Description
Crisis in rural America is by now an all too familiar complaint, yet the problems presented by changing demographics, economic decline, and increasing poverty persist. They have not vanished with a new administration. However, with a new farm bill in the offing, now is the time for a fresh initiative to assess the difficulties facing nonurban America and to offer positive solutions. Rural Policies for the 1990s, written by some of the foremost experts on rural America, focuses on policy-relevant research. Within a carefully crafted framework, the contributors present stimulating discussions on resolving problems and improving the situation in rural areas. Looking at the crucial issues of employment, demographics, environment, technology, and the global impacts of national and international policies, they offer a broad analysis that is neither regionally based nor biased. The result is not an advocacy book, but one that effectively enhances our understanding of the problems facing rural America and presents concrete proposals for revitalizing it.
Table of Contents
Foreword -- Critical Times for Rural America: The Challenge for Rural Policy in the 1990s -- Rural America and the Industrial Policy Debate -- Financing Rural Businesses -- Rural Banking -- Small Businesses -- Issues Facing Agricultural Policy -- Agricultural Labor -- The Rural Poor: The Past As Prologue -- Work and Poverty in Rural America -- Meeting Rural Family Needs -- The Aged in Rural America -- Health Care in Rural America -- Rural Education -- American Indian Development Policies -- The Doubly Jeopardized: Nonmetropolitan Blacks and Mexicans -- Capacity Building and Rural Government Adaptation to Population Change -- Rural Transportation -- Family Planning and Fertility in International Context -- Water Quality and Agriculture -- Soil Conservation -- Farmland Tenure Policy -- Forest Resource Policy -- The Waste Management Problem -- Telematics and Rural Development -- Rethinking Biotechnology Policy -- International Development -- A Rural Policy Agenda for the 1990s
