USDA's Victor Vasquez talks rural-urban connections

Victor Vasquez, USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Rural Development, made the keynote presentation at the Midwest Rural Assembly.

He started with the story of a road trip with a big city friend. As they reached a particularly empty stretch of land, the friend asked, should we turn back?

Turn back? Victor asked, why would we turn back?

The friend said, there's no buildings and no one around. What if we break down or have a problem?

Victor knew that someone would stop and help if they needed it. And that's the essence of rural life; we depend on each other.

Broadband
Broadband is not just technology, Vasquez said. Broadband is also what it will do. What it will do that is the most important is change the education for children with few opportunities. It will change their education and how they view the world, he said.

Rural Industry
As the American auto industry suffered major losses, the USDA looked at the potential impact on rural communities, he said.

"In rural America, we are participating in the supply chain of major corporations," Vasquez said.

Census Rural Data
Vasquez also participated in a round table discussion, answering questions from participants. One person pointed out that the latest Census did not collect income data for all communities. Many programs, especially through USDA, previously relied on Census poverty data. Most small towns that are covered by the less comprehensive American Community Survey will include projections based on a much smaller sample.

USDA and the Private Sector
When asked about the USDA's role with private sector businesses, Vasquez pointed out the Office for Women and Minority Business, which is mostly focused on procurement.

Vasquez also brought up an idea that he seems to have spent quite a bit of time thinking about. In order for smaller businesses to compete for larger government contracts, they could use a cooperative model.

He gave an example of a large multi year auditing contract. While no one CPA firm in, for example, the Texas-Mexico border region could handle that contract alone, there are hundreds of qualified CPAs in the region. If a group of them could form a cooperative, they could compete for that auditing contract. The goal of achieving 20% of government procurement from rural areas would be easier to achieve if smaller firms could band together in this way.

"We need to explore policies that explore that rural-urban connection," Vasquez said. "We have more similarities than differences." 

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Is it already time to forget mobile?

You know more and more people are using their phone to access the web, and you know that you need to make a mobile friendly site, especially for tourism. But wait, new advice is coming out: can you skip doing a mobile site?

"Not that smart" phones
like mine will be around
for several years more

At a recent major tourism conference, a speaker advised against creating mobile-friendly websites for your destination. The reason? Mobile browsers are getting so good, that real soon they will be able to display your regular page with no modifications. So there's no need to invest in creating a whole new site.

I think this is bad advice for two reasons.

1. "Real soon" is relative. Even as the cutting edge browsers get better, it will take time to get those out into the hands of real people. How many not-so-advanced mobile phone browsers are out there right now in the hands of your potential visitors? How many more not-so-advanced phones are they buying every day?

2. People want different information when they are on the go. Think about what information you need when visiting a new town. My guess is people want information on the events happening today, basic attraction information, and other info that is not easy to get from Google or Yelp.

How can you tell what mobile visitors really want? Check your current site's analytics. Look for the number and type of mobile browsers used. Also check the pages with the most mobile views.

Secret Tip: you don't have to duplicate your whole site. Instead, create a special mobile FAQ page to answer the most common questions of your visitors on the go. Keep it up to date with the events of the day. If you can't add this to your current site, use a service like Posterous that is automatically mobile-friendly.

What's your plan for reaching mobile visitors?

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Cooperatives as an alternative business model

Dave Holm, executive director, Iowa Institute for Cooperatives led a round table discussion at the Midwest Rural Assembly. Since 2012 is the International Year of the Cooperative, this is an opportune time to share that discussion.

The Farmers' Cooperative
Ames, Oklahoma

A cooperative is no different than any other business in this respect: you have to follow the same business principles. You make decisions differently and distribute profits differently, Holm said.

First steps are to write the business plan and make sure it would work as a business. Then think about the form of the business, Holm said. You need a champion; someone from within the community.

Holm said he sees a huge opportunity to use cooperatives in transitioning businesses: to help an owner retire with the capital, and the employees keep their jobs. This is a common issue with small town businesses.

Minnesota has a hybrid cooperative form, combining an LLC with a cooperative. It can have community ownership, but with outside capital investment. The patrons can decide how much ownership to surrender for the investment, and also determine the payout and investment return on liquidation.

Get an attorney who already understands cooperatives, Holm advised. Otherwise they don't understand it, and they don't want to learn.

Make sure your board listens to management, especially with ag producer cooperatives, several of the discussion participants said. Farmers aren't marketers. All-farmer boards or mostly farmer boards are a failure factor. They will vote to suck out their equity and kill it, one participant said. Do the leadership development needed to help the board succeed.

Another participant told how Canada is using cooperatives to maintain school buildings, after the school is closed. Because the school building is a center of the community, they are using this method to keep it open as a community center. They get the youth involved in the management of it.

Learn more at the National Cooperative Business Association and the International Cooperative Alliance.

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Pick one piece of good news for the Brag Basket

Even though I call this the Brag Basket, it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing. I started this so you can introduce yourself, share some good news, or congratulate a friend.

The basket is open all weekend, from August 27-29, 2010.

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post, email me, tweet me, or comment on Facebook. You tell something great about your week, or you give applause to someone who did good stuff this week. Or you celebrate something wonderful that you tried that failed.

This is not an ad. (I delete the ads.) It's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.

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