Source: PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to
THE NORTHEAST CENTER FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT -- 2010
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
0222317
Grant No.
2010-51150-21177
Project No.
PEN04397
Proposal No.
2010-03195
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
UU.R
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2010
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2013
Grant Year
2010
Project Director
Goetz, S. J.
Recipient Organization
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
208 MUELLER LABORATORY
UNIVERSITY PARK,PA 16802
Performing Department
Northeast Center for Rural Dev
Non Technical Summary
The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development conducts and facilitates integrated research and extension activities to enhance the social and economic well-being of rural people and their communities in the Northeast US. The project will focus on three key regional issue areas that also have a national impact: entrepreneurship and job creation; local and regional foods production systems; and land use and balanced use of natural resources. As rural areas throughout the Northeast continue to lose jobs and residents, those remaining behind often desperately seek new sources of income and employment growth. The most recent (October 2009) statistics reveal very high unemployment rates across rural counties in the region. Only a handful of counties have rates below five percent and these are largely home to a land grant university. Homegrown entrepreneurship promises to be one key to sustaining rural economies (Goetz 2008; Henderson and Weiler 2010). Even more important will be programs and activities directed at future entrepreneurs, that is, today's young entrepreneurs. A number of our research efforts in this area shed light on the underlying county-level employment and migration dynamics, and the insights gained from this research can produce policy recommendations that have the potential to moderate drastic population loss patterns in the future. We will continue to actively identify, create and disseminate related resource materials over the upcoming year as part of our outreach thrust. In the rapidly expanding area of local and regional food, we will carry out research and analysis that promises to provide important knowledge about how to sustain and grow the infrastructure required to expand the food system in the Northeast US. Through strategic partnerships of experts in the region we are poised to generate the science-based resources and other training materials that our stakeholders require to make balanced and informed decisions about the many opportunities associated with local and regional food systems. We will continue to collaborate with various partners on an ARC-funded water quality project that will measure economic values of water supplies in the Appalachian Region as well as costs and benefits of alternative water use strategies. Over the next year The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development will continue to serve in its primary capacity of convening experts and educators in the region with the specific goals of improving flows and exchanges of information; enhancing the capacity of the land grant system to engage effectively the pressing problems facing communities while eliminating duplication of effort and programs and; of increasing importance, forming teams around critical emerging issues to develop grant proposals that will lead to increased flows of resources into the region. One particularly important new dissemination tool we will use is that of webinars.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
15%
Applied
85%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1316050301010%
6056050301010%
6086050301060%
6086050308020%
Goals / Objectives
The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development will continue to work in the area of community capacity building, and extend knowledge acquired in these efforts to colleagues and collaborators within the region. We will focus on three key subject matter areas: entrepreneurship and job creation, including within the green economy; local and regional foods production systems, including their relationships to childhood obesity, food safety and capacity to feed the region and world; and land use and balanced use of natural resources, an area that addresses trade-offs between alternative forms of energy use and development, among other issues. The project focuses on regional issues that also have a national impact. A key objective this year is to build and leverage the capacity of the Northeast land grant university system in the area of rural and community development. Over the upcoming year we will continue to identify, create and disseminate resource materials related to entrepreneurship and job creation as part of our outreach thrust. With public interest in local and regional foods continuing to mushroom, we will redouble our efforts by applying economic, social network and value chain analysis to small and medium-sized farms and their distribution systems in the region. This research promises to provide important knowledge about how to sustain and grow the infrastructure required to expand the regional food system in the Northeast US. In the topic area of land use and balanced use of natural resources, water and climate change are key emerging issues in the Northeast. We will continue our recently-initiated collaboration with various partners on an ARC-funded project designed to place economic values on water supplies in the Appalachian Region and to assess costs and benefits of alternative water use strategies. One outcome of this effort will be an index of water quality and quantity in each of the 420 ARC counties (stretching into southern NY State). As a result of the NERCRD project we expect to see greater awareness among key stakeholders and decision-makers of the increasing challenges, solutions and science that relate to the forces and opportunities shaping the sustainability and profitability of agricultural and local food systems in the Northeast US. We also expect a better understanding and greater awareness among decision-makers of the importance of self-employment and entrepreneurship within their communities. We anticipate that public officials, consumers and agricultural industry representatives will be able to locate and employ sound, science-based research and education in their decision-making. Agriculture will remain vital and grow measurably in its importance and contributions to communities in the Northeast US and important indicators such as obesity rates will show improvement. In addition, we expect to find more self-employed workers as a percent of all workers, and more business creation; higher returns to self-employment; greater job creation as a result of higher self-employment; and improved rural economic viability and quality of life overall.
Project Methods
The following general procedures will be used to carry out the project: (1) conduct, promote and extend through outreach both think tank-level and peer-reviewed studies of agricultural development, entrepreneurship, land use and community vitality, including work that addresses farm industry clusters and regional food systems development; (2) organize and sponsor multi-disciplinary and multi-state educational efforts in the areas of community development impact assessment, entrepreneurship, balanced land use and vibrant and sustainable communities; as part of this, the Center will continue to expand its website as a tool for furthering the mission of the land grant system in the Northeast in community development; and (3) continue to fulfill its other multiple networking responsibilities through strategic partnerships, conference calls, maintenance of listservs, conference participation, publications and by identifying leading edge programs that can be shared across the states so as to reduce duplication of effort. In addition, we will document and track progress on our own capacity building efforts and impacts at the Center, with the goal of sharing insights and lessons learned in the form of a logic model with our collaborators in the region. We will continue to be active partners in the national Foundations of Practice training series and also continue our engagement with the Stronger Economies Together curriculum that is being revised jointly by the four Regional Rural Development Centers. Also, we will seek to bring collaborators from around the region together to form teams that will submit proposals to the various RFPs to be issued by USDA-NIFA. In order to enhance the coordination, communication, and visibility of community resource and economic development extension and research efforts across the Northeast we will solicit names of state contacts from each of the NERA and NEED directors. Related to this point, at the national level, we will continue to be represented at the NACDEP national conference.

Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/13

Outputs
Target Audience: The primary target audience of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development are the land grant universities in the Northeast US, including both the leadership and faculty, staff and educators. Other audiences include academics as well as policy makers and economic development practitioners. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? SUMMARY: A major opportunity for training and professional development was provided in the form of the What Works II conference that was held in Philadelphia, PA. According to the earlier external review of the Center, such conferences are highly valued by the Center's stakeholders in the region. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? SUMMARY: Results have been disseminated via the Northeast Center's website and newsletter as well as through scientific papers and professional presentations at conferences. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? SUMMARY: As noted in earlier reports we made significant progress around both better understanding of and disseminating to practioners and other academics the importance of self-employed workers to the local economy.

Publications


    Progress 09/01/11 to 08/31/12

    Outputs
    OUTPUTS: The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development was able to continue to support integrated research and extension activities to enhance the social and economic well-being of farmers, rural people and their communities in the Northeast. The Center staff contributed to research on rural development and food policy issues for decision makers in the Northeast and nationally. The Center Director was invited by the Northeast Research Association and the Northeast Extension Directors to make presentations in Beltsville, MD on assembling multi-disciplinary teams on integrated invasive species research and on local and regional food systems development. The Center also was able to build on and further strengthen its collaborative networks, and it was instrumental in developing and submitting three new multi-institutional competitive grant applications. Through these networks the Center was able to encourage a level of cooperation and collaboration among diverse grant recipients that is unprecedented. These grants all address the issue of better connecting farmers and consumers of food within cities, and in the process achieving agricultural and rural economic development objectives. The Center has also been approached by private foundations interested in food systems development. The Center was represented at the Conference on Regional Aspects of Marcellus Shale Development that was jointly hosted by Bucknell University and The Southern Regional Science Association and brought together experts from around the nation. Former Center staff was instrumental in expanding the Foundations of Practice in community development from the regional to the national levels. The Center also collaborated with its newly formed Technical Advisory Committee on the programmatic goals, strategies and activities for the NERCRD, and on identifying emerging priority issues in the Northeast region. The Northeast Center seeks to help local governments and rural communities address the social and economic problems they face by disseminating research-based information, facilitating community discourse, and building human capital and capacity within communities through formal teaching and educational programs. This project encourages and facilitates multi-state collaboration on strategic issues throughout the region, thereby making existing activities more effective and avoiding duplication of effort. PARTICIPANTS: Project participants included extension educators and faculty from around the Northeast Region and beyond. These individuals work both in the land grant system and in urban private universities. In addition, faculty and educators interested in the subject of invasive species attended one of the presentations. TARGET AUDIENCES: Target audiences include Deans and Directors, faculty, educators and practitioners in rural counties. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

