Appalachian Transition Blog

In response to an article they ran earlier this week on Appalachia 45 years after Kennedy's "War on Poverty" visit (which we linked on our Facebook page) the Hazard Herald has written another editorial in support of a permanent fund for coal severance tax. Here's an excerpt of what they have to say (you can read the whole editorial at their website): 

Though poverty rates have significantly declined since 1972, rates in Central Appalachia remain well above the state and national averages, and today two things are very clear to us: One, not enough coal severance is coming back to the counties most impacted by coal mining, and two, in some cases, the taxes that are trickling back to the coal counties are not being used wisely....

Often we hear our elected leaders make remarks about conserving for future generations. Here is a perfect example, and an opportunity for our coal counties to actually build wealth and capacity over the years from which our children can benefit....

Considering all of this — the projected decline in coal severance revenue, ongoing poverty in Appalachian coal counties, and a disproportionate amount of severance never making its way back to the coal counties — it makes even more sense now to begin putting some funds back for future use. Our region has suffered for too long from poor decisions; it’s time now to make a wise one.

Yesterday, the Daily Yonder featured an excellent, incisive piece of journalism on the proposed federal prison for Letcher County, Kentucky. Sylvia Ryerson of Appalshop asks if this is really the kind of economic development the region needs - if it even is economic development at all. Like our long history of bending over backwards to attract outside industries that often result in empty industrial parks, the legacy of federal prisons in Kentucky is not a bright one. Ryerson examines the prison in McCreary County, which was built in the late 1990s with the promise of jobs, local spending and prosperity for one of the poorest counties in Kentucky:

Bureau of Prison employees with prior work experience took most of the positions (including almost all of the higher paid jobs). Most live outside McCreary County. They did not buy local real estate, shop at local businesses or put their children in the county school system. Once the prison opened it chose to purchase supplies from national wholesalers, not local businesses. And the county’s property tax base was permanently reduced when the prison land transferred from private ownership to the federal government.

...Central Appalachia's experience is not unique. Prisons don't work as economic development engines, researchers say. One study analyzed data on every rural county in the United States, with or without a prison, from 1969-2004. The report concluded: “We find no evidence that prison expansion has stimulated economic growth. In fact we provide evidence that prison construction has impeded economic growth in rural counties that have been growing at a slow pace.”

A few months ago, West Virginia's small farm economy received a big boost in the form of the Rural Accelerator Grant. These significant, three-year grants were awarded to just 13 locations nationwide, with the aim to create and sustain rural jobs. The Natural Capital Investment Fund of Shepherdstown was awarded a grant for their proposal to provide technical assistance to build a robust local food economy in southeastern and eastern West Virginia. Recently, the Fayette Tribune featured an article on the impact this program could have on small farmers in the region. 

Funding from a federal Rural Jobs Accelerator Challenge Grant will allow NCIF to offer local farmers in 17 counties services like business coaching, training, consulting and marketing help.

“The biggest challenges we’ve seen for small farm businesses isn’t on the production side, we have a very good extension service to work with farmers on growing new crops, but it’s the business plan, the marketing piece,” said Jenkins.

For Smith, a carefully designed business plan could supply him with enough confidence to farm full time. Or it could hook him up with training in hydroponic growing techniques, one of his interests.

For other farmers, the assistance could translate into adding new products, diversifying, starting a slaughter house, or learning ways to aggregate and distribute produce.

Ever wanted to know how to can the produce you grow or buy at the farmer's market? How can you make your home more energy-efficient without hiring a contractor? Is there really a market for those medicinal herbs growing in your woods? The fourth annual Growing Appalachia conference, put on by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, will answer those questions and more on Saturday, March 9 at the Jenny Wiley Convention Center in Prestonsburg, KY. This year's focus is on energy and local agriculture for beginners and those with a little more experience. It's free, but a $10 donation is suggested to cover the costs of the locally-sourced lunch. 

Check out the full schedule and register at http://www.kftc.org/growing.

The Daily Yonder has been featuring a thoughtful, on-going conversation about what's next for post-coal Appalachia. This latest column, "Change the Economy First," posits that political change won't happen before economic diversification. Author Thomas Miller cites the "resource curse" as a reason why. The resource curse has many facets, but Miller cites one key one pertinent to Central Appalachia: "Extractive industries, especially those that dominate a region’s economy, do tend to control the politics and raise wages and other costs beyond what other businesses and industries can afford. Politics and community life can get polarized very quickly as some see big benefits from extraction but others see only the costs." Because of this, says Miller, before attempting to change the politics, we must first build up a different economy with a foundation of entrepreneurs:

A strong community of local entrepreneurs is what we need most, for our civic life as well as our economy.  Of course, it would be better to work on political reform as well as building local entrepreneurship.  They are in no way mutually exclusive.  
 

I vote for direct action in support of local entrepreneurs, strategies that help them step forward and plan new or expanded businesses, that help with management and technical needs, that provide risk capital and problem solving assistance. Entrepreneurship is central to our future, and in most communities we are doing absolutely nothing to help build it. Isn’t that a rather glaring oversight?