rural

Dozens of people gathered in Monticello, Ky., on Wednesday to break ground on a project in which five local families began the process of building their own homes.

Great partnerships can lead to great projects – and this event highlighted several strategic partners that worked incredibly hard to make it happen, including USDA Rural Development, Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation, Southern Tier Housing Corporation, the Federation of Appalachian Housing Enterprises (FAHE) and the families of Pedro and Omaira Ruiz, Mary and Silvino Castillo, Yvonne Hernandez, Brenda McGuire and Patsy Perdue.

Farm Service Agency (FSA) Administrator Bruce Nelson traveled to South Texas last week in the midst of the historic drought impacting most of Texas and the Southwest and adversely affecting thousands of agricultural producers. Nelson took the opportunity to visit with area farmers, ranchers and agribusiness representatives who are working hard to keep their operations going in the face of the natural disaster. He made a point to reassure everyone that Secretary Vilsack and the USDA are committed to helping affected producers.

On a beautiful summer morning, more than 200 Bridgewater faculty, staff, students and local residents celebrated the completion of a $14 million dollar student housing project on the rural campus of Bridgewater College.

The new “Stone Village” as named by the college for its past President, Mr. Phillip Stone, will be a complex of five, two-story, colonial-designed housing that will be on the cutting edge of energy efficiency and minimize its environmental impact on the rural campus. The housing is registered as a potential Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver project and incorporates such green features as high efficiency HVAC, occupancy sensor lighting, recycled building materials and even the interior paints that were used were all environmentally friendly to improve indoor air quality.

Job creation in rural America begins with local leaders, a vision for improving the local economy and then bringing together financing partners to make the vision a reality. I had the honor of joining Congressman Hal Rogers and representatives from Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul’s offices today to celebrate such job creating efforts in Laurel County, KY.   As we walked through this 9,600 square foot business accelerator, you can understand why it is referred to as the BIG Center.

How do you garner valuable feedback from key partners and stakeholders from around your state?

Just ask and let them speak, which is what USDA Rural Development leadership did in Washington State when they convened a stakeholder outreach meeting in Olympia on July 29 to discuss Rural Development priorities for President Obama’s 2013 budget and 2012 Farm Bill.

“The importance of this Regulatory Reform Stakeholder outreach meeting cannot be understated,” said Mario Villanueva, USDA Rural Development Washington State Director. “We had a tremendous response and interest in this convening with about 70 stakeholders attending the interactive meeting.”

Six families gathered in Liberal, Kan., to celebrate the completion of their newly constructed homes.  The families utilized USDA Rural Development’s Self-Help Housing Program administered by the City of Liberal to help construct the homes.  The family members devote time and labor to painting, roofing, siding and other types of tasks and lower the cost of construction, while developing equity in their new home.

In 2006, the City of Liberal was awarded a technical assistance grant from USDA Rural Development to begin the Self-Help Housing Program.  Through the program, 30 homes have been built in Liberal.  USDA Rural Development’s direct home loans have financed $3.9 million in construction for Liberal’s self-help homes.

Over 100 government officials, federal program representatives, non-profit organizations, and Native entrepreneurs came together recently to advance Indian business development in South Dakota.

Cross posted from the White House blog:

At the Department of Veterans Affairs, Secretary Shinseki often talks about the tyranny of distance – the distance that often separates Veterans from care at their nearest VA medical facilities. For about 3.3 million Vets, or 41 percent of the total enrolled in VA’s health care system, distance is more than a challenge. Distance can mean rural Veterans don’t have access to the care and services they’ve earned.

Secretary Shinseki made it clear – this summer, he wanted to hear from Veterans in the hardest to reach places. “I know from previous experience that sitting in Washington with a 2,000-mile screwdriver trying to fine tune things at the local level never works,” he said. So, we hit the road to learn firsthand.

A growing consumer appetite for foods grown in their region was the focus of a recent Food and Agricultural Council (FAC) meeting in Valley City, North Dakota.  FAC Chairman, Jasper Schneider, also state director of USDA Rural Development, invited healthy food activists to share the ups and downs of this growing movement.

More help is on the way for producers.

In an announcement earlier this week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said a high demand for farm ownership and direct farm operating funds has prompted USDA to transfer appropriated funds between programs to meet the urgent credit needs of producers.