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Redefining Rural Development Narratives for Sustainable Communities

Explore the evolution of rural America's identity crisis and the need for a new narrative that emphasizes overlooked agriculture, micropolitan regions, and wealth creation frameworks for sustainable rural development. Discover the role of agriculture in promoting sustainable places and leveraging household income in Southern rural areas.

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Redefining Rural Development Narratives for Sustainable Communities

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  1. A New Narrative for the Southern Rural Development Center J. Matthew FanninAssociate ProfessorLSU AgCenter and LSU A&MJanuary 22, 2014

  2. Who am I?

  3. Background • Southern native: Rural North Louisiana • (Jackson Parish) • Local Influences • Elementary and High School: Agriculture and Manufacturing Dep. Economies • Undergraduate and Graduate School: Non-Ag. Rural Development / Public Sector • Education: B.S. and M.S. Ag. Economics – LSUPh.D.: Ag. Economics- Univ of Missouri

  4. Why a New Narrative? • Rural America is facing identity crisis • What does rural America think about itself? • How does it market itself to an increasingly urbanized America? • SRDC faces evolutionary questions • How do we define our selfundernew leadership? • Who are our constituencies?

  5. Example: Metropolitan Counties, 2010

  6. Louisiana Metro Areas 1970

  7. Louisiana Metro Areas 2010

  8. Challenges with the Old Geography • Sweeps up increasing geography – portions with sizable “rural characteristics” • Researchers lose “rural signal” provided for scholarship – forced to alternative definitions • Researchers/policy makers focused on metro/urban creating homogeneous description (e.g. Brookings Institution) neglecting rural components

  9. Changing the Narrative What should the new narrative include?

  10. Narrative • Attributes • Broaden “rural” rather than “narrow” • Sustaining people in place • Build evidence to support narrative • “Overlooked Agriculture” a part of narrative

  11. Broadening Rural • The “lost rural” • In the South, the expanding “metropolitan” has 13,901,067 rural metro residents (2010) • 13.19% of Southern population • 53.80% of Southern rural population • What do we bring to the table for this constituency?

  12. The “Under-focused” rural • Micropolitan regions • New category created from 2000 census • Functional region under-studied by rural scholars • Research: • Are they distinct? • How do they compare to non-micro rural and metro? • Micropolitan leadership: Captains of the rural renaissance?

  13. Micro Areas 2010

  14. Overlooked Role of Agriculture • Agriculture and rural constituencies have interesting recent history • Rural Ag. vs Rural non-Ag. • Stylized facts • Federal funding • Historical institutions and practices • Rural non-Ag. and rural Ag. need each other in 21st century

  15. Overlooked Role of Agriculture • A broadening rural constituency needs to leverage agriculture to promote sustainable places • Role in wealth and health • Alternative to default urban choice for potential residents

  16. Overlooked Role of Agriculture • Treat agriculture as part of a portfolio of household production • Historically consistent with much of Southern Agriculture (e.g. beef cattle) • Emerging consistency seen from cotton vs alternatives in row crops • Consistent with emerging local and alternative attribute production systems

  17. Overlooked Role of Agriculture • Diversify agricultural research activities around theme as part-time operations that compliment household income • Focus on geographic opportunities throughout regions of the south • Incorporate risk • Extension should provide decision support through online complimentary ag. opportunities in regions and show proof of concept on ground

  18. Defining SRDC for the Future • Constituency • Rural places and people • Land grant universities and their faculty • Yes and Yes

  19. Defining SRDC for the Future • What is SRDC’s niche? • Direct objective rural scholarship (research and extension) • Define and test rural conceptual frameworks • Develop evidence base and indicators • Provide decision support • Conduct rural policy analysis • Training future rural scholars/practitioners • Leadership in defining rural trends and future rural narratives • Supporting land grant mission through support of its faculty • SRDC does NOT have an advocacy role

  20. Rural Conceptual Frameworks • Wealth Creation Framework (Pender, Weber, Johnson and Fannin In Press) • Focus on wealth assets (capital) • Place vs people • Public vs private • Local vs non-local ownership • Health (writ large) • Human • Economic • Fiscal • Social Pender, John, Thomas Johnson, Bruce Weber, and J. Matthew Fannin. Eds. (In Press). Rural Wealth Creation. Routledge Press.

