Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audience includes Deans and Directors of the land grant universities in the Northeast, professionals at USDA and within NIFA, faculty and educators across the region, policy makers, planners, citizens, and other audiences, depending on the topic. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We engage several postdocs, graduate students, and early career researchers in our research projects, who are exposed to new ideas, methods, research resources, and colleagues across the nation. The National Extension Tourism Leadership Team continued to receive technical assistance and training in marketing and communications, strategic planning, partnership development, and organizational leadership. The presentations and papers authored by NERCRD researchers have provided learning opportunities to a countless number of audience members and readers across multiple disciplines. The Listening Session final report was distributed to rural stakeholders nationally, providing actionable insights into where investments can be made in rural recovery post-COVID. We supported an early career researcher to travel to NACDEP 2023 to present her work on incentivizing ecosystem service production on working lands, where she was able to gain insights into her research and to the issues served by NACDEP. Peter Wulfhorst, who is helping us with capacity building efforts as we search for a new Associate Director, is gaining new experience in this capacity, including participating at the national meeting of state program leaders at NACDEP, and in convening groups at a regional scale. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We disseminated our Listening Session findings nationally, via our Federal partners' communication platforms, the Extension Committee on Policy, through a collaborative webinar series with the Council on Food and Agriculture (C-FARE), multiple listservs, and many other channels. We presented research findings from several efforts at numerous conferences, including the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association, National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals, North American Regional Science Council, Southern Regional Science Association, Western Regional Science Association, and on various webinars. We issued four NERCRD newsletters, shared dozens of social media posts, and wrote and distributed press releases. Our annual report, which serves as a comprehensive accounting of all our activities, is shared widely via mail, email, and in-person events. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
As reported in NERCRD 2021 and 2022 progress reports (2022-51150-38139 and 2021-51150-34733), a major focus of this reporting period was disseminating findings from the RRDC-led national listening sessions aimed at identifying key priorities and opportunities for rural recovery post-COVID. Through a broad effort, the RRDC team shared findings with national and regional partners, and as a result, myriad stakeholders are better equipped to support rural recovery, and the NERCRD is using the findings to guide their work. For example, in the Northeast (NE), the Listening Sessions revealed infrastructure, including broadband, to be a very high priority. In response, NERCRD organized the September 2023 NE Digital Equity Summit, which provided an opportunity for land-grant University educators and researchers to learn and gain capacity for digital equity programming in the NE and beyond. Similarly, the listening sessions revealed climate change mitigation and adaptation to be a high priority for NE stakeholders, and as an initial response, NERCRD convened a June 2023 webinar aimed at sharing innovative and replicable community-level climate-action planning projects. Both efforts were led by Peter Wulfhorst, a Penn State Extension Educator who is assisting the NERCRD with outreach and Extension activities while the search for a new NERCRD Associate Director is carried out. Wulfhorst has led several other capacity-building efforts during this reporting period, including convening a team to identify common impact indicators for NE Extension. This work is ongoing. He also is convening stakeholders to explore how best to integrate diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice principles into NE Extension programming writ large. This regional group is considering how NERCRD can best support this important and ongoing work, and the expectation is that NERCRD's Associate Director, when hired, will help to operationalize it. At its October 2022 meeting, the NERCRD Board of Directors suggested assuming a reduced support role so the network could develop processes for greater independence, and NERCRD staff have been working with NET leadership on this transition. For example, prior to his departure in September 2022, former NERCRD Associate Director Jason Entsminger led the development of a NET organizational growth plan, which the NET Executive Committee is using to guide its strategic planning. Economic Development, including Resilience and Rural Innovation As reported on in the 2022 progress report, NERCRD researchers and collaborators successfully closed the separately funded project on rural vitality and innovation (effective 4/30/2023). This multi-year project resulted in