Role of Agricultural Producers in Local Economic Development
Norman Walzer, Janelle Eggers, and Christopher Merrett
Project Abstract
Many local economic development agencies, especially in rural areas, have limited staff and resources, often relying extensively on volunteers and/or part-time personnel. In these agencies, the governing boards are very important in setting the direction and determining which, if any, businesses should be started or attracted.
Too often, agricultural producers who have major investments in the area, are not seen as business leaders and do not participate extensively in local development initiatives. This project surveys local economic development agencies in rural Illinois asking a series of questions regarding how they set goals, determine courses of action, and other procedural approaches. The survey groups respondents into those with agricultural producers on their boards and those without. The approaches followed are then tested between the two agency groups.
The survey was financed from the Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research through the VALUE project and the Economic Development Administration through the Rural Economic Technical Assistance Program in IIRA.
Deliverables from Project
The findings indicate that those agencies with agricultural producers active on their boards have a different set of priorities and outcomes than those that do not. Boards with agricultural representation claim to be better informed about programs such as provided by USDA-RD and are more interested in working with farm groups on business enterprises. While there is not sufficient detail to differentiate whether it is the rural location or the actions by the agricultural producers that trigger these differences, clearly the findings are consistent with the hypothesis that active involvement by agricultural producers in local development decisions can matter.
A Rural Research Report "Ag Producers and Local Economic Development: An Update" (vol.14, no. 8) was published from this project and is available on the IIRA web page.
A scholarly paper is currently being written detailing the methodology and statistical findings. That paper will be presented to the 2003 Community Development Society Conference. Additional papers will be forthcoming.
