During his campaign, President Joe Biden released an ambitious plan for rural America. In it, he included things like improving access to healthcare, job creation and standing up for the nation’s farmers.
Now, some advocates are pressing the Biden administration to make good on these promises.
The stakes are high for Democrats everywhere. The disproportionate level of representation of rural America means that Democrats need to win over rural voters to secure a strong congressional majority and start chipping away at GOP dominance in state capitols.
“I think the election really showed that rural America is critical to the continued success of the Democratic Party’s agenda,” said Krissy Kasserman, factory farming organizing director at Food and Water Watch.
Kasserman is cautiously optimistic that Democrats are starting to wake up to this reality. “I do think that there has been sort of a newfound focus on the needs of rural America over the last several months or a year as part of the presidential election,” she said.
But she and other advocates point to a long to-do list if the Biden administration is serious about addressing the needs of rural Americans.
Beyond broadband
One of the most pressing agenda items is closing the digital divide.
According to the FCC, only 65% of Americans who live in rural areas have access to high-speed broadband, compared to 97% of those who live in urban areas. The number is even lower in tribal lands, at 60%. That’s about 30 million Americans in total who don’t have access to broadband.
A study by BroadbandNow found that the number is even higher, totaling 42 million Americans who lack access to high-speed internet.
Although high-speed internet may have once been a luxury—akin to cable or satellite TV—it’s now a necessity for everyday life. The FCC argues that everything from economic opportunities to education, and even entertainment and civic engagement, depends on high-speed internet.
The COVID-19 pandemic has only thrown this into sharper relief, with millions of Americans working from home and students attending school online.
To address this need, many advocates in rural and urban areas are calling for the recategorization of the internet as a utility. This would mean regulating it the same way as water and electricity.
“So right now, there is competition among private sector companies to provide broadband. But if it’s too expensive to provide it in a particular community or particular neighborhood, a particular area, it doesn’t show up. When it becomes a utility, that is no longer acceptable,” explained Marketplace Senior Economics Contributor Chris Farrell during the Marketplace Morning Report.
But while increasing access to high-speed internet for rural Americans is necessary, Kasserman cautioned against focusing solely on closing the digital divide.
“There’s this sentiment out there that rural people need broadband and that’s the solution to all of these problems,” Kasserman said. “And yes, we urgently need broadband. I spend entirely too much money on terrible satellite internet like most of my rural neighbors. And I agree that that’s a priority, but we can’t stop there.”
Rural healthcare is another issue where advocates are pressing for action, pointing to vast gaps in access to care and a sharp decline in the number of rural hospitals—the latter of which are especially important during the pandemic. USDA reports that “the rural population is more vulnerable to severe illness or death from COVID-19 infection than the metro population.” The reasons cited are underlying health problems, an older adult population, lack of health insurance, and the distance to hospitals with ICU capacities.
One-hundred-sixteen counties in the U.S have no clinic, 97 of which are rural. People in 22% of counties must also travel outside the county to reach a hospital, and only 60% of hospitals have an ICU.
Taking on Big Ag
One more top item on the progressive rural agenda is taking on Big Ag.
“We would like to see a moratorium on new food and agriculture mergers so that we don’t increase the level of consolidation,” said Kasserman. “And we’d like to see the Biden administration take action on antitrust in order to break up some of these monopolies and to make it possible for our small family farms to compete.”
Although only about 10% of rural Americans work in agriculture, the farming industry greatly impacts rural communities. Kasserman argues that “corporate control of the [agriculture] industry has resulted in a steep decline in the number of family farms, and that decline in the number of family farms has resulted in hollowed-out rural communities.”
A report by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production found that “the encroachment of industrialized agriculture operations upon rural communities results in lower relative incomes for certain segments of the community and greater income inequality and poverty, a less active ‘Main Street,’ decreased retail trade, and fewer stores in the community.”
Access to clean and safe drinking water is also dependent on confronting Big Ag, critics say. Factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), often lead to contaminated drinking water.
An increasing number of livestock animals, mostly cows, pigs and chickens, and a decreasing number of farms—thanks to Big Ag consolidation—means that many animals are housed in small spaces. This produces vast quantities of waste, which then pollutes the surrounding water systems, including drinking water.
Food and Water Watch is advocating for the Biden administration to take on Big Ag and to support the Water Act, which would provide the necessary funding for small, rural and indigenous communities to improve their water and wastewater systems.
Making rural American areas better places to live
At their core, all of the issues mentioned above have one thing in common: making rural communities better to live in.
“There are issues about the economy, about poverty, about disenfranchisement, that inform how we get by in rural areas,” said Dee Davis, founder and president of the Center for Rural Strategies.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Services, the population of rural America grew by about 0.02% in 2018-2019. While that’s an increase after six years of steady population decline, it’s still below the rate of population increase in metro centers, which sits at about 0.06%. Additionally, the rural poverty rate in 2018 was 16.1% compared to metro’s 12.6%.
For Davis, the emphasis shouldn’t be restricted to traditional economic development, but rather on improving the quality of life for rural Americans.
“I think the future is in making our communities the best places to build communities we want to live in, that is, communities that have good healthcare, good schools, good broadband connectivity, that offer residents a decent sense of purpose and community life,” added Davis. “It doesn’t have to be that we’re all wealthy, but it does mean that we could all have reason to be here.”
“I think he [Biden] has a good plan,” Davis added. “I would say that it’s also important to understand that there’s important cultural reasons that people live in rural America… I would just also say that they should also be aware of the cultural value of living in these communities, not that they’re better than living in urban or suburban communities. To understand why people want to hang on to their rural thoughts, and why they want to build a future here, is a cultural imperative as much as it is an economic one.”
“More than a talking point”
Biden’s plan for rural America has resonated with many rural advocates. His campaign promises include supporting the nation’s family farmers and ranchers, strengthening antitrust enforcement, closing the digital divide, and expanding access to healthcare in rural communities—all of which advocates have stressed as crucial for rural communities.
“I think the Biden administration has shown that they’re paying a lot of attention to these issues, and so I think it’s up to us as advocates to make sure that we continue to bring these issues to the forefront and that we pressure our elected officials to take action on them,” said Kasserman.
While it’s become increasingly clear that Democrats must win over rural voters in order to win elections, advocates also caution that the political interest in rural America needs to be sustained.
“I feel oftentimes like we talk a lot about the challenges that face rural America in election years, and you know we can’t do that,” said Kasserman. “I think we have seen now that the swing states that are clearly critical in winning elections—Pennsylvania and Michigan, and Wisconsin—have really large rural populations and I think that we disregard these rural issues to our detriment (and by we, I mean largely the Democratic Party). We can’t only include these issues as talking points in campaigns.”
“Rural people are struggling,” Kasserman added. “Rural communities are struggling. And we need to be more than a talking point in a political campaign.”