    Impacts
    The results of Center-sponsored peer-reviewed research have been used widely by practitioners, including the National Association of Development Organizations. In addition, there is robust evidence to suggest that Center stakeholders throughout the Northeast region are becoming more aware of the importance of this analytical tool, and changing their behaviors by adopting it and reconsidering their own work in light of the insights that the tool provides. One conference attendee remarked that he was glad he had attended, because the presentations were helping him to see more clearly the connections with economic and community development, on the one hand, and agricultural entrepreneurship, on the other. The Center director was invited to make presentations at four different regional conferences associated with the Northeast Research Association and the Northeast Extension Directors' Association, involving a total of 300 direct participants. The NERCRD developed outreach materials on best practices in entrepreneurship that were distributed to stakeholders, decision makers and government officials across the Northeast region and the U.S. Networks and working groups were formed to collaborate on pressing issues in the region, primarily related to local foods/food security and entrepreneurship. New partnerships were formed to address clusters and sustainability, as well as economic development, broadband, local foods and energy. Invitations to two different conferences sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank system, and attended by over 100 individuals each, are further evidence of the relevance and impact of the Center's work. Over 800 Center stakeholders received the Network newsletter each quarter along with occasional informational items. The Center has target audiences in each of the 13 Northeast states, as well as nationally. It serves directly the needs in the area of rural development of land grant university deans and directors.

    Publications

    • Liang, K. and S. J. Goetz, editors. 2011. Proceedings of the What Works! 2011 Conference: Entrepreneurship and Community Development in the Northeast. Conference Proceedings, April 2012. http://nercrd.psu.edu/Publications/rdppapers/rdp52.pdf


    Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/11

    Outputs
    OUTPUTS: The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development continued to leverage and document the impact of the Center's work in the area of community capacity building, and to extend the knowledge acquired in these efforts to colleagues and collaborators within the region. The Center focused its resources on three key subject matter areas: entrepreneurship and job creation, including within the green economy; local and regional foods production systems, including their relationships to childhood obesity, food safety and capacity to feed the region and world; and land use and balanced use of natural resources. The NERCRD project focused on regional issues that also have a national impact. What Works! 2011: The Future of Rural Entrepreneurship and Community Development brought together practitioners, researchers, educators, and decision-makers to address critical issues in promoting entrepreneurship in the U.S. The workshop provided opportunities for Extension educators and other service providers to learn about new strategies and programs that work in different communities to stimulate job creation and business formation, for researchers to share science-based analyses that could be further developed into programs that will enhance economic development, and for town managers and local planners to share their experiences given new budget constraints and to learn about new research and outreach projects related to entrepreneurship and business development. A pre-conference Community and Economic Development Meeting was held in response to a discussion by Northeast NACDEP members at the 2011 NACDEP Conference. The group agreed that more regular opportunities to collaborate were needed. A post-conference meeting was held so that the leadership team for the eXtension Community of Practice (CoP) could develop content to expand and strengthen the collective body of national extension work devoted to rural community development. We are completing the analyses of the USDA-funded small farms industry clusters research project, and will be preparing outreach materials to disseminate widely using our website and webinars. We are continuing to work with our partners on the Eastern Seaboard food security project, and will be compiling a spatial inventory of the food system infrastructure in the region. Our ARC-sponsored collaborative research will also lead to the creation of web-based county-level indices of water quality and quantity that can be used by extension stakeholders to better understand conditions in their communities for economic growth, and to develop alternative water use plans, etc. The Northeast Center continued to serve in its primary capacity of convening experts and educators in the region with the specific goals of improving flows and exchanges of information; enhancing the capacity of the land grant system to engage effectively the pressing problems facing communities while eliminating duplication of effort and programs and forming teams around critical emerging issues to develop grant proposals that will lead to increased flows of resources into the region. PARTICIPANTS: The What Works conference audience included Extension Educators, Business Counselors, Services Providers, Technical Assistance Providers in Tourism, Agriculture, Micro and Home-Based Business, Rural Community & Economic Development Specialists, Community-Based Organizations, Municipal Officials, Lenders, Planning & Land- Use Professionals, Business Owners, and Foundation Representatives from across the Northeast region and the U.S. The Center's Board of Directors represent the University of New Hampshire, University of Vermont, Delaware State University, Rutgers University, University of Maryland, West Virginia State University, West Virginia University and Penn State University, as well as Farm Foundation, MidAtlantic Farm Credit and the Eastern Regional Conference/Council of State Governments. Members of the NERCRD Technical Advisory Committee include Extension educators and researchers from the University of Maine, University of New Hampshire, University of Vermont, University of Maryland - College Park and Eastern Shore, West Virginia University and West Virginia State University. Stakeholders from the region provided information about conferences and other projects in their states for inclusion in the NERCRD newsletter. TARGET AUDIENCES: The What Works 2011 Conference targeted practitioners, researchers, educators, and decision-makers from across the nation and provided an opportunity for participants to address critical issues in promoting entrepreneurship in the U.S. Pre- and post-conference meetings were held to collaborate with Northeast Community and Economic Development LGU Research and Extension Professionals and to provide an opportunity for the newly formed eXtension Enhancing Rural Capacity Community of Practice leadership team to meet. The NERCRD's Youth Entrepreneurship working group was formed to identify and develop curricula for young entrepreneurs in the region. Center webinars were developed to provide training for Extension Educators with Community and Economic Development interests and to facilitate collaboration across the Northeast region and the U.S. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

