News from rural America.

Rural Dems want the DNC to bring working class voters back into the fold, kids in Maine are losing a federal program that supplies local food to schools, and Trump's tariffs sow doubt and stress for America's farmers. 

TRANSCRIPT

♪♪ For the "Daily Yonder" and Public News Service, this is the news from rural America.

Democrats are still reckoning with their party's loss in last year's presidential election.

Whether economic issues or over-dependence on identity politics is more to blame, rural Democrats say the party needs to change.

Anthony Blacavento, a farmer and co-founder of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, argues Democrats lost touch with rural voters decades ago. -Neither party had a whole lot of concrete solutions to change things, but the Republicans became the party that recognized, celebrated, and then stoked the anger of working people everywhere, and especially in rural. -He believes Democrats can help foster prosperous, vital rural communities, and some are making that pivot.

Jacqueline Farr, the Democratic chair in Benton County, Missouri, says they're not waiting for national party direction. -We have decided to focus on groceries, gas, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. -A "Daily Yonder" analysis found rural voters alone did not win the election for President Trump.

Instead, it was a rightward shift nationwide and sharp fall in urban voter turnout.

The White House has ended a program to supply local food for schools.

Anya Slepian looks at the impact in Maine. -The USDA is ending the pandemic-era local food for schools program, helping states supply children's meals from local farms.

Anna Corson, with the nonprofit Full Plates Full Potential, says the program has been crucial, in part because the only decent meals some kids get are breakfast and lunch at school. -Those are also the healthiest meals that they have access to, so that's gonna impact the nutrition quality of the meals that those kids are receiving. -But it's not just kids who will be affected.

Maine is losing nearly $3 million that would have gone to local agriculture. -Schools are often the biggest restaurant in a community, especially in rural areas, so that's gonna have a big impact on these small farms. -I'm Anya Slepian. -Just in time for spring planting, tariffs are sowing doubt and stress.

Cindy Vanderpoel and her husband run Pastures A Plenty Farm in Western Minnesota.

She says their markets are in upheaval. -Do we go and purchase more laying hens?

Do we purchase broiler chickens to be processed?

Those all are uncertainties right now. -Soybean farmers suffered under Trump's last trade war with China, and a weak ag economy already has many operations considering layoffs or closure.

Gary Werdisch with the Minnesota Farmers Union says with interest rates rising, it could be as bad as the crisis 40 years ago when millions of farms went bust. -That's where we're fearful of, that we could very easily be back into that '80s crisis time frame.

♪♪ -For the "Daily Yonder" and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.

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