TERRE HAUTE —
The threats and opportunities presented rural America are intertwined within a global community ever shrinking as it grows.
Almost 200 participants from around the Midwest have gathered at Indiana State University as it hosts this year’s Indiana Rural Summit. Presented by the Indiana Rural Roundtable, a network of organizations interested in advancing rural communities, workshops feature presentations ranging from health care to agriculture, with speakers from equally diverse backgrounds.
The key themes of innovation and entrepreneurship emerged early in the summit’s opening session, as Rick Foster, Ph.D. explained their significance to the 21st century.
“These two centuries are very, very different,” the 61-year old said of the 20th century in which he was raised, and the 21st century in which his grandchildren will live.
Foster, director of the Greening Michigan Institute and chair of the food, society and sustainability program at Michigan State University, said communities in Indiana and Michigan are not so different. In many ways, they serve as a fundamental asset to the country by way of natural and economic resources. Culturally, the Midwest has played a significant role in shaping the country, but even as the second decade of the new century is underway, many of these communities are stuck in the past.
“It’s a tale of two centuries,” he said, offering that phrase as a title for his keynote address. The use of telemedicine, communication technology and renewable energy are still strangers to some of these towns, and nationally the results are telling.
Rural communities lead the country in unemployment, obesity and teenage pregnancy, while school funding and infrastructure spending falls. And yet, at the beginning of the 20th century, America was very much an agricultural nation, only shifting inward to its cities and industrialization after World War II. This shift has been tough on many, he pointed out.
For most of the 20th century, the state of Michigan was a key player in national policy ranging from energy to the environment. This was largely due to the automotive industry’s significance as an economic driver. Today, ruins stand where thriving communities once operated.
“Detroit is the poster child for everything negative in a post-industrial city,” Foster said.
The city built for 2 million people now contains less than 700,000, he said, adding that it will probably never again host even 1 million. Functionally bankrupt and unable to pay for its own services, 70 percent of the Detroit population lives in a “food desert” without access to fresh fruits and vegetables, he said, explaining this means some 59 percent of Michigan is likewise in a “food desert.”
And yet, there are currently 50,000 vacant acres in Detroit with hundreds of empty buildings. Foster said he reminds its citizens that long ago, Central Park was built to hide a landfill, and that kind of thinking is needed once again.
“There are a lot of threats out there, but those threats represent opportunity,” he said, explaining that energy crops and bio-fuels are potential solutions. Detroit, and other communities in rural America, can sustain themselves if they choose to re-use their land. “Technology itself can be a great equalizer.”
And rural America has always been the country’s engine for ingenuity, he said, explaining that entrepreneurship and innovation will be the driving forces in the 21st century as the traditional economic models fade.
But some people in rural America still cling to the 20th century models, acting as if those ways of life “are coming back,” even though they’re not, he said. Meanwhile, pollution and global warming are real, as is the loss of population in small towns. These things need to be addressed at home, because globally the issues are just as problematic.
The biggest threats faced in the 21st century will be access to food, water and energy, he said, reiterating his point that rural America holds the keys to those problems and needs to capitalize on them immediately.
By 2050, Earth’s human population will be 10 billion, and 70 percent of those people will live in cities, he said, adding that China already has 25 cities with more than 10 million people in them. Within 40 years, the world populace will be short of food, water and energy because fossil fuels can’t be replaced. The energy cost of food production and water access is simply too great to handle that many people, he said.
Farms and the rural communities in which they operate need to become centers of innovation, he said. Renewable energy solutions lie in agriculture, as do answer to world hunger.
Some statistics suggest that with regard to “greenhouse gasses” and the environment, it could be too late to undo the damage, he said. This means answers need to come today, and innovators in rural America should be thinking globally, as the world village continues to shrink.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
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Summit tackles issues facing Indiana’s rural communities
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