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A New Narrative for the Southern Rural Development Center

A New Narrative for the Southern Rural Development Center. J. Matthew Fannin Associate Professor LSU AgCenter and LSU A&M January 22, 2014. Who am I?. Background. Southern native: Rural North Louisiana (Jackson Parish) Local Influences

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A New Narrative for the Southern Rural Development Center

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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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