Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/iatp/page/13/)
“Living with floods involves two broad activities: better managing the risks and taking steps to reduce our vulnerability, and better managing the landscape to reduce the magnitude and destructive power of floods.” – Connie Mutel, Epilogue, “A Watershed year: Anatomy of the Iowa Floods of Continue Reading
In the late 1870s, a series of droughts and famines devastated a broad swath of the globe, including what is now Pakistan. The 1876-78 drought killed 6 million people in India; in China, 12 million people died of starvation and disease. Many millions more were plunged into agonizing poverty. Continue Reading
Farmers will harvest more corn than wheat this year in Kansas, according to Dan Piller at the Des Moines Register — and this is a trend that’s changing the state’s traditional ag i Continue Reading
The challenges of providing adequate health care for rural residents has been a common theme throughout the Midwest Rural Assembly. Continue Reading
One of the best places to find fresh, healthy food is your local farmers market. Our current food stamp program uses Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards (a kind of debit card) which were designed primarily for supermarkets. Continue Reading
“I felt like I had nursed a low-grade feud with where I grew up” for many years, Debra Marquart told participants at the Midwest Rural Assembly in South Souix City, Iowa on Monday morning. Continue Reading
Two of the biggest hot button issues in Congress this year have been climate change and immigration. Continue Reading
With 30 percent living below the poverty line, Hartford, Connecticut, is nearly the poorest city in the United States according to the 2000 Census. Continue Reading
Two years ago, we launched an initiative with the help of the city of Minneapolis to help organize small (5 vendors or fewer) farmers markets in low-income neighborhoods without easy access to healthy food. Community organizations took the lead. Continue Reading
Property rights are a hot and complicated issue in China today, with both the left and right calling for (very different kinds of) reform. As property developers rush to build the “New China,” they push farmers and residents off of their land, with little regard for compensation – and by using all the political connections and brute force they can muster.