Living in Washington, D.C. portends the risk of becoming accustomed to two aspects of the city: (1) The predominant presence of trade associations whose names are a string of consonants punctuated by an occasional vowel and (2) The architecture of the city. Spending time with visitors from “out of town” is a good way to pull us back to appreciate the alphabet soup nomenclature of industrial advocacy and the beauty of city blocks adorned by a rich mixture of historic structures and newer spaces.
This past week, National Rural Economic Developers Association (NREDA) board members visited the District of Columbia for three days of wall-to-wall appointments with trade associations, Federal agencies, and Capitol Hill (including ARC, NADO, NRTC, U.S. Senate Ag Committee). Throughout these conversations, several recurring themes emerged. But before we get to those, let’s dial back and look at rural economic conditions and the role that rural America plays in the national economy.
Agriculture and food-related industries often come to mind when discussing rural economies. The United States is the leading agricultural commodities exporter of any nation and provides 25 percent of grains to world markets. Sixty percent of the world’s food supply originates in North America. Ag and related industries added $1.26 trillion to the U.S. GDP in 2021.
Although ag employment dipped from 2000 to 2005 before leveling off through 2020, labor productivity and GDP output increased over that term (for an in-depth look at ag tech, see From Fiber to Field: The Role of Rural Broadband in Emerging Agricultural Technology). In a similar fashion, rural manufacturing output has increased even as total jobs in that sector have declined. But over the past 20 years, rural economies have diversified. Real estate, education, administration, professional services, health and finance are now the top growing industries in rural America. Scientific and technical services are also growing in rural spaces.
So, what does rural America need? Two key points emerged as we made the rounds this week: (1) Load demand for power is increasing. The Wall Street Journal recently reported record spending on manufacturing construction. Specifically, $108 billion in 2022. These factories are poised to produce everything from EV batteries to semiconductors. (2) Broadband connectivity will be a key element in the ability of rural spaces to support diversified economies and the workers who live there. Advanced broadband networks will be necessary to support next generation manufacturing systems as well as enable quality of life services including access to telehealth, improved educational offerings, and resources for small and medium-sized local businesses – all of which are key features of strong rural economies.
And this integration, this recognition of the “silver buckshot” theory of rural success, was evident in the meetings this week. As a member of the NREDA board, I was with the group as we spoke with the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) about job training; U.S. Senate Ag Committee staff about rural partnerships; USDA about economic development programs; National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) about regional partnerships; and National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (NRUCFC) about bridging Wall Street to rural spaces. The coordination of these efforts, all bound by a common fiber of broadband, promises continued opportunity and growth for rural spaces.
After the alphabet soup, a note about the architecture. A rule of scheduling meetings in DC is, “leave plenty of time between meetings,” especially if they are not geographically proximate to each other and might run late. We had good luck and our meetings started on time, and we finished one meeting with an hour to spare before the next. Washington also enjoyed “chamber of commerce weather” this past week, with sunshine and highs in the low 70s. And so rather than Uber from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to Capitol Hill, the NREDA board walked the 1.5 miles and took in the sights (and sites). The mix of old and new on DC city streets; the diversified presentation and resulting strength is a good metaphor for rural economic strategy.