Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24
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 presentations and papers authored by NERCRD researchers and webinars organized by NERCRD staff have provided learning opportunities to countless audience members and readers across multiple disciplines. Stephen Alessi, who joined the NERCRD as Associate Director, is gaining new experience in this capacity, and we support his travel to capacity-building events including NACDEP and the upcoming Maryland Digital Equity Summit. The Northeast Digital Equity Summit provided participants with professional development in digital equity best practices, barriers, and opportunities, and resulted in a new knowledge-sharing network. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We presented research findings from several efforts at numerous conferences, including the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association, American Economics Association, North American Regional Science Council, Southern Regional Science Association, and the Travel and Tourism Research Association. As described under Objective 3B, we issued several newsletters and "events and opportunities" emails, shared dozens of social media posts, and wrote and distributed press releases. The annual report, which serves as a comprehensive accounting of all activities, is shared widely via mail, email, and in-person events. Our new website, launched in February 2024, provides a much easier platform to explore our research findings. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to continue translating key findings from the separately funded projects into general-audience-friendly formats, e.g., fact sheets. We also will continue to leverage our access to the Penn State-based Federal Data Center to conduct further research in the rural innovation topic area, as well as credit access and greenhouse gas emission, via our separately funded projects on decarbonization and rural innovation. We will write up findings from several research efforts currently underway and submit them to peer-reviewed journals. We will continue to support the National Extension Outdoor Recreation Working Group as they wind down their NTAE-funded project looking at areas of greatest opportunity to implement the MOU. We will share research findings at upcoming conferences, in our newsletter, and via our digital platforms.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1A. While the separately funded project on rural innovation concluded in 2023, the researchers continued to write up results from this project into 2024. A comprehensive accounting of this project's impacts and outputs is maintained at https://bit.ly/3zN7FML. The research team was awarded a new two-year grant from the U.S. NSF to continue the work of estimating rates of innovation in small geographic areas. Additional economic development research performed during this reporting period is described in detail in the NERCRD 2023 progress report (Award #2023-51150-41113) under Objective 1B. 1B. NERCRD stepped down its level of administrative support of NET and collaborated w/NET leadership to ensure a smooth transition during this change in early 2024. NERCRD staff continued to co-lead the NET communications committee and support two new NET initiatives: the National Extension Outdoor Recreation Working Group (NEORWG) and National Extension Agritourism Working Group (NEAWG). This included participating in their respective in-person meetings at the NET Conference in Milwaukee, WI, in September 2023; co-authoring a case statement with the NEORWG steering committee; and providing communications and admin support to both groups. These activities are described in more detail under Objective 3A below. 1C. We continued to explore the issue of housing and rental property affordability at the county-level nationwide, to identify areas with a prime need for housing development. A complicating factor is the prevalence of zoning and other regulations which play at least as big a role as worker availability. We seek to examine construction sector wages as measures of relative worker supply. This work also examines how housing and rental affordability vary across the country for different age cohorts. A paper is scheduled to be presented at the 2024 North American Regional Science Council (NARSC) meeting in New Orleans, LA. 1D. As reported in 2023, we are not pursuing Objective 1D at this time at the recommendation of the TAC. 2A. NERCRD researchers completed the Twitter/Food security prediction work and shared widely the results of this work, which was published in Applied Agricultural Policy and Perspectives (Goetz et al., 2022). Work exploring the changing contribution of Northeast agriculture is ongoing, most recently using the 2022 Census of Agriculture data, which was released in February 2024. An initial presentation was made at a conference in Baltimore, MD, sponsored by UMES. 2B. Work under this objective is being carried out primarily via partnership with Claudia Schmidt on her separately funded agritourism project (#2020-68006-31683). NERCRD supported the development of two research briefs aimed at distilling the 2022 Census of Agriculture data that were released earlier this year into accessible, digestible formats for use by agritourism operators and support organizations. The first, "Agritourism and Recreational Services on US Farms: Data from the 2022 Census of Agriculture," and the second, "Direct-to-Consumer Sales of Agrifood Products by US Farms: Data from the 2022 Census of Agriculture," together provide a snapshot of the national agritourism and direct-sales landscape and document recent changes across the industry. Stakeholders were made aware of these publications through a press release, several social media posts, and inclusion in the NERCRD newsletter. 2C. We addressed three specific questions: how did unemployment, income loss and food insufficiency induced by COVID-19 affect mental health? Which predictor is the most important? In addition, which subgroups were hit hardest by the hardships induced by COVID-19 and experienced more mental health disorders (i.e., anxiety)? We found that the pandemic significantly impacted both food sufficiency and mental health, with food insufficiency having a larger negative impact on mental health than income loss. Larger effects were found in mortgage paying-households, among males, and in non-metro areas. 