several findings, and team members continue to disseminate these through publications and presentations. For example, during this reporting period, NERCRD researchers presented findings at the European, Southern, and Western Regional Science Associations annual meetings, in addition to the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) meeting, and published a study in Telecommunications Policy (see products). The research team continues to leverage our access to the Federal Data Center to conduct further research in this topic. NERCRD researchers contributed to two separately funded projects related to rural tourism. Findings from these projects can be used by policy makers and rural governments to better understand the economic contributions of rural tourism and agritourism and how best to support tourism entrepreneurs. For example, in an analysis presented at AAEA in July 2023, the team investigated the relationship between broadband adoption and the number of agritourism operations in a county and found broadband connectivity plays pivotal role in facilitating farmer-consumer interactions. The NIFA-funded project led by Doug Arbogast (West Virginia University), also is contributing to a greater understanding of tourism's role in economic resilience. This research team has developed county-level indicators that can be used to quantify and characterize tourism demand and the economic, social, and environmental characteristics of tourism destinations, and has engaged a diverse team of stakeholders to review these indicators. Findings from this review, which can inform Extension's approach to engaging with communities on tourism projects, were shared at the NET conference in September 2023. NERCRD Director Goetz presented to an Extension audience at the Public Issues Leadership Development conference on NERCRD's experience leveraging funding opportunities for community resource development projects. Food Systems, including Local and Regional Foods During this project's three-year timeline, in addition to the agritourism activities described above and in the NERCRD 2021 and 2022 progress reports, the Center's work under this objective focused heavily on understanding the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts on food systems and food security. Much of this work has already been reported in prior-year progress reports. More recently, NERCRD graduate researcher Yuxuan Pan led a study under this objective focusing on household food sufficiency and diet quality. Specifically, she and her collaborators at Penn State and USDA ERS used household scanner data to estimate the effect of COVID-19 on diet quality of minorities, measured by the Healthy Eating Index, and to compare impacts during the COVID-19 period to other periods. They shared these preliminary findings at the AAEA meetings in July 2023, and are currently writing up results for peer-review. Land Use and Balanced Use of Natural Resources NERCRD Director Stephan Goetz continued to provide advisory support to an initiative sponsored by the Association of Northeast Extension Directors and the Northeastern Regional Association of State Agricultural Experiment Station Directors that resulted in a report titled, "Ecosystem Services in Working Lands: Practice and Policy of the U.S. Northeast." The report, published by Extension Foundation, analyzed over 1,300 ecosystem service provisioning programs and policies in the region, and provides insights into strengths and weaknesses of these programs. During this reporting period, NERCRD helped develop a strategy for disseminating findings and implementing recommendations. NERCRD also supported the report's co-author to attend and present her findings at the Northeast Association for Community Development Extension Professionals meeting in May 2023. Other outcomes of this effort include a presentation to the Vermont legislature, an article in the USDA Climate Hub Quarterly Harvest, and publication of the findings in Agricultural and Resource Economics Review. Behavioral Health in Communities Building on work started several years ago with colleagues at Michigan State University, NERCRD Director Stephan Goetz co-authored a paper published this year that examined rural mental health knowledge and attitudes. The research team found that rural residents are better at recognizing symptoms of anxiety disorder than urban and suburban residents, yet those who are unable to identify anxiety hold a similar stigma. These findings could help mental health service providers better target anxiety literacy efforts at the community level and understand factors that influence stigma around mental illness. With Penn State collaborators, NERCRD graduate researcher Yuxuan Pan led a study presented at the AAEA meetings in February 2023 investigating the effects of food insufficiency and economic shocks, defined as income loss and unemployment, on the mental health of adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. They found that Food insufficiency has a larger negative impact on mental health than either income loss or unemployment, suggesting that policies to alleviate the effect of hunger and economic shocks could support rural mental health.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Han, Luyi, Timothy R. Wojan, and Stephan J. Goetz. 2023. Experimenting in the Cloud: The Digital Divides Impact on Innovation. Telecommunications Policy 47(7):102578. doi: 10.1016/j.telpol.2023.102578.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Pan, Yuxuan, Linlin Fan, Stephan J. Goetz, and Alexander Stevens. 2023. The Impact of COVID-19 on Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Diet Quality. Washington, D.C.: AgEcon Search. https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/335550?ln=en
