Rural
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From Minneapolis to your block: Real people are proving politics isn’t just for watching
Consuming political news isn’t the same as building political power. From Minneapolis to small-town America, rural organizer Gwen Frisbie-Fulton writes that real change starts with local organizing and civic engagement. Someone once told me this story: Anthropologists visiting an Aboriginal village showed them a newspaper clipping about an earthquake that destroyed a town halfway across…
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New report outlines impact of federal policy on rural America, from Iowa to Appalachia
The 2025 Rural Policy Action Report highlights struggles and solutions for small communities in Iowa and nationwide.
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Iowa farmers are struggling without a China trade deal
Amie here. Harvest time is upon us, and Iowa farmers are supposed to have the third-largest harvest on record. Yet it all amounts to a hill of beans (literally) if nobody’s buying them. Iowa soybean farmers—and those in the wider ag industry—are hurting in a big way, and they’re not getting any relief with President Donald…
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Reynolds vetoes bill protecting landowners from eminent domain
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds vetoed a bill restricting private pipelines’ use of eminent domain, against the wishes of Iowa landowners and farmers.
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Rural America fights back: Iowa summit calls for fair funding, stronger communities
Organizations from across the country gathered in Des Moines for the 2025 Rural Policy Action Summit, where leaders demanded fairness for working families
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Gwen Frisbie-Fulton: ‘The people closest to the problem are often the ones who can find the solution’
About two years ago, tents started to show up in my neighborhood along the creek beds and in small stands of trees. Most only became visible when the leaves fell, exposing their orange rainflies and blue tarps. This increase in houselessness didn’t feel surprising to me or to my neighbors: The rent has nearly doubled…
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A love letter to the working class, from Gwen Frisbie-Fulton
It started in the back seat of my family’s Jeep Cherokee, the one with the broken AC and vinyl seats that stuck to my thighs in the late summer heat. After school we would wait, all the doors flung open, for my dad to get off work. My mother reading in the front seat, her…
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Guest post: Elon Musk’s chainsaw comes for the farm
I am incredibly concerned about what has been going on at President Donald Trump’s USDA in the last few weeks—in particular Elon Musk’s chainsaw approach to government agencies.
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Guest post: Stand against pipeline to protect Iowa’s natural resources
Iowa towns, farmland, and natural resources shouldn’t be a playground for corporate power.
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Guest post: Forget Project 2025. We need a better Farm Bill
When it comes to farm policy in 2025, we don’t need Project 2025. We need a new Farm Bill that acknowledges the challenges we face, tackles them head on, and puts our rural communities before corporate profits. Reading about the recent round of layoffs at John Deere’s Ottumwa plant got me thinking about the future…
