News from rural America.

The frontline for voting rights is the rural south, colleges are working harder to recruit rural high school students, an ancient grain called sorghum could help fight hunger caused by climate change and pandowdy is the perfect July 4th dessert.

TRANSCRIPT

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

Over several decades, America made strides to ensure minorities could vote.

But rulings by the conservative Supreme Court are undoing that.

In April, it substantially narrowed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, letting legislatures return to using racial gerrymanderings to dilute minority power.

Hundreds of state and local officials, many rural, could lose their seats.

James Sutton is with Selma-based voting rights nonprofit Foot Soldiers Park.

People often don't feel like their votes matter when there are consistent, constant battles that just add more discouragement.

In rural areas, transportation and child care issues limit voting. that's being compounded by strict new voter ID and mail-in ballot restrictions, which disproportionately hurts rural folks.

Sutton reminds young people, ballot roadblock efforts indicate the importance of their vote.

What we try to do with young people is help them understand voting for local elections really matters and point out positive things that have come as a result of voting. 90% of rural students complete high school, but fewer than half go straight on to college.

Marjorie Betley with the Stars College Network says there are cultural and academic challenges, but more recruiters are helping those students see the value of a degree.

We don't want to contribute to any sort of brain drain.

We want to make sure that they know they can get this great education.

Tuition sticker shock often makes college feel out of reach.

Jack Hancock from Milford, Pennsylvania, plans to attend Amherst in Massachusetts this fall.

College has this reputation of being expensive, and you could just drop out, it would be a large waste of money.

Colleges are increasingly paying the expenses for prospective rural students to visit.

Farmers are adjusting to climate change by rethinking what crops could thrive in extreme conditions.

One is the ancient grain called sorghum.

Andrea Evelyn is with the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.

It is very drought resilient.

It's also very heat resilient and doesn't need as much input such as nitrogen-based fertilizers, things like that.

The sorghum belt from South Dakota down through the Great Plains.

While corn typically outyields sorghum, the opposite can be true during drought.

Evelyn worries food security could look very different in 50 years.

If we don't figure out now how to breed more sustainable crops that can thrive with much less water, then we're going to be in a bad situation.

It's nearly time for the nation's 250th anniversary.

And if you want your dessert to be historically correct, make spiced apple pan dowdy.

The dessert is a cross between pie and cobbler.

Don't forget the ice cream.

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

For more world stories, visit dailyyonder.com.