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Tian, Zheng, Timothy R. Wojan, and Stephan J. Goetz. 2022. An Examination of the Informational Value of Self-Reported Innovation Questions. CES-22-46. United States Census Bureau.https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2022/CES-WP-22-46.pdf
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audience includes Deans and Directors of the land grant universities in the Northeast, professionals at USDA and within NIFA, faculty and educators across the region, policy makers, planners, citizens, and other audiences, depending on the topic. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We engage several postdocs and graduate students in our research projects, who are exposed to new ideas, methods, research resources, and colleagues across the nation. The National Extension Tourism Leadership Team has received technical assistance and training in marketing and communications, strategic planning, partnership development, and organizational leadership. Center staff who supported the NET-NTAE project also experienced the project-accelerator process engaged by NTAE, which certainly will inform their future work supporting new networks. The presentations and papers authored by NERCRD researchers have provided learning opportunities to a countless number of audience members and readers across multiple disciplines. The Listening Session effort engaged 22 facilitators from the national Extension system, who gained experience managing online group discussions and briefing federal partners. Center staff also gained experience managing a national Listening Session effort and communicating results to federal partners and other stakeholders. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The Listening Session survey findings were shared in January 2022 via a widely distributed report and later by a data dashboard. NERCRD Associate Director Entsminger provided briefings on Listening Session findings to numerous audiences, including USDA NIFA, NACDEP, AAEA, Northeast FCS and 4-H program leaders. We also engaged the facilitators of the National Topic Sessions to provide rapid debrief of those sessions' outcomes for NIFA personnel. With the Council of Food, Agriculture, and Resource Economics (C-FARE) and the Federal Reserve Board, we co-organized a panel discussion to elaborate on Listening Session findings and how they can inform efforts to address rural prosperity. In addition, we have disseminated results from other various NERCRD efforts via webinars, our website, press releases, our bi-monthly newsletter, social media platforms and multiple presentations given by the Director and postdoctoral scholars and partners, as documented in our Annual Report. Outputs from the National Extension Tourism effort were shared via the NERCRD newsletter, website, and social media. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to carry out work underway in our portfolio of grants, which includes a NIFA-funded competitive grant on rural innovation; another aimed at providing research-based information for farmers and ranchers considering an agritourism enterprise; and another with a rural tourism and outdoor recreation focus. We will continue to link stakeholders within the NE land-grant system and to analyze and share qualitative findings from the national listening sessions. We will work with the National Extension Tourism leadership team to develop an organizational growth and stabilization plan and otherwise close out their NTAE project. We will translate research findings from various efforts for a general audience in order to maximize learning outcomes. While the listening sessions were funded separately, there is an ongoing need for outreach and dissemination (including our collaboration with CFARE and the Federal Reserve Bank) that will continue after the special separate funding runs out.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Examples of this project's impact: Rural stakeholders, decision makers, and federal partners have gained actionable insights into where investments can be made in rural recovery post-COVID. National Extension Tourism received funding and training in marketing, organizational growth, and strategic partnership development. A network of 26 researchers and practitioners convened in the development of a new book, which examines how innovation manifests in rural places and contributes to entrepreneurial development and community resilience. Goal 1: Extension Community Capacity Building This reporting period represents the first full year of Associate Director, Dr. Jason Entsminger, leading the Center's capacity-building efforts. Most notably, Entsminger led the design and deployment of a separately funded year-long national effort aimed at identifying key priorities and critical investments for rural communities' recovery and growth. This effort, which is described in more detail under Goal 2, resulted in a clear affirmation of the capacity limitations of CRD professionals in the region and the role that NERCRD can play in addressing these limitations by facilitating collaborations and interstate sharing of expertise and capacities. These findings are informing ongoing conversations with NERA and NEED about creating community development core competences for state and field staff across program areas. Our support to the National Extension Tourism Network (NET) expanded considerably with a new funding opportunity offered by USDA NIFA through the Extension Foundation's New Technologies for Agricultural Extension (NTAE) program. NERCRD staff are involved in all aspects of this NTAE project, and have facilitated NET's achievement of several key milestones, including: publication of the first NET conference proceedings; a rebranding w/new logo and traveling display; a series of one-pagers (in progress) describing how NET's work intersects with current NIFA and ECOP priorities; NET ambassadors conducting outreach at several conferences; development of a digital publication (forthcoming) profiling several tourism programs from around the U.S.; and formation of a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access committee chaired by Wisconsin Sea Grant's Natalie Chin w/support from NCRCRD. Leadership development and strategic planning discussions are also planned, which we expect will result in a vision for long-term organizational stability. Goal 2: Economic Development, including Resilience and Rural Innovation NERCRD led a collaboration with the other RRDCs designing and implementing a national Listening Session process aimed at identifying key priorities and critical investments for rural communities' post-COVID recovery and growth. The effort included a national survey, which served as a rapid appraisal of key informants' perceptions about priorities, capacities, and potential to expand programming in eight critical topic areas. These findings provided a basis for a series of facilitated listening sessions with invited stakeholders aimed at diving deeper into survey findings and identifying long-range strategies on key priorities. In early 2022, each of the four RRDCs hosted one regionally focused listening session and one of national scope focused on a specific topic area: Broadband and the Digital Divide, Community Planning and Engagement, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Workforce Development. While the final report from this comprehensive effort is forthcoming, the RRDCs have already drawn on the findings to inform where investments can be made to build the capacity of rural communities to respond to pressing issues. A proposal for a multi-state Hatch integrated project which was developed in partnership with the NET research committee and led by TAC member Doug Arbogast (WVU), was successful. This project, NE2251, will formally begin on October 1, 2022, and will examine resilience and recovery through the lens of rural tourism. Related, a USDA NIFA-funded project also developed by Arbogast with support from NERCRD, launched in July 2022. The goal of this four-year project is to use primary and secondary data to establish indicators communities can use to measure tourism activity and impacts over time and to identify long-term planning and managed-growth plans. As reported last year, a NERCRD-funded research fellowship held by Charlie French (UNH) in 2019-2020 culminated in a book, titled "Building Rural Community Resilience Through Innovation and Entrepreneurship" (Routledge), which was published this year. NERCRD helped promote the book widely, sharing via its newsletter, social media, and other communication channels. We continued to examine the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on communities. Two new data briefs in NERCRD's COVID-19 Issues Briefs series examine the pandemic's effects on Northeast economic activity, in particular. The first uses Gross Domestic Product data to summarize the impact of COVID-19 on the economies of the Northeast U.S. The second sector-specific brief focuses on the tourism and recreation economies in the region; this work is related to a peer-reviewed study published in Tourism Economics, which found that while the pandemic delivered a massive economic blow to the U.S. tourism sector, some rural communities benefited from the crisis in terms of employment gains. This finding may help guide the development of rural tourism and destination management strategies that enhance community resilience. Goal 3: Food Systems, including LRFS NERCRD researchers also continued to examine the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on household experiences with food insufficiency, leading to several new insights. In a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, we found that community food services played a critical role in helping Americans meet their food needs, especially in the first five months of the pandemic, and that middle-class Americans benefited the most from these services, demonstrating a key role these programs can play in times of crisis. In an interdisciplinary collaboration with information technology scientists at Penn State and the Qatar Computing Research Institute, we found that sentiments and emotions expressed in Tweets can be used in real time to assess where supply chain disruptions due to a pandemic, war or natural disaster may lead to food shortages--a finding that can potentially be used to develop a low-cost early warning system for identifying where food-security interventions are most needed. Goal 4: Land Use and Balanced Use of Natural Resources Director Stephan Goetz provided advisory support to two Fellows who assessed over 1,300 ecosystem service provisioning programs and policies across the U.S. Northeast. Their report, authored by Alicia F. Coleman and Mario R. Machado and published by the Extension Foundation, describes the programs' institutional arrangements, incentive structures, and the ecosystem services they provide. It was created for NERA and NEED. NERCRD staff continued to attend monthly planning meetings and maintain the event website of the joint National Extension Energy Summit and National Sustainability Summit through May 2022. The joint summit (May 15-18, 2022) provided Extension professionals and others working in sustainability and energy education and research a venue for learning and sharing the latest in sustainability and energy research and innovative Extension programs. Goal 5: Behavioral Health in Communities We contributed to SAMSHA-funded research (Loveridge et al., forthcoming) investigating the relationship between rurality, other community-level variables, and individual variables with regard to recognition and stigma of anxiety. We found that rural areas are more adept at identifying anxiety, suggesting that rural places might be better prepared to reduce stigma associated with anxiety.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Devlin, K. (2021, October 21). Food pantries essential for reducing hunger among middle-class in 2020. Penn State News. https://news.psu.edu/story/673363/2021/10/20/research/food-pantries-essential-reducing-hunger-among-middle-class-2020
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Devlin, K. (2022, June 17). Tourism activity collapse during COVID-19 benefited rural hospitality employment. Penn State News. https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/tourism-activity-collapse-during-covid-19-benefited-rural-hospitality-employment
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Entsminger, J. (2021a, October 18). Classifying Primary Agricultural Producers in Local Foods Marketing Channels: Using the Organizational Species Concept to Understand Strategic Profiles. 2021 Food Distribution Research Society Annual Meeting, online.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Entsminger, J. (2021b, November 22). Investing in Rural Recovery: Findings from a Rapid Assessment of Stakeholder Priorities for Rural Development. Briefing to USDA NIFA Economic Recovery Team, online.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Albrecht, D., J. Entsminger, J. Green, M. Marshall, M. Wilcox (2022, June 6). Fostering Development in Rural America in the next 50 years. National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals, Indianapolis, IN.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Entsminger, J., Green, J. J., Welborn, R., Garner, R., Wiatt, R., Bednarikova, Z., Gayle, R., Pan, Y., & Goetz, S. J. (2021). Investing in Rural Recovery: Findings from a Rapid Assessment of Stakeholder Priorities for Rural Development. Regional Rural Development Centers.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Goetz, S. J., Heaton, C., Imran, M., Pan, Y., Tian, Z., Schmidt, C., Qazi, U., Ofli, F., & Mitra, P. (2022). Food insufficiency and Twitter emotions during a pandemic. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, aepp.13258. https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13258
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Tian, Z., & Goetz, S. J. (2021b, November 11). Spatial Correlation and Variation in Census Responses, Voting Behavior, and Labor Participation: A Spatial Seemingly Unrelated Regression Analysis. North American Meetings of the Regional Science Association International, Denver, CO.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Goetz, S. J., Pan, Y., Entsminger, J., & Tian, Z. (2021). U.S. Household Food Insufficiency Falls Below Pre-Pandemic Leve [NERCRD COVID-19 Data Report 21-02]. https://aese.psu.edu/nercrd/publications/covid-19-issues-briefs/u-s-household-food-insufficiency-falls-below-pre-pandemic-level
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Han, L., Goetz, S. J., Eades, D., Entsminger, J., & Arbogast, D. (2022). An early assessment of COVID-19s impact on tourism in U.S. counties. Tourism Economics, 135481662211078. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548166221107814
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Han, L., Goetz, S. J., & Entsminger, J. (2022, April 8). Shortages and Surpluses of Building Contractors Evidence from the US Counties. 61st Annual Meetings of Southern Regional Science Association, Austin, TX.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Tian, Z., & Goetz, S. J. (2021a, September 23). More Americans couldnt get enough to eat in 2020 a change that hit the middle class hardest. The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/more-americans-couldnt-get-enough-to-eat-in-2020-a-change-that-hit-the-middle-class-hardest-167853