  21. Rural Indicators and Evidence Base • Measurement based on conceptual frameworks • Wealth indicators • Returns to wealth • Defining “healthy” indicator thresholds • Existing best practice • New research • Collect evidence by codifying case studies • Define measurables • Include context • Highlight best practice

  22. Provide Decision Support • Develop research that links indicators to decision tools • Simplify, Simplify • Minimize undo input effort by communities, research/extension personnel • Use facilitation to harmonize and narrow differences in goals and objectives • Focus on generalizable decision tools • Use technology and co-brand as much as possible

  23. Rural Policy Analysis • Focus on southern policy challenges • Implications of federal on south • State and local comparative analysis

  24. Community Development Extension in an Internet Age • Extension should go “Back to the Future” • Seaman Knapp focused on incorporating technology in decision making • We should focus on incorporating technology in community development decision making • Focus more on human input into community decision models Source: McCafee. E. 2013 “Big Data’s Biggest Challenge? Convincing People NOT to Trust Their Judgment.” Harvard Business Review Blog Network. December 9. http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/12/big-datas-biggest-challenge-convincing-people-not-to-trust-their-judgment/

  25. SRDC Vision – Land Grant Universities • 1862 Land Grants • Persuade administrators increase RD research FTEs in academic departments with historic “rural” mission • Promote RD as essential input and leadership for inter-departmental research programming • Promote “rural household” as a unit of analysis for production agriculture oriented departments and faculty • Expand RD mission into land grant university’s non-land grant colleges

  26. SRDC Vision – Land Grant Universities • 1890 Land Grants • Increase expansion of service mission to more rural places • Minority-focused municipalities/counties • Minority-focused rural regions within metropolitan areas • Expand household focused research/extension success to rural places • Fiscal health (Brown, Fannin, and Detre 2013) • Disaster resilience (EDEN, Franze and Fannin, 2011) • Promote and feed small-limited resource farm success into rural household decision tools Brown, Kayla, J. Matthew Fannin, and Joshua D. Detre. 2013. “Fiscal Health Revisited: Evaluating County Government Finances as Local Government Vulnerabilities Increase.” Presentation Made at Annual Meetings of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, August 4th-6th, Washington, DC. Franze, Carol A. and J. Matthew Fannin. 2011. Community Decision Support to Local Governments in Budget Planning Under Coastal Risk. First Edition. Extension Program Manual. Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant, Louisiana Sea Grant, and LSU AgCenter. August.

  27. SRDC Programming – Proposed • SRDC co-brand and expand Financial Disaster Resiliency Programs (Research and Extension) • Research: Identifying research-supported healthy thresholds of public sector financial capacity given a place’s financial vulnerability • Extension: Enhance existing decision support tool for measuring local government financial vulnerability and capacity • Expand extension educator training programs beyond Gulf Coast • Develop collection of best practice narratives for evidence base on financial disaster resiliency

  28. SRDC Programming – Proposed • Regional wealth indicator series (wealth creation framework) • Start with public sector wealth • Research: Identify factors leading to southern U.S. public sector bankruptcies and fiscal stress • Extension: Development of empirical indicators of fiscal health of Southern U.S. counties

  29. SRDC Programming - Proposed • Deliver co-branded indicators between SRDC and land grants • Indicators delivered in three dimensions to three audience types • Generalize template to have land grant faculty disseminate other geographically diverse region wide indicators across platform

  30. Challenges to SRDC Director and MSU Faculty Position • Challenge: “Managing busy-overhead work / Investment in writing” • Address – Compartmentalize overhead time • Challenge: “Advising undergraduate and graduate students” • Address - Develop initial in-person relationship; move to alternative interaction methods with value-added components

  31. Challenges to SRDC Director and MSU Faculty Position • Challenge – “Maintaining disciplinary support/service” • Address – Push SRDC research/outreach scholarship as much as possible to disciplinary outlets • Challenge – “Mentoring junior faculty” • Address – Involve in grant proposal

  32. Challenges to SRDC Director and MSU Faculty Position • Challenge – “Extensive travel schedule” • Address – Increase intensity of travel effort – learn how to say “no” when not mission critical / leverage technology effectively

  33. Conclusion • Broaden rural • Engage larger cohort of scholars/educators • Focus on decision making

  34. Conclusion • How “new” is the new narrative? • Fostering civic-minded communities • Building Economically Vibrant Communities • Enhancing Distressed Communities • Sometimes we need to refresh the brand to deliver the same story • Paraphrase from Steve Deller, University of Wisconsin, after discussion on differences between Community Economic Development and Rural Wealth Creation themes

  35. Thank You! mfannin@agcenter.lsu.edu 225.578.0346

  36. Image Credits • Page 2: http://www.demacmedia.com • Page 4: http://www.apta.com/members/memberprogramsandservices/advocacyandoutreachtools/tellingourstory/Pages/default.aspx • Page 4: http://www.johngarvins.com • Page 10: http://www.ourkittery.com • Page 15: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com (ag) http:/www.chronicle.com (small town rural) • Page 16: http://123rf.com • Page 19: http://knoxcounty.org • Page 21: http://new-hire.com • Page 22: http://www.acornsys.com

  37. Page 24: http://worldcampus.psu.edu (US) and http://commons.wikimedia.org (MS)

  38. Intersection of State/Regional Initiatives

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