    Impacts
    The NERCRD continued to develop strategic networks and collaborate with its stakeholders on regional issues, especially in the areas of entrepreneurship/economic development and energy, local foods/food security, clusters, and sustainability. In the past year, the Northeast Center was awarded three USDA-AFRI grants competed for directly as project manager or indirectly as a subcontractor. All three of these grants are on the topic of local or regional food systems and support of local agriculture in the Northeast U.S. generally. With these grants, which total nearly $6 million, the Center has solidified its strong leadership position and visibility in the local and regional food systems area, in terms of both research and Extension. The recently formed NERCRD Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) provided highly-valued input and advice into the Center's operations and plan of work over the past year. The Center conducted and distributed a network analysis with the TAC members to develop an image of existing collaborations and opportunities for new joint regional projects. Many favorable comments were made by participants in the successful What Works conference; What Works III is being planned for September 2012. A listserv of conference attendees has been developed for future networking opportunities. Members of the NERCRD's Youth Entrepreneurship working group were awarded a $25,000 competitive eCommerce grant to develop an interactive curriculum for young entrepreneurs. Few resources on business start-up and management target this young audience even though youth of all ages indicate an interest in starting a wide range of businesses from lemonade stands to landscaping. These interactive resources will introduce middle and high school aged youth to the concept of entrepreneurship as a career choice and develop entrepreneurial and life skills. This curriculum complements the existing e-Commerce materials for adults, but addresses the special needs of youth entrepreneurs as well. To make the case that the self-employed are worthy of policy attention because they have tangible economic impacts on local communities, educational materials summarizing the scientific literature that confirms these impacts were developed by Center staff and presented to Extension and other audiences in various venues. NERCRD and Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank staff collaborated on a study exploring the relationship between self-employment and income growth, employment growth, and change in poverty in metro and non-metro areas of the United States. They investigated the impact of the relative size of the self-employment sector as measured by the share of nonfarm proprietorships (NFPs) in total full and part-time employment on three key economic performance indicators: income growth, employment growth and changes in family poverty rates. Results indicate that higher self-employment rates are associated with statistically significant increases over time in income and employment growth, and reductions in poverty rates in non-metro counties. Similar effects occur for metro county income and employment, but not for poverty dynamics.

    Publications

    • The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development. 2011. Annual Report 2010, Penn State University. University Park, PA. 24 pp. (Report to Federal Sponsor). http://nercrd.psu.edu/Publications/Reports/AnnualReport2010.pdf
    • Goetz, S. J., M. D. Partridge, D. S. Rickman and S. Majumda. 2011. Sharing the Gains of Local Economic Growth: Race to the Top vs. Race to the Bottom Economic Development. Environment and Planning C, Government and Policy 29(3):428-456.
    • Fleming, D. and S. J. Goetz. 2011. Does Local Firm Ownership Matter Economic Development Quarterly 25(3)August:277-81.