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Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audience includes Deans and Directors of the land grant universities in the Northeast, professionals at USDA and within NIFA, faculty and educators across the region, policy makers, planners, citizens, and other audiences, depending on the topic. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We engage several postdocs and graduate students in our research projects, who are exposed to new ideas, methods, research resources, and colleagues across the nation. The teams funded by our small-grants program gained exposure to new programming ideas and in turn deliver content to communities, which also benefit from new knowledge. The presentations and papers authored by NERCRD researchers have provided learning opportunities to a countless number of audience members and readers across multiple disciplines. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We continue to explore ways to forge connections with new and potential stakeholders, e.g., Entsminger has initiated conversations with the Northeast Climate Hub and new CED faculty at regional institutions, and Director Goetz has made several presentations to new leadership at the region's LGUs, the Pennsylvania Ag Council, and other groups. In addition, we have disseminated results via webinars, our website, press releases, our bi-monthly newsletter, social media platforms and multiple presentations given by the Director and postdoctoral scholars and partners, as documented in our Annual Report. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to carry out work underway in our portfolio of grants, which includes a NIFA-funded competitive grant on rural innovation and another aimed at providing research-based information for farmers and ranchers considering an agritourism enterprise. We will continue to link stakeholders within the NE land-grant system through the further development of regional research and outreach affinity groups, through our work with the National Extension Tourism network, and through our newsletter and website. We will conduct a survey and listening sessions to help inform regional and national priorities related to economic resilience over the coming year. We will translate research findings from various efforts for a general audience in order to maximize learning outcomes.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Examples of this project's impact: Extension staff in three states have been trained in the Marketing Hometown America (MHA) project and have adapted the curriculum for online delivery. One PA community has begun implementing the MHA process. The National Extension Tourism leadership team is poised to receive specialized training in leadership and partnership development from senior Extension executives via the Extension Foundation. Members of multiple agricultural sectors in Pennsylvania have a better understanding of how to build resiliency into food systems. Policy makers and citizens have a greater understanding of how households have been affected by the pandemic, in terms of food insufficiency. Goal 1: Extension-Community Capacity Building The work performed during this reporting period continued to be strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on communities and the Extension programs that support them. In 2021, Postdoc Sarah Rocker participated in a national effort to understand how CRED Extension professionals are adapting and innovating their programming to help communities respond to the pandemic with the intent to help community development professionals more effectively serve local communities. She and others presented their findings at the National Assoc. for Community Development Extension Professionals (NACDEP) virtual conference in May 2021. We worked with our small-grant-funded teams to adapt their projects to the realities of the COVID-19 environment. The Main Street Revitalization group remained active by meeting regularly to discuss what team members were seeing and hearing about COVID-19 impacts on Main Streets. UNH team members developed an online version of their Main Street Academy to deliver to a wider audience, and they hope to resume the in-person aspects of their project in the coming year. Following a train-the-trainer event in 2020, Penn State members of the Marketing Hometown America (MHA) project team adapted the curriculum for virtual delivery in communities, and piloted the program in a PA community, where MHA activities are ongoing. Other participating states have reported plans to use its activities and concepts in upcoming community programs and projects. As reported in the prior-year funding report, the third funded project looking at best practices in collecting data on recreational trail use has resulted in a broader coalition of academic, public, and non-profit entities in the region that is meeting monthly and exploring further funding options. They are seeking to create a regional unified strategy for collecting, aggregating, and using bike-pedestrian data to inform local and regional decision making and planning and transportation investments. As described in the prior-year funding report (#2019-51150-29876), we are ramping up support to the National Extension Tourism network (NET) on