Statement
Honorable Donald Larson, Commissioner
of Brookings County, South Dakota
Before the
Farm Foundation
“Rural Development in a Time of Fiscal Constraints”
Tuesday, June 14 – 9am – 11am
national press club
529 14th Street, NW – 13th Floor
Washington, DC
Thank you,for that introduction Mr. Jones. It is an honor to be here today with this distinguished panel. NACo and I appreciate the work that Farm Foundation does to elevate the debate on important Ag and rural issues. We are especially pleased that you chose to highlight the critical topic of Rural Development.
Again, my name is Don Larson. I am a County Commissioner in Brookings County, South Dakota and I serve as chair of the National Association of Counties’ Agriculture and Rural Affairs Steering Committee. I’m honored to bring the collective perspective of our nation’s rural counties and my own experience in Eastern South Dakota.
As I meet with rural county officials from across the country and in my home state of South Dakota I can say that local governments are truly in a dire situation. The fiscal situation facing all levels of government—federal, state and local—is beyond difficult. And we all know that water runs down hill. Cuts at the federal and state level are leaving local governments with more responsibility in a time of increasing demand for services. This coupled with increasing levels of unfunded mandates’ means that rural development initiatives at the local level are extremely difficult to plan for - - implementing is an even greater challenge.
Therefore, rural development…the roads, water systems, broadband and the other key infrastructure necessary for business, along with the public-private partnerships necessary to provide the capital, training and workforce for value added agriculture, small business and other development opportunities is in jeopardy.
That is the bad news. The good news is what we all know. Rural America is a place with a can do attitude. In Rural America we are breaking down silos and working at the local and regional level to find ways to do more with less. Regional collaboration at the county and multi-county level is bringing together the public, private and non-profit sector to pursue innovative strategies based upon local priorities and assets.
Unfortunately, the current structure of federal community and economic development programs for rural communities does not provide enough flexibility to encourage and assist communities with their regional development efforts.
The Administration has begun several promising initiatives that will help reorient the federal government to a more flexible regional approach. This includes HUD’s Sustainable Planning Grants which funded 19 rural/micropolitan regions in their first round of funding. The President’s budget also includes a Growth Zones Initiative which will include a set aside for rural regions. This is a promising initiative that will offer planning funding as well as tax incentives. I can tell you that the planning funding is desperately needed. However, the initiative will not be helpful if it is paid for by taking away already limited federal infrastructure dollars at EDA.
Therefore, the Administration is making great strides in improving rural development programs. Secretary Tom Vilsack has been a key champion for rural America on this issue. He is making sure that rural is a key component of Administration initiatives and not excluded. He has reoriented several rural development programs at USDA to reward regional collaboration and locally driven priority setting. NACo is supporting his Regional Innovation Initiative which will target 5% of USDA Rural Development funds to projects that are priorities to rural regions.
As we move forward the National Association of Counties’ will work to protect key rural development investments from cuts in the appropriations process. In addition, one of NACo’s key legislative priorities is to make Rural Development a priority within Farm Bill reauthorization. This includes advocating for renewable energy, support for beginning and young farmers and resources for Rural Development programs that offer loans and grants to leverage local initiatives. We are also striving to make USDA and all federal agencies more flexible and oriented toward encouraging the rural regional development efforts going on at the local level.
The cutting edge research flowing from our nation’s economists and trusted rural policy experts continues to demonstrate that multi-state, multi-county and multi-town approaches to local economic competitiveness are critical to a vibrant rural economy. Therefore, there is a great need for federal incentives, resources and programs that support regional community and economic development, especially in small metropolitan and rural regions.
The importance of federal investments in regional planning and project implementation is clear in eastern South Dakota. In my county of Brookings, South Dakota, through regional planning and innovative partnerships we created the South Dakota State University Innovation Campus, the first research park developed in the state of South Dakota. Sited on 125 acres, the Innovation Campus is located next door to South Dakota State University (SDSU).
The SDSU Innovation Campus provides a place where people and ideas come together in our region to combine the experience of university, business, industry and government in an environment that uses innovation and critical thinking to generate new ideas, promote research, entrepreneurialism and business mentoring—providing opportunities to keep our best and brightest in South Dakota.
The SDSU Innovation Campus is the product of the SDSU Growth Partnership, a 501(c) (3) nonprofit corporation whose partners include Brookings County, the City of Brookings, Brookings Economic Development Corporation, South Dakota State University, the South Dakota State Foundation and a State Representative. The county and city put up front money, and the FirstDistrict Association of Local Governments helped develop a business plan and grant application for EDA funding. These planning investments provided vital gap funding that helped make our regional vision a reality. The First District serves 11 counties and 75 communities.
The site includes retail and support services. Local private developers have developed a 120-unit housing complex, The Innovation Village, on property adjacent to the park.The campus has walking, jogging and biking trails, and open green spaces, and is also accessible via public transportation.All of the private development on the innovation campus becomes a part of our local tax base.
The economic success story in Brookings County and our region, along with our innovation campus, clearly demonstrate that rural communities and institutions can make substantial progress by working regionally to achieve economies of scale, technical expertise, workforce pool and infrastructure financing to compete nationally and globally. The project has helped Brookings County and our region prosper. In fact, we enjoy one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country at around 4 percent.
However, rural unemployment in the nation has remained high overall, despite the strong performance of the agricultural sector. Other rural communities would like to start planning and implementing regional strategies but do not have the funding to get started. Reorienting USDA and other agencies towards a regional approach would provide needed resources to assist rural communities with seed money for planning, or as in our case, additional funds to expand our regional development efforts.It will also help bring tribes, states, localities and the stakeholders within these units of government around shared goals. In our region, we could expand the principles of the innovation campus project to additional parts of our region. Our county could also link to other efforts such as our regional farmers’ market initiative, our Seed Technology Laboratory, and our youth learning center.
I could go into more details about specifics in South Dakota. However, the key point to take away is that rural elected leaders and their partners in the private sector can lead the way to greater heights in rural innovation. However, the struggle for leaders such as me and my partners in eastern South Dakota is to break out of the mold of doing things the same way we always have. Incentives from the federal and state government go a long way to helping innovative projects and people – get things going on the ground.
Thank you again, for the opportunity to speak today. NACo and I look forward to working with you all in the next Farm Bill to raise the profile of rural development issues and to streamline and improve existing programs so that investments in rural America pay even bigger dividends in the future. We are leading a coalition of 32 national groups, called the Campaign for a Renewed Rural Development that is working on this goal. As rural America loses additional legislative power at the federal and state level with redistricting, it is important that rural advocates in the Administration and Congress work in a bipartisan manner to help rural communities meet these current challenges.
—1—