2D and 2E. Work on these objectives was paused during the 20-month period in which the NERCRD was operating without an Associate Director. Now that Stephen Alessi has filled that vacancy (effective June 2024), we will reassess the feasibility of this work during the upcoming reporting period. 3A. On behalf of NERCRD, Penn State Extension's Peter Wulfhorst convened a multi-state team to organize and implement the 2023 Northeast Digital Equity Summit on September 19. More than 130 people registered and roughly half attended the live event. Recordings, slides, and resources are available online. The Summit provided participants with professional development in digital equity best practices, barriers, and opportunities, and resulted in a new knowledge-sharing network. NERCRD continued to provide administrative support to the National Extension Outdoor Recreation Working Group (NEORWG). We attended the group's in-person meeting at the Milwaukee, WI, NET conference, and coordinated monthly phone calls of the NEORWG steering committee. NERCRD staff played a similar role for another NET-related knowledge-sharing network -- the National Extension Agritourism Working Group -- and has been providing support to them during their quarterly virtual meetings. Several members of this working group, including NERCRD Faculty Affiliate Claudia Schmidt (Penn State) were recognized with a 2023 USDA NIFA Partnership Award for their multi-state work advancing agritourism. NERCRD co-hosted with NET a national webinar on Accessibility in Rural Tourism in March 2024. More than 100 people registered for the event, which provided professional development to foster more inclusive tourism projects. NERCRD Director Goetz and Faculty Affiliate Schmidt supported the University of Maryland Agritourism team by attending and speaking at their inaugural UMD Agritourism Conference in December 2023. Goetz returned to UMD in May 2024 to deliver a keynote on emerging agricultural trends in the Northeast U.S., based on the 2022 Census of Agriculture data. 3B. NERCRD shared information and resources through eight mailings to email subscribers and dozens of social media posts. NERCRD staff also attended several conferences to engage with stakeholders and share research findings. New this year was our participation in the Pennsylvania Ag Summit (hosted by PA representative Glenn Thompson) and in Ag Progress Days, PA's largest outdoor ag expo, where we shared via a visual display about the role that vibrant rural economies play in supporting the agricultural sector. This event attracts approximately 45,000 people over the course of three days. 3C. NERCRD's subscriber list grew by 10% during this reporting period. Thirteen percent of new subscribers are from 1890 institutions. During this reporting period, NERCRD's LinkedIn following grew by 215% to just over 100 followers. While we continue to also use X/Twitter, tracking engagement and growth is difficult since the company removed analytics data in 2020. We currently have 244 X followers. 3D. We broadly disseminated our research findings via four Penn State News releases. Each news release describes the key findings from a peer-reviewed scientific article using accessible language for non-scientists. We deployed a caregiving survey of Northeast households, conducted in collaboration with the NCRCRD. This resulted in a brief that provides the important findings and policy-relevant insights, which was shared widely and will continue to be disseminated through multiple channels in the coming year. 3E. In addition to the capacity-building activities described in objectives 3A-3D, NERCRD staff attended monthly meetings of the Community and Economic Development Extension Program Leaders from the Northeast. These meetings are hosted by the Northeast Extension Directors and provide an opportunity for educators to collaborate and build capacity and program knowledge.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Becot, Florence, Shoshanah Inwood, and Emily Southard. 2024. The Economic and Social Well-Being of Caregivers in the Northeast Region. Research Brief. Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development. https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/344226.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Devlin, Kristen. 2024. Women Farmers Quantitatively Linked to Better Community Well-Being. Penn State News, January 17, 2024. https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/women-farmers-quantitatively-linked-better-community-well-being/
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Pan, Yuxuan, Linlin Fan, and Stephan J. Goetz. 2024. The Effect of Soda Taxes on Beverage and Candy Purchases. Presented at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association annual meeting, New Orleans, LA, July 29.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Slivka, Julie. 2024. Insights from the 2023 Northeast Digital Equity Summit: A Report on the Role of Extension Programs. Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development. https://nercrd.psu.edu/pubs/2023-northeast-digital-equity-summit-report-on-role-of-extension-programs/.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Tian, Zheng, Jiakai Zhang, and Yong Chen. 2024. Navigating the Storm: Assessing Government Transfers and Employment Outcomes in Hurricane-Affected U.S. Counties. Presented at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association annual meeting, New Orleans, LA, July 30.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Northeast Digital Equity Summit: Presentation and Recordings from the summit are archived on the NERCRD website as follows:
Bergson-Shilcock, Amanda, Kenneth Smith, and Vernelle Mitchell-Hawkins. 2023. Closing the Digital Skill Divide and Empowering Workers for the Future: Best Practices, Lessons Learned and Suggestion for Improvement. Presented at the Northeast Digital Equity Summit, online, September 19.
Gallardo, Roberto. 2023. Digital Equity 101. Presented at the Northeast Digital Equity Summit, online, September 19.