many fronts. Our new Associate Director, Dr. Jason Entsminger, is leading an emerging funding opportunity offered by USDA NIFA through an Extension Foundation accelerator program that will result in NET's leaders receiving leadership training and partnership development, and support in developing new communications pieces and an evaluation framework. The network has grown four-fold since our Center renewed its partnership with this group in 2017, and the communications support provided by NERCRD Communications Specialist Kristen Devlin has expanded to include chairing the NET communications committee, developing a social media presence, and building out the NET website. With leadership from Entsminger and Director Goetz, a sub-group of NET members from AK, GA, IA, MN, NH, OR, PA, and WV is also developing multi-state Hatch project proposal, which is described in detail below. Goal 2: Economic Development, including Resilience and Rural Innovation As reported in the prior-year funding report a 2019-2020 research fellowship held by Charlie French, UNH, aimed at improving our understanding of characteristics of resilient rural communities, is resulting in a forthcoming book, titled "Building Rural Community Resilience Through Innovation and Entrepreneurship" (Routledge). NERCRD researchers contributed two chapters: one focusing on the geography of rural innovation and entrepreneurship in the US, and another on the role of value chain coordination networks in bolstering regional food economies. We continue to pursue several lines of inquiry related to economic resilience and innovation, including recently published work visualizing spatial commodity flows that may be helpful for better understanding supply chain geographies, as well as business interconnections and interdependencies, and to anticipate and potentially address vulnerabilities to different types of shocks. Our work with the NET Research Committee is focused on developing a proposal for a multi-state Hatch research project that will look at resilience and recovery through the lens of rural tourism in the region. Objectives of this planned project include conducting collaborative assessments of rural tourism at the multi-state level; investigating the resilience, adaptability, and recoverability of different components of the rural tourism system (i.e., restaurants and bars, hotels/motels, travel agents, attractions); and identifying strategies that tourism businesses and destinations are using to cope with the pandemic. The proposal is nearing completion and will be submitted during the next reporting period. We met with NE stakeholders at the virtual NACDEP regional meeting, where Assoc. Director Entsminger led a discussion regarding the formation of a regional working group around the theme of Recovery, Revitalization, and Resiliency. During that discussion, three priority/issue areas emerged: (1) tools for planning and decision making; (2) workforce issues, including opportunities and challenges posed by the new world of work; and, (3) addressing sustainability challenges with economic growth, especially pressures on natural amenities and resources. During the next reporting period, we will help convene those interested in collaborating on one or more of these thematic areas and identify and activate networks in support of this work. Goal 3: Food Systems, including LRFS We continued the development of our COVID-19 Issues and Data Briefs series looking at the pandemic's food systems impacts. Findings from this and other work was shared with the Penn State Ag Council, which comprises organizations, groups, and businesses that represent a strategic agricultural or related interest in Pennsylvania. The presentation, titled "Resiliency Examined: An Overview of COVID-19 Impacts to U.S. Food Supply," demonstrated the disruptions that occurred, both for businesses and individuals, and that the food system accommodated pandemic-related shocks through supply-chain adjustments and with shorter-term price increases. We also showed that larger shocks came from the consumer/demand side than the agricultural worker/supply side. This line of research also resulted in a new data brief showing that Pennsylvania food insufficiency reached a new high at the end of 2020, and in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics on the role of community food services in mitigating hunger during the pandemic. For each of these products, companion news releases are helping to disseminate these findings to various stakeholder groups, including the general public. Goal 4: Land Use and Balanced Use of Natural Resources Nothing to report on this goal currently. Goal 5: Behavioral Health in Communities Nothing to report on this goal currently.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Goetz, S. J., Pan, Y., Rocker, S. J., Schmidt, C., & Tian, Z. (2021, April 29). Resiliency Examined: An Overview of Covid-19 Impacts to U.S. Food Supply. Penn State Ag Council meeting, online.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Devlin, K. (2021, February 9). Researchers develop new tool for visualizing vulnerabilities in supply chains. Penn State News. https://news.psu.edu/story/647176/2021/02/09/research/researchers-develop-new-tool-visualizing-vulnerabilities-supply
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