appalachia of the West? another food desert in California's Central Valley

I have written in the past about the critical role that grocery stores play in rural communities, and of the things some places have done to save their grocery store.  Read posts here and here.  Now, Brooks Barnes reports from Mendota, California, population 11,014, about the closing of the city's Westside Grocery, owned by three generations of Riofrios, the most recent being Joseph Riofrio, age 50.

Last month, Mr. Riofrio, a City Council member and former mayor of this Central Valley town, where a street is named after his grandfather, pulled the plug--done in by a 38.7 percent unemployment rate, the foreclosure and credit crises and hoped-for economic help that never came.  "How can a community in the heart of the most abundant farmland on earth suffer this way?"  Mr. Riofrio said, fighting back tears.  

The story tells of how the store's gas pumps went by the wayside in the 1980s, as a consequence of "too much regulation," Barnes reports.  Fresh meat followed in the 1990s because too few could afford it.  Ditto fresh milk.  Most recently, Westside had stopped selling even beer because of the high cost of electricity to keep it cold.

Mendota is the self-proclaimed Canteloupe Center of the World, and now--as Riofrio's sad comment suggests--parts of it look more like a food desert, though a major supermarket and many Bodegas remain.  Plus, as some lament, the closure of Westside Grocery represents a loss in community.

By some measures, the poverty rate in this place is about 50%, and fewer than 31% of the city's residents have a high school diploma.  It's not surprising, then, that Mendota has been called the Detroit of California and the Appalachia of the West.  Arnold Schwarzenegger once held Mendota out as a poster-child for the Central Valley's drought, seeking federal relief that never came.  Like many Central Valley communities and rural places throughout California and the U.S., the city sought to attract prisons.  But when a federal prison opened in 2009, it did little to alleviate the unemployment problem in Mendota because it brought many of its employees from other facilities.

Brooks notes that the fate of Central Valley towns often rests on the availability of water and the crop that needs picking.  Previously an area where corn, bell peppers, tomatoes and melons were grown, Mendota has been especially hard hit by California's water wars, with thousands of acres left fallow because water supplies have been limited by efforts to preserve fish habitats, presumably in the Delta.  Salt buildup from flawed irrigation and drainage systems is another problem.

Rick Wartzman, an expert on the Central Valley and director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate Institute, is quoted:

There is more than one root problem, which is what makes Mendota so tricky to deal with.  ...  Immigration, water politics, labor patterns, the tendency for California to forget its middle, farm legislation--it all contributes to the downward spiral.

It strikes me that the same could be said of so many rural communities in the United States, whether farming dependent or not.  Just as California forgets its middle, so seemingly does the nation.

Rural communities and obesity: The struggle for healthy living

When the term “rural” is heard, many people think of small communities that face serious problems including access to healthcare, poverty, and transportation. However, one thing that is often overlooked is access to healthy food. The Rural Assistance Center reports:

Due to distance and limited transportation options, shopping for healthy food can prove difficult for those living in areas not served by a major grocery chain.  

 Further:

For millions of Americans—especially people living in low-income communities of color— finding a fresh apple is not so easy. What can be found, often in great abundance, are convenience stores and fast food restaurants.

Consider the following anecdote: 

Anne, a mother of a small child, decides to spend her Saturday grocery shopping. While this may be an hour or perhaps two-hour excursion for a mother living in a middle-income metropolitan area in the U.S., it is an all day trek for Anne who lives in an underdeveloped rural area.

In order for Anne to get to a grocery store she must take three buses and walk several miles just to reach the store, all with a small child. Once Anne enters the store, she is tired and her child is fussy and angry, the first thing Anne does is grab a coke and hand it to her child, simply to calm him so she can concentrate.

While shopping, Anne is limited in what she can purchase, because anything she buys has to be something that will last, processed foods and canned goods are typical purchases. Anne is further limited by the fact that she can only purchase what she can carry on the journey back, at most two bags of groceries. Lastly, Anne can only buy what she can afford, which limits her ability to buy fruits and vegetable, which are typically more expensive in rural areas.

Once Anne is finished, she is faced with several hours of travel back home. Throughout the week, Anne will be forced to supplement her groceries with foods purchased from local convenient stores and fast food restaurants that are easily accessible.

As can be seen, access to healthy foods is a major contributing factor to obesity in rural areas. This problem is not entirely the fault of poor decision-making or bad parenting; it is also a product of lack of access. Another study reported childhood obesity in urban areas was hire even when differences in diet and exercise were taken into account.

Diet alone is not the only problem in rural communities when it comes to obesity. In addition, rural communities often face problems regarding exercise. The Rural Assistance Center reports that, contrary to popular belief; rural citizens are not more active on a daily basis than citizens in urban or metropolitan areas. This is partly due, again, to access. Many rural areas have less exercise facilities, less physical education in school, and fewer parks and other outdoor recreational areas.

Although there are several ways to combat access to exercise in rural areas, many of them require money and resources these areas might not have. Often suggested are classes on nutrition and healthy cooking classes. However, in areas where healthcare is already limited, this may not be an option.

A better plan is to concentrate on solutions people in the community can implement themselves, at little or no cost. Some programs could be walking clubs, or other health related organizations put together by members of the community. Authorities and experts often report that weight loss and diet change are more successful when done in groups.

Although access to physical activity may be something that can be easily changed with awareness and at a low cost, easy access to health food is a much bigger problem facing citizens in rural communities. Providing better transportation and more grocery stores in rural areas is not a project to be undertaken lightly.

Pandemic helped Iowa community appreciate value of grocery store enough to save it

The Des Moines Register reports from Jewell, Iowa, population 1,215, in Hamilton County, in the central part of the state.  Folks in Jewell raised 235,000 to rehab and restock the store, whose predecessor, the Heartland Market, had closed in January.  Interestingly, it was the pandemic that jumpstarted efforts to re-open the store.

after the coronavirus had shut down restaurants ... volunteers began offering take-home dinners as a fundraiser most Sundays. Volunteers made pork loin sandwiches, brats, hamburgers and sausages. 

"With the grab-and-goes, donations started pouring in," said Mischelle Hardy, treasurer of the Jewell Market board, created to raise money to reopen the store.

"One Sunday, we raised $30,000," said Hardy, who owns Sew Bee It quilt shop in Jewell.
The Jewell Main Street Community's grant to match up to $20,000 in donations helped the effort. So, too, did the public health emergency. 

Hardy said the value of the local store really hit home during the outbreak. Residents were reluctant to "go to the bigger towns to get groceries," given concerns about the virus' spread, she said. And they "started coming out of the woodwork" to support the local store. 

Families began dumping $50s and $100s in the donation bucket every time they picked up a meal, Hardy said. And the Jewell Market also sold about 300 ownership shares in the store at $400 a pop.

You'll find other posts about rural grocery stores on this blog here, here, here, here, here, and here.  And here's one from when the blog was so new (2007) that I hadn't yet learned to embed links!  Searching "grocery store" will bring you to lots of other posts mentioning grocery stores in rural America, including in the era of the pandemic. 

Changes to SNAP program may have impact on rural economies

By now, most of you are probably familiar with President Donald Trump's proposal to at least partially replace the SNAP program with a food delivery service that OMB Director Mick Mulvaney has compared to "Blue Apron." There have already been many criticisms of this proposal and the fact that it will take away the right of SNAP recipients to choose their own meals and subject them to eating whatever food the government sees fit to provide them. After all, Mulvaney defended the proposal by saying that one of its benefits is that the government will be able to negotiate prices on the wholesale market. What Trump however is proposing is not an entirely new program. The federal government already delivers pre-boxed food to families on tribal reservations all over the country. Consider that the federal government has not conducted a nationally representative study of that program since 1989, a fact that is quite troubling.

One of the most overlooked aspects of this proposal is the impact that it will have on low-income economies, particularly in isolated rural communities. With the federal government at least partially assuming responsibility for delivering food to SNAP recipients, money will be lost from local economies. As I covered in a previous post, SNAP has a measurable economic impact. A SNAP recipient is likely going to spend their dollars in local stores, which employ local people. Even those who spend their dollars at big box retailers are still contributing to keeping an employer in the local community, which helps to keep people employed.

According to the Center on Budgeting and Policy Priorities, over 80 percent of SNAP authorized retailers are small businesses. For many of these small businesses, revenue generated from sales to SNAP recipients may be quite significant. In fact, we already have examples of towns whose economies have been significantly boosted by revenue generated from SNAP. According to a study published by the United States Department of Agriculture, each $5 of SNAP generated approximately $9 of community spending. After all, when a person buys something at a store, their dollars continue to work its way through the economy.  If you want a more detailed explanation, feel free to visit this link.

By fundamentally changing a program that generates positive economic outcomes for impoverished communities, the Trump Administration is setting many communities up for failure. The impact of this proposal goes beyond the people who are receiving SNAP. Consider the economic impacts of the SNAP program and how it helps local business owners employ people in the community. If SNAP is cut and fewer dollars flow into a business then the business owner may have to lay people off or even close his business. The quality of life then also goes down for people in the surrounding community, especially in rural communities. Many rural communities are not exactly awash with options so losing a neighborhood grocery store could result in substantially longer drives to do simple things like grocery shopping, which can represent an additional hurdle for low-income people. The lack of a grocery store in the community may also affect their ability to attract new businesses, which often want access to basic amenities. Further, if a retailer is thinking of expanding into a community and sees examples of prior failures, they may be more reluctant to open up a location there. The end result of all of this is a weaker rural economy and a worsening of the rural:urban gap.

As you can see, changing SNAP is akin to knocking down a domino, it starts a chain reaction that can have a potentially disastrous effect on a local economy. It is my hope that President Trump and Director Mulvaney reconsider this project but if they do not, I hope that Congress decides to not pursue it.

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part CXII): Groceries and guns

The Feb. 6, 2013 issue of the Newton County Times reports on several major happenings, with the lead story being the re-naming of Bob's AG Supermarket after its purchase by the Harp's chain, based in Springdale, Arkansas.  Bob's had operated in Jasper since 1967 and is the grocery store I grew up with, having also gone to school with Bob's children.  The good news is that Jasper still has a grocery store and residents are not forced to go to Harrison, 20 miles away, for groceries.  Read reports about the demise of rural grocery stores here and here.

In more substantive news, the Quorum Court (equivalent of a Board of Supervisors) adopted Resolution No. 13-01, "A Resolution Supporting the Individual Right to Bear Arms as Established by the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United Staes of America and Supported by the Laws of Nature and God for Survival and Self Defense."  The resolution is similar to a non-binding resolution approved by Arkansas's state lawmakers last month, urging the federal government not to limit Second Amendment rights.  Among other things, the resolution states:

WHEREAS, the individual right to keep and bear arms is fully germane to the right to life-survival and self defense and the right of liberty ...

At the same meeting the Quorum Court appropriated funds to the Sheriff's office for "computers and to help meet detention costs."  The appropriations included $3,603 from the a Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District grant for the purchase of computers that law enforcement officers can use in the field, as was phone signal boosters.  The Quorum Court also appropriated $793.48 received from the state for unclaimed property and $15,300 in general funds to the County Special Detention Fund.  The County has received $34,061.94 from the federal government for the "purpose of patrolling and rescuing on government lands, of which $4,200 is in service contracts for local fire departments, and the remainder is Tittle III budget funds for personal services.

In other news, the Arkansas Dept. of Rural Services awarded $61,000 to the Jasper Volunteer Fire Department for the purchase of a new tanker truck.

U.S. Congressman Tim Cotton has set a townhall meeting for February 9 at the Huntsville City Hall.

These boots were made for immigrants

I’ve always felt at home in a grocery store. I enjoy walking through the produce section and picking out a fresh bag of green grapes. I love meandering around the bakery to see if they have a slice of cake that peaks my interest. Grocery stores hold a special place in my heart because they help me feel a little closer to my grandparents—Chinese immigrants who owned a grocery store in Houston, Texas during the 1960s. 

My family’s story mirrors the stories of many immigrant families who move to the United States and set up shop in rural, or “rural-adjacent,” areas. In fact, immigrants made up 37% of rural growth since the year 2000. However, as noted by a blog post from December 2024 and as we’ve seen during the first month of the new presidential administration, communities and small businesses in rural areas are the ones who will be hit the hardest by new executive orders and funding freezes. These economic struggles, combined with the fact that children from rural families don’t necessarily vie for control of the family business. This isn't like in the show Succession, making it difficult for small family businesses to stay afloat as parents get older and population sizes dwindle. 

The Daily Yonder recently reported on the USDA funding freeze, quoting the House Democrats of the Agriculture and Appropriations committee’s letter to the USDA:  

To be clear, the people impacted by this funding freeze are hardworking, rural Americans and small businesses.

Immigrants own approximately 36% of accommodation and food services businesses throughout the United States. In addition to the recent need to stay vigilant about potential ICE raids, immigrant families who own small businesses must worry about their families’ livelihoods as government funding decreases. This is especially concerning in California, given the long history of immigrant-owned small businesses in the Golden State. In June of 2024, the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) highlighted its support of immigrant families moving to rural areas: 

Immigrants in California are long-settled residents powering the state’s workforce and small businesses and supporting economic growth. California’s immigrant population makes up 27 percent of the state’s total population, and nearly 10 percent of those individuals reside in rural regions.

In 2024, California increased funding for local governments to expand immigrant integration in rural areas. GO-Biz’s Senior Deputy Director for Global and Strategic Program Planning and External Affairs, Emily Desai, stated: 

We know there are unique challenges in reaching and supporting immigrant communities in the underserved parts of our state. These grants represent our commitment to empowering local governments to foster economic mobility and social inclusion among California’s immigrant populations, no matter where they reside.

Historically, small businesses in rural areas, including those owned by both local and immigrant families, had to rely solely on the support of their own community. My grandparents, for example, made their living from customers in the neighborhood and word-of-mouth. Likewise, restaurants like the Chicago Cafe in Woodland, have remained community staples for decades because of local support. 

In January of 2024, Professor Jack Chin led a research project that focused on the Chicago Cafe, believed to be California’s oldest Chinese restaurant. According to the article by Carla Meyer of the UC Davis news-service, Chicago Cafe has operated since at least 1910 and has been run by the Fong family for three generations. The restaurant was opened by the current owner, Andy Fong’s, great grandfather, who immigrated to Woodland, California from China’s Guangdong province. 

In 2018, an article by the Center for American Progress highlighted how immigrants and their families have slowed the decline of rural populations over the past few decades, noting: 

[M]any rural communities are either experiencing a slowdown in their rate of population decline or a resurgence as immigrants and their families, as well as refugees, move into these communities in search of opportunity. In many rural communities, these new residents open small businesses, provide critically needed health care services, and supply labor for meatpacking plants, small manufacturers, dairies, fruit and vegetable farms, and other enterprises.

Unfortunately, immigrant families’ ability to slow the rural population decline doesn’t always mean that their children will stay in the same place. Last week, a Patch article reported that Chicago Cafe is up for sale. With the third-generation owners’ children transitioning to different careers, the article quoted The Sacramento Bee, stating: 

Paul and Nancy Fong decided to sell their business after UC Davis professor Gabriel “Jack” Chin as part of a research project determined Chicago Cafe could be the oldest Chinese restaurant open in the country, yielding a spike in media coverage and customers that proved challenging for the aging couple and their one employee…

Chicago Cafe’s sale reminds me a lot of my grandparents’ story. One of the reasons I grew up hearing stories about my grandparents’ store, rather than getting to experience it myself, is because the land was taken over by eminent domain in the 1980s. The store was later transformed into a state highway. Still, I will never forget the pride that I saw in my Grandpa’s face when he told me about the lifelong friendships he made with customers of the store. Because of their small business, my grandparents were able to integrate into their new community and raise my dad and his siblings. 

By opening small businesses and adding to the available workforce in rural areas, immigrants have become indispensable in these communities as they provide vital services and delicious food. Hopefully we can keep this tradition going as small business owners struggle with ongoing economic, social, and personal concerns. 

Roundabouts as sources of community for France's rural, low-income "yellow vests"

The New York Times is back today with more coverage of the "yellow vest" movement in France and, in particular, the government's new strategy of denying them access to the common ground that is the roundabout or traffic circle.  The headline is "Denied Use of Roundabouts, Can Yellow Vests Stay United, Visible and Viable?"  The yellow vests have been congregating in the center of traffic circles around France for a few months, often setting up tents there.  This locale afforded them visibility and, according to Alissa J. Rubin's latest story, also community and, literally, a place to meet. 

Rubin focuses in this piece on the isolation that low-income people often feel, in part because the lack of money keeps them even from going to the local cafe or bar; they cannot afford to pay for what is on offer.  This problem is aggravated in rural communities where post offices and grocery stores have closed so that people also do not interact with each other in such institutions.   Here's a salient excerpt from Rubin's story:

Much like the shops and post offices of the past — where people traded stories about their miseries and the microeconomics of their daily lives, the roundabouts provided a physical meeting place.

Rubin quotes Bruno Laziou of Les Andelys, in Normandy, which is the focus of her story:

Just a couple of decades ago, in every village there were little stores, little services, like the post office, the little grocery store; today the villages are dormitories. ... Nothing is open anymore in my little village, other than the mayor’s office.

Rubin continues:  

The use of the traffic circles as public space speaks to the fragmentation and accompanying isolation that has come to define much of life in the hinterlands of France, where the Yellow Vest movement took hold.  

As with various other pieces I've read about the yellow vests, Rubin goes into considerable detail about what people earn, as well as what the French social safety net provides.  The latter is not as generous as most people think--the Euro equivalent of about $119 per child, for example. 

As in the United States, those who are hurting most are arguably the low-income workers--those who could be considered the working poor.  They earn too much to qualify for many government benefits but too little to afford a comfortable lifestyle.  Among those featured are a hair dresser and a teacher. 

A prior post about the yellow vests is here.  And this blog features many posts over the years on the impact of school, post office and grocery store closures on rural places.   

Rural children and guns (Part IV): Hunting to eat

"In rural America... people hunt to eat." - Francine Shaw, director of Kids and Guns (a documentary exploring the world of children and guns)

Gun Ownership and Hunting in Rural America

There is a common association between rurality and hunting, whether it is for food (as will be explored in this post) or for sport (which will be addressed in my next post). Additionally, many gun advocates cite hunting as a reason for continued access to firearms. However, according to a PEW research survey completed in 2014, 48% of gun owners said that the main reason they owned a gun was for protection, while 32% stated that they owned a gun for hunting. These results show a change in the justifications Americans provide for owning firearms as in a 1999 survey, 49% said they owned guns for hunting while 26% said they owned a gun for protection. This change may show not only a difference in reasoning for gun ownership but also a potential departure from hunting.

In terms of hunting's general connection to food in rural places, there is a relatively easy connection to make: rural people "live in the countryside where animals are raised for food. When [they] take a walk into the woods to shoot a rabbit or deer, it seems little different than harvesting cattle or poultry."

Rural Children Hunting for Food

There are a multitude of reasons given for why children should be taught how to hunt. While many of them revolve around hunting being a recreational sport, there are also still those who believe children should learn to hunt as a means to eat. There appear to be three main thoughts espoused as to why children should be taught to hunt for food.

Self-Reliance and Necessity

The first area of thought argues that hunting allows for self-reliance and can ensure that the children, no matter what happens, know how to obtain food and feed themselves. This idea of self-reliance is a theme that is often seen in rural and remote communities who either do not wish to, or are unable to, rely on governmental resources. This area of thought also ties into another reason for teaching children how to hunt, cost savings. While hunting still costs money (in terms of start up costs and licenses) eating meat that you kill may help make eating meat more affordable. Therefore, children who hunt can act as providers for their family in some manner. Or, even if children and families do not hunt because they need to, they will sometimes donate their excess meat to food banks and other charitable organizations to help feed others in their communities.

