Links: Sustainability and rural communities

The Center for Rural Affairs, located in Walthill, Nebraska, works to strengthen small businesses, family farms and ranches, and rural communities. Issues of particular interest include corporate farming and market access; entrepreneurship and economic development; agriculture policy, research policy, and conservation; high value markets; beginning farmer and rancher opportunities; and rural schools.
An interview with Marty Strange, the center's co-founder, is available on the USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Program's website. Responsibility and connectedness, Strange argues, are the most important assets of rural culture. In a practical tone, he says, "I’m an insufferable incrementalist. I think we progress one farmer at a time. I’m afraid that isn’t very visionary, but I do think that’s how things really happen: We don’t need to define what sustainability is so much as we need to work at developing a system that lets us get closer to it. We simply have too far to go to define our goals precisely." Strange is the author of Family Farming: A New Economic Vision, which examines the role of U.S. farm policy in undermining the family farm, but he is not afraid to criticize family farmers for their own sins.