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"The goal of this website...and the annual Rural Summit...is to help communities to become better, stronger, to
keep working together to create functioning, vibrant communities."
Jim Jessup
"Embrace change and make it work for us so we have a brighter future."
Walt Sell
"Do what you can with what you have, where you're at."
Theodore Roosevelt
The Indiana Economic Development Corporation says this about agriculture in our state:
Agriculture plays a vital role in Indiana's economy. The state has more than 63,000 farms covering approximately 15.4
million acres of farmland. In 2004, crop sales, totaling almost $4 billion, were ranked ninth in the United States.
Indiana is a leader in the production of corn and soybeans and actively promotes the use of biofuels including ethanol
and blended biofuels derived from corn and soybeans.
Indiana recently passed a comprehensive clean energy production incentive package to bring the state to the forefront of
the advanced agricultural industry.
Indiana's natural enviroment and the state's commitment to supporting the agricultural industry make the state an ideal
location for agrcultural business opportunities.
Click here to visit the Indiana State Department of Agriculture's website.
Do you have a GREAT barn photo you'd like to share? Of your barn or someone else's? Email it to jkostielney@csinet.net.
RISE 2020
Nearly 200 rural citizens, community leaders and service providers established the top ten rural priorities
for Indiana during the first-ever RISE 2020 Congress June 13, 2007. RISE 2020, the Rural Indiana Strategy for Excellence,
is a fifteen-year cultural framework designed to help rural communities be great places to live, learn, work, and play.
RURAL INDIANA'S TOP 10 PRIORITIES
- Offer entrepreneurial training in the formal K-12 and post-secondary curricula to cultivate the development of homegrown
businesses.
- Create a local leadership culture that sustains economic development through recruitment, retention and entrepreneurship
strategies
- Develop an entrepreneurial and innovative culture focused on community capacity opportunities.
- Create a new system of Indiana Rural Regional Planning Organizations to coordinate regional planning, prioritizing, and
decision-making to meet future transportation demands.
- Align educational funding systems to address students and their needs
- Commit public and private resources to entrepreneurship development systems that will create or strengthen homegrown businesses.
- Ensure the availability of affordable medical services to rural residents, e.g. hospitals, clinics, emergency services,
mental health, and dental services.
- Strengthen the planning mechanisms that communities, regions, and state agencies use to protect, promote, and develop
land, water, and other natural resources.
- Transform public financing systems to encourage communities to share resources and develop multi-jurisdictional services.
- Identify and market new and existing career opportunities in rural Indiana communities.
Rural Policy Research Institute Profile Report
What does country living mean to you?
Why did you choose to live outside the city?
I live in a rural area because... I lived on my grandparents' dairy farm in North Liberty as a
child, Mondays thru Fridays, while my parents both worked at the munitions plant in Kingsbury. I had my own milking stool
and helped Grandpa twice daily in the barn...helped Grandma feed the chickens and harvest fruit and vegetables from the gardens.
When I was older, I would ride on the tractor with Grandpa as he plowed and planted the grains to feed the cows, and I learned
how to cook and bake with Grandma, using foods grown and produced on their farm. As an adult, I've lived in cities...Indianapolis,
Lafayette, Ft. Wayne; San Antonio, Texas and more. There is much to enjoy about city life...including the years lived within
blocks of Lake Michigan. But...when the opportunity arose to move back to the country - where swallows swoop around me as
I mow the acreage, where my grandchildren have plenty of room to run and play safely, and where my soul finds comfort...we
took it. While we don't have farm animals, we do have nature, and we love watching the sunset over open fields.
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