Additionally, this conception of hunting is supported by potential necessity and the desire to ensure that children throughout their lives will not have to rely on others for sustenance. In 2014, about 40% of families living below the federal poverty line were food insecure (meaning they do not have enough to eat) and households that had children or were single parent households were particularly at risk. Over 50% of all food-insecure households are outside of metropolitan areas. Food deserts, areas that lack a grocery store, farmers' market and access to nutritious food, are a problem for rural Americans, especially in the south. For many rural individuals, grocery stores or other sources of nutritious food can be hundreds of miles and multiple hours away. Therefore, hunting for food may be a means to supplement food, particularly protein rich food, when it is otherwise scare or hard to come by.

Teaching Children About the Food Cycle

The second area of thought argues that hunters are actually conservationists and that by exposing children to hunting, they can be taught about the "balance of animals in the space that hosts them and the idea of taking only what you need." Hunting is also said to allow children to gain an understanding of the food cycle by connecting the meat they are eating with the animal. Teaching these lessons to children seems to be particularly important to those living in rural communities who often live closer to the "wilderness" where these animals live or who may otherwise be involved in food production on family or commercial farms.

When discussing this issue, the articles I read often also included a section about being prepared for children to cry or express other such emotions when they watch an animal die. Most of the articles were clear to advise that the children should not be shamed for this display of emotions, but should instead be told about the "circle of life" and how the "animal gave up its life to sustain" the lives of the hunters. This area of thought is also supported by those who wish to bypass the mass production and slaughter of animals.

People who support this area of thought also tend to espouse the health benefits of eating what you kill. The argument around this often involves food safety, as not eating commercial meat may allow individuals to avoid artificial preservatives, hormones, and antibiotics.

Though I am still not sure I support children hunting (especially if they are not even a teenager yet or if they are going out alone) but my research for this post has made it clear to me that I likely feel this way because I have never had to worry where my next meal will come from and have always simply bought my meat from the grocery store. However, between my research for these posts and other videos involving animal slaughter we have seen in class, I have decided to give up meat for awhile. This was likely not the point of the articles I read that championed teaching children about the food cycle (and I do think this is an incredibly important lesson for everyone to learn), but I need a break for a bit.

Coronavirus in rural America (Part XVII): Who is going to feed us?

A great deal of news coverage about food and how it reaches consumers is on offer during this coronavirus pandemic. 

The first story I want to highlight is this one, by Frank Martin for NPR, suggesting that the supply chain may be "loosening."  The idea is that because folks are stocking up on on food and other necessities, they won't continue to need truckers--at least not for several months--once their need is met.  Here's a key excerpt:

But David Ross, a logistics analyst at Stifel Financial Corp., said that after weeks of consumers stuffing so many groceries into pantries and freezers, the logistics industry might soon have to slam on the brakes. 

Ross comments:

At some point, folks will have all of the ground beef they need until July, all of the toilet paper they will need until November.  And over the coming weeks, the demand for that should drop off significantly.

Martin's story continues:

Then, truckers who have been busting their humps for weeks trying to fill orders could see demand evaporate.

Ross and others predicted a rough year for the trucking and railroad industries this year even before the coronavirus upended the world. Now their prognosis is worse. 

On Monday, Beaver Express Services, an Oklahoma-based trucking firm that had survived 77 years in the logistics business, called it quits. Its owner, Mike Stone, said the coronavirus helped whip up a "perfect storm" that crushed the company. Ross expects more stories like this in the deep recession that the pandemic is expected to trigger. 

"Any time consumer confidence is cracked and people stop buying stuff, you're not going to be moving a lot of goods," Ross said.

That story, now a few weeks old, is not exclusively about food, but it is about one of the ways that food (along with other goods) reaches consumers. 

The second--and equally sobering story--is this NPR report about the Trump administration trying to suppress wages for farm laborers.  An excerpt from the report by Franco Ordonez follows:

New White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is working with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to see how to reduce wage rates for foreign guest workers on American farms, in order to help U.S. farmers struggling during the coronavirus, according to U.S. officials and sources familiar with the plans. 

Opponents of the plan argue it will hurt vulnerable workers and depress domestic wages.
The measure is the latest effort being pushed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help U.S farmers who say they are struggling amid disruptions in the agricultural supply chain compounded by the outbreak; the industry was already hurting because of President Trump's tariff war with China. 

"The administration is considering all policy options during this unprecedented crisis to ensure our great farmers are protected, and President Trump has done and will do everything he can to support their vital mission," a White House official told NPR. 

The nation's roughly 2.5 million agricultural laborers have been officially declared "essential workers" as the administration seeks to ensure that Americans have food to eat and that U.S. grocery stores remain stocked. Workers on the H-2A seasonal guest-worker program are about 10% of all farmworkers.

The third story I'll highlight is only moderately more uplifting.  It is by Kim Severson of the New York Times about how organic and artisanal farmers are finding ways forward as their typical customers--restaurants and patrons of farmers markets--are lost to them.  Here's an excerpt focusing on California, though the story touches on small-scale farmers in New York and Kentucky, too. 

In the spirit of the sustainable food movement’s roots, some farmers have decided to go hyperlocal. Randy Stannard runs Root 64 Farm with his partner, Sarah McCamman, on an acre of land in Sacramento. They were planning to sell their early crop of radishes and arugula to local restaurants and at a farmers’ market. The virus put an end to that. 

Instead, last Saturday they opened a little drive-through farm stand in front of their house, and are raising money with others in their community to provide 20 boxes of produce a week through December to needy families whose children attended their neighborhood elementary school. 

“We could sell everything to people who are well-off and would drive miles to come here,” he said. “But we want to make sure we get really good, high-quality food to people who need it the most and live nearby.”

A contrast to that story is this Wall Street Journal story from April 9 about farmers dumping milk and eggs that they can no longer sell to restaurant patrons.

And to that WSJ story from April 9, the New York Times responded with this on April 11, by David Yaffe-Bellany and Michael Corkery, for which part of the very depressing headline is "Food Waste in the Pandemic":

After weeks of concern about shortages in grocery stores and mad scrambles to find the last box of pasta or toilet paper roll, many of the nation’s largest farms are struggling with another ghastly effect of the pandemic. They are being forced to destroy tens of millions of pounds of fresh food that they can no longer sell. 

The closing of restaurants, hotels and schools has left some farmers with no buyers for more than half their crops. And even as retailers see spikes in food sales to Americans who are now eating nearly every meal at home, the increases are not enough to absorb all of the perishable food that was planted weeks ago and intended for schools and businesses. 

The amount of waste is staggering. The nation’s largest dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America, estimates that farmers are dumping as many as 3.7 million gallons of milk each day. A single chicken processor is smashing 750,000 unhatched eggs every week.

The Minnesota Star-Tribune's story on the phenomenon is somewhat more optimistic, reporting that Minnesota dairy farmers are not (yet) dumping milk.

At the other end of the food supply chain are grocery stores, and reports are starting to emerge, including stories here and here, about their employees dying from COVID19.

The last story I'll highlight in this post is about the Trump administration backing off new,  tougher eligibility rules for SNAP (formerly food stamps), in light of the severe economic downturn.  That's a relief.  One could debate the wisdom of work requirements in the best of times (as I have done here), but there's surely no doubt that work requirements make no sense when the unemployment rate is as high as it suddenly is.

The "neo-rural" Part I: the new generation moving into the hinterlands

I have a person very near and dear to me. Let's call him my kin. He is a prime example of what can be called the "neo-rural". A few have made attempts at defining the neo-rural, but I'd like to broaden the scope of those definitions a bit. I think we are on the cusp of a whole new generation of folks who are moving to rurality. I'd love to know exactly who these people are, and what inspires their love of the country. This post is a modest beginning to this inquiry.

One of the groups of people who fit into the "neo-rural" are "modern homesteaders," which my kin most certainly is. I recently interviewed him, during which he decided to go by the pseudonym Bill (or, sardonically, "Bill Damn", when he has to throw down). He wants to keep his rural home and his name unpublicized because there are some grey areas with regard to legality where he lives, and honestly, he'd like to keep it that way. Bill's rural reflections on the law will be the majority of Part II of this post.

To get to where Bill lives, you drive a few miles out of a lovely small town with a population less than 6,000. The town is a tourist destination, but remains remote. Then, you go over a bridge, take a sharp turn and brace yourself for more than six miles of dirt roads that are unmaintained with the exception of the maintenance that local homesteaders do. Bill doesn't feel that far out. He told me:

Where I’m at is kind of a nice position to be in because it’s extremely rural and out miles of dirt roads and beyond the reach of the power lines but I’m still only, like 30 minutes from a grocery store, which is nice.

Thirty minutes from the grocery store sounds pretty far-flung, in my opinion. I asked Bill if he lacked services way out there, and he said that was definitely a factor of his life. When a friend got injured once on his property, Bill had to lift her into his truck and haul-ass over the dirt and gravel out to the paved road - the ambulance wasn't coming anywhere near the acres he owns. It sounded harrowing.

However, that bit about the land is one that deserves some underscoring: Bill owns land. Acres of it. He owns several parcels around where he built his house (with his own hands), and several parcels in various other places down the dirt road where he lives. Bill is just 31, and he owns more land than I will likely ever own in my life. He is part of a movement around sustainable off-the-grid houses. He built his house (and many others) from the ground up. House-building is both Bill's passion and his livelihood. He flies all over the world building sustainable housing, and has built houses and structures in Thailand, Cambodia, Australia, South America, Canada, and more.

The desire to move out into rurality isn't new, but living and building like Bill --i.e.off-the-grid "homesteading"-- has been gaining traction in pop-culture circles lately. For two examples, check out recent books "The Unsettlers" and "Modern Homesteading". People who have gotten tired of relying on corporations and government entities for services can find a myriad of articles that offer "21 Tips For Quitting Your Job, Going Off Grid and Living The Dream", "The Secrets of Living with No Money", "Lessons from Off-Grid Living" and more.

There is a lot of overlap with Bill's work and the tiny house movement, and he's also involved in the straw-bale house and pounded-tire construction communities. The electricity at his own house comes from his solar panels, which give him what he considers "oodles of power" to run his wifi, laptop, lamps, blender and bass-amplifier-doubling-as-sound-system. However, his solar panel-and-battery setup slightly limit his ability to live a "modern" technological lifestyle. No hairdryers allowed at Bill's, and you can't use all of the above at once. Bill Damn's house has a composting toilet, makes its own heat through passive solar heating, and all the water is harvested rain from the house's ingenious roof. Thus, the house entirely takes care of itself.

With the rise of AirBnB in rural places and the concept of "glamping," Bill's house now also pays for itself. If you ask him, Bill'd tell you that he feels his house actually takes care of him better than many humans in his life have. He says this with love in his heart, and when you listen to him, you realize how much of a modern cowboy he is: in his solitude, in his love of the land, and in his powerful self-sufficiency. This romanticism might seem a little gauche (especially since some urban circles have "practically fetishized the idea of building humble rural retreats"), but you can't argue that it is a remarkable life he leads.

Of course there are tough aspects about living as far out as Bill lives. As indicated above, getting services is a struggle: ambulance service has been a challenge for several small towns across the nation recently (examples here and here). In addition, the struggles of community-building in rurality and the dangers of substance abuse have become sticks in Bill's craw, so-to-speak. I asked him about this, to which he responded:

I sort of struggle sometimes because I feel like I’m one of the only ones out there who really wants [community] and wants to make it a better place, and a lot of people kind of go out there and settle for less. They’re comfortable being more cutoff and reclusive and, you know, there’s a lot of alcoholism, and some . . . heavier stuff as well.

The "heavier stuff" that Bill mentions might be a reference to rising methamphetamine use in rural communities (noted on this blog here, and here). He might also be intimating the rural opioid epidemic, which has recently been called "this generation's AIDS crisis." Fellow bloggers have also drawn attention to this heartbreaking issue's impact on rurality here and here. This upsets Bill, but the best he can do is look for other folk who are not part of that lifestyle -- who are more onboard with his goals for country living. The struggle of building community in rurality is an age-old one, but Bill has begun to discover new ways to create a network due to the house-building and subsistence-living communities that he has developed. He says that in recent years, community is improving out where he lives. He notes that "there’s starting to be some more younger folk coming out and building structures instead of dragging out trailers and starting junk yards."

Despite all the challenges of living in rurality, Bill Damn represents a growing contingent of Americans who find it to be the only way to live. Indeed, as of 2013, over 180,000 families lived off the grid in the US, and it appears that due to revolutions in battery technology and solar energy, it will only get easier to do so in the next quarter-century.

I asked Bill exactly what kept him out in the "hinterlands," and he said that rurality is where he feels closest to home. He observed that in the beginning, striving for his rural life was a reaction against some aspects of modern urban life that he felt were unhealthy:

We’re constantly surrounded with a whole lot of distractions these days that kind of keep us separated from nature – speaking in a cliché, but it’s true, you know? Our existence is extremely disconnected from nature and from the natural phenomenon of the earth. We’re constantly sheltering ourselves from it and finding other things to look at, and even just finding things that keep us from connecting with one another.

Instead, Bill Damn lives deeply rooted in the earth, and he constantly strives to find new ways to connect to his rural livelihood and to reduce distraction. His life is built on finding more peace and harmony despite the craziness that he sees in modern society. "I guess I just feel more at peace when there’s less going on around me", he mused. It seems to me that he represents thousands of others in our nation who live by exactly the same sentiment.

Closing up shop in rural America (Part I)

The New York Times ran a story last week, dateline San Luis, Colorado, about a "mom and pop" grocery store--the oldest in Colorado (because San Luis is the oldest town in the state).  The long-time owners of the story are in their 70s and want to retire, but no one has stepped up to buy the store, to take over its operation.  Here's an excerpt from the story, "Who Wants to Run that Mom-and-Pop Market?  Almost No One" that puts it in national perspective.  

Across the country, mom-and-pop markets are among the most endangered of small-town businesses, with competition from corporations and the hurdles of timeworn infrastructure pricing owners out. In Minnesota, 14 percent of nonmetropolitan groceries have closed since 2000. In Kansas, more than 20 percent of rural markets have disappeared in the past decade. Iowa lost half of its groceries between 1995 and 2005.

* * *

The phenomenon is a “crisis” that is turning America’s breadbaskets into food deserts, said David E. Procter, a Kansas State University professor whose work has focused on rural food access, erasing a bedrock of local economies just as rural communities face a host of other problems.

* * * 

[I]n this ranch town, where the closest reliably stocked market is 40 miles away, the threat to R & R Market raises questions about the community’s very survival.

This matter of community survival is a topic of prior blog posts, some of which are here, here and here.  The Center for Rural Affairs wrote about the issue here, with links to earlier related entries and sources on their website.

Julie Turkewitz, the journalist who wrote the story, quotes Bob Rael, director of the county's economic development council, 

If that little store closes, it’s going to be catastrophic. Reality is going to set in. Who let this happen?

That's an interesting quote, not least because I'm not sure what any private individual has the power to do about the closure.  So who might/will be to blame if it does come to pass?

The population of Costilla County, the ninth least populous in Colorado, is 3,524, and it lies on the border with New Mexico. Turkewitz makes this poignant observation about the place:

To visit San Luis is to enter a world that has persisted despite, or perhaps because of, the most extreme of circumstances.

* * *  

In town, residents still speak the Spanish of their ancestors. And on the outskirts, fields of alfalfa sip from an irrigation ditch that those settlers dug by hand. 

This is high desert country, where a few inches of rain fall in a year, winters dip far below zero and the big city nearby is Alamosa, population 9,918. There is no bank, no gas line, and the electricity sometimes goes out for hours.

Turkewitz also explains that taking on a business like a grocery store is a high risk venture, especially with the Trump administration proposing major cuts to programs that support rural America, including SNAP (food stamps) and small-business loans.  Thirty percent of the county's residents receive SNAP.

This is a beautifully written story with lots of historical, economic and political context.  The photographs are exquisite, some quite poignant.  

I'm going to return soon to the topic of business closures--or at least businesses for sale--in rural America.  In that future post I'm going to draw on a recent drive through California's Gold Rush country (Hwy 49--named for the forty-niners--through the northern Sierra) and the many for-sale signs I saw there.  

Oglala Sioux file suit against beer distributors

A student called to my attention last month a law suit the Oglala Sioux have filed in federal court against Anheuser-Busch and some other large breweries, along with four stores that sell beer in tiny Whiteclay, Nebraska, population 14. Turns out, more than 13,000 cans of beer and malt liquor are sold in Whiteclay every day, and the reason lies across the South Dakota state line: the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The New York Times reports on the lawsuit today, and the headline for Timothy Williams's story sums up the situation well, "At Tribe's Door, A Hub of Beer and Heartache."

The Pine Ridge Reservation has been "dry" (an alcohol prohibition area) since the 1970s, but a devastating alcohol problem persists there. The Oglala Sioux blame the beer distributors, accusing them of "encouraging the illegal purchase, possession, transport and consumption of alcohol on the reservation" where "[f]etal alcohol syndrome, fatal drunken driving accidents and beer-fueled murders have cast a pall over Pine Ridge for decades." The Sioux are seeking $500 million for costs that the tribe has borne for health care, law enforcement and social services linked to chronic alcohol consumption. The suit also seeks to limit the amount of beer that stores in Whiteclay can sell. The complaint alleges that the defendants "know that they are selling alcohol to people who have no permissible place to consume it, and who are smuggling it onto the reservation for illegal use and resale."

Williams describes the devastation that is Whiteclay:

After the lawsuit was filed, Whiteclay's two-lane road, Highway 87, bustled with traffic driving to and from the beer stores. Dozens of people in various states of inebriation wandered along the road. Other men and women were passed out in front of abandoned buildings. A Hank Williams, Jr. 45, "I'd Rather Be Gone," was among the detritus along the road, as well as empty liquor bottles, a copy of "Tabernacle Hymns No. 3," soiled clothing and a dead puppy.

Williams also explains some of the law enforcement limitations related to the easily available alcohol. First, the Sheridan County sheriff's department employs only five deputies, and the department is based 19 miles away in the county seat, Rushville. Those five deputies serve a county with just 5,469 residents spread over 2,446 square miles. That's a population density of just 2.2 persons/square mile. The Sheridan County sheriff says his deputies patrol Whiteclay two or three times a day, but with budget cuts, they cannot expect to do more.

Meanwhile, across the state line, the Pine Ridge Reservation is roughly the size of Connecticut, but it, too, is sparsely populated, with just 45,000 residents. The tribal police department has just 38 officers, a drop from 101 just six years ago. Ninety percent of the criminal cases in the tribe's court system are linked to alcohol, as are a similar percentage of illnesses among tribal members. Tribal police made 20,000 alcohol-related arrests last year. On the Pine Ridge Reservation, any sign of alcohol use, e.g., slurred speech, walking funny, can get a person arrested.

Williams shares an anecdote that highlights the inefficacy of the various law enforcement agencies in this place that he characterizes as "lawless." Williams describes a gathering of Sioux drinking in Whiteclay; one shouts obscenities as a Nebraska State Patrol officer passes. "The trooper slammed on the brakes and shouted obscenities back, threatening to call in the sheriff to 'clear this town.' An hour later, there was no sheriff, and the crowds had grown thicker."

Williams touches on another rural angle in this story--the role of the beer stores in Whiteclay's survival. In addition to the beer stores, the town has two grocery stores and an auto body repair shop. Williams quotes Victor Clarke, the owner of one of the grocery stores, which does not sell alcohol:

People don't want Whiteclay to go away ... The state of Nebraska doesn't want Whiteclay to go away because it allows problems to be isolated in this one little place. You hear people in the towns around here, saying, 'We don't want these guys in our town.'

Clarke makes the point that if the Sioux weren't getting their beer in Whiteclay, they could get it in any number of other places an hour away. By permitting the sale of unlimited beer in Whiteclay, the problem is cabined and concentrated.

This seems to me a truly pitiful effort on the part of all of the governments involved to address a complex and entrenched problem.