Halerz Schmidt, Cristy, and Bertram Johnson. 2023. Penn State Extensions Digital Literacy & Equity Pilot - KeyTakeaways and Lessons Learned from Building Community Partnerships and Delivering Basic Computer Workshops with Senior Populations. Presented at the Northeast Digital Equity Summit, online, September 19.
Leach, Kathryn. 2023. Year Two Findings from a Cornell Cooperative Extension Digital Literacy Mentoring Program in a Rural Community Resistant to Change. Presented at the Northeast Digital Equity Summit, online, September 19.
Matychak, Xanthe, Foad Hamidi, Erin Higgins, Samantha Musgrave, and Rob Moore. 2023. Baltimore Community Efforts Toward Sociotechnical Justice. Presented at the Northeast Digital Equity Summit, online, September 19.
Ternus, Amber, and Marceline Kanalaupuni-Naff. 2023. Digital Equity Survey Mapping Project. Presented at the Northeast Digital Equity Summit, online, September 19.
Welborn, Rachel, and Kenneth Sherin. 2023. Enhancing Digital Equity: Empowering Communities Through Extension Programs. Presented at the Northeast Digital Equity Summit, online, September 19.
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Progress 09/01/22 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:We have encountered delays in replacing the previous Associate Director, who departed in September 2022, for a tenure-track faculty position. In large part the delay is due to hiring challenges caused by the current state of the job market. We continue our efforts to fill this position and expect to complete the process in 2023. 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. Center staff who supported the development of two conference proceedings during this reporting period have gained new project-management and publication-production experience. The presentations and papers authored by NERCRD researchers and webinars organized by NERCRD staff have provided learning opportunities to countless audience members and readers across multiple disciplines. 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, and we supported his travel to capacity-building events including NACDEP and the Braver Angels national meeting. NERCRD staff attended the in-person RRDC strategic planning meeting hosted by the NCRCRD at Purdue University, where we benefitted from and contributed to dialogue with RRDC colleagues on organizational issues, strategic planning, communications, and grant reporting. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We presented research findings from several efforts at numerous conferences, including the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (five papers), 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. The annual report, which serves as a comprehensive accounting of all 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?We plan to translate key findings from the separately funded rural innovation project into general-audience-friendly formats, e.g., fact sheets. We also continue to leverage our access to the Penn State-based Federal Data Center to conduct further research in the rural innovation topic area, as well as credit access and greenhouse gas emission. We will write up findings from several research efforts currently underway and submit them to peer-reviewed journals. We will support the National Extension Outdoor Recreation Working Group as they establish a vision, mission, and goals. We will participate in a workshop at the upcoming NET conference in September 2023, where participants will co-create a new national repository for agritourism resources. We will host the Northeast Digital Equity Summit and carry out the action items that emerge from that summit. We expect to hire an Associate Director who will lead outreach programming for the Center and will also translate research findings into actionable extension programming.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. Resilient Economies 1A. In addition to the work described in the NERCRD 2021 Progress Report, we continued work on the separately funded project on rural vitality and innovation, resulting in several findings. For example, we found that the use of cloud computing services contributes to business innovation, and when rural businesses can access the cloud, they do so at similar rates as urban firms, and engage in a similar volume of innovation. This can be used by policymakers and business-support organizations to foster greater opportunities for rural innovation. We shared these and related findings through dozens of publications and presentations. While this NIFA-funded project closed (effective 4/30/2023), we continue to leverage our access to the Federal Data Center to conduct further research in this topic. 1B. As described in the NERCRD 2021 report, our support of the National Extension Tourism network (NET) was tied to the closing of the NIFA-funded New Technologies for Ag Extension project and resulted in several outcomes and impacts. We also supported the NET conference planning committee as they prepare for their bi-annual national conference taking place in Milwaukee, WI, in September 2023. NERCRD staff contributed to the development of NET's first conference sponsorship prospectus and related web presence and is leading the communications committee in its effort to publicize all aspects of the conference. At the recommendation of the Technical Advisory Committee and Board of Directors, we also are winding down administrative support of NET so they can pursue long-term organizational stability. We are collaborating with NET leadership to make this transition as seamless as possible. At the same time, the Center is supporting a new initiative emerging from this network in response to the recently announced USDA Interagency Memorandum of Understanding on Supporting the Nation's Outdoor Recreation Economy (MOU) jointly with Dr. Arbogast of WVU. The MOU states that building the U.S. recreation economy is one of the USDA's top priorities. However, as noted in Goetz et al. (2022), "In states that have not yet invested in tourism and recreation programming, Extension service professionals may need to actively network with colleagues outside the state to build new expertise..." and "[the RRDCs] will be critical to facilitate these relationships..." To that end, we hosted an outdoor recreation national networking meeting in November 2022 that resulted in the creation of the National Extension Outdoor Recreation Working Group (NEORWG). A primary objective of this group is to convene a community of Extension professionals to engage with the goals of the MOU. More recently, NERCRD organized and hosted a NEