Year: 2014

Making apple cider at the Inadvertent Cafe

Rural Success in the Making: The Inadvertent Café

In Clinton, MN, The Inadvertent Café is marking its successes one omelette—and one batch of sauerkraut—at a time. By Brent Olson There are four problems with food in a small town. First, it’s hard to keep a grocery store open, because they can’t compete on price or variety with larger stores. Second, people who are older ...
cooperation

Identifying Best Practices for Collaboration

A study of four successful shared services projects around Greater Minnesota. The research looks at why local governments decided to collaborate, the challenges they faced, and what made these projects ultimately work.
immigrant farmer survey

The continuing education needs of immigrant farmers

The following brief summarizes the findings of the report Educational Interests, Needs and Learning Preferences of Immigrant Farmers. To read the full report by agricultural educator Thaddeus MacCamant, click here. The immigrant population is growing in rural Minnesota, and those who are interested in farming will be replacing a dwindling population of traditionally white farmers. ...
state of water infographic

The State of Water

A discussion on the complex relationship between rural communities and our state’s most valuable resource by Marnie Werner, research director Andrew Hayes, research intern Can people who live in the land of 10,000 lakes really have a water problem? The city administrator of Worthington says yes, they can. Worthington, a community of 12,500, sits on ...
Rough Roads Ahead

Rural Reality: Rough Roads Ahead & Roads Less Traveled

Transportation officials project that over the next two decades, the funds needed just to maintain Minnesota’s roads will fall at least $12 billion short. This policy brief discusses how that shortfall will show up on increasingly deteriorating rural roads.

2013 State of Rural Minnesota

Each year, the Center assembles the latest demographic and economic data to create the State of Rural Minnesota report. Most of the data used for the presentation can also be found at our Atlas of Minnesota Online. Click here to see the presentation.
summers end

Rural Minnesota Journal 2014

Who owns rural Minnesota? On the surface, this seems like a fairly straightforward question, but scratch the surface, and it turns out to be a lot more complicated. Yes, farmers and people in towns and some companies and state and local government do own most of the land in rural Minnesota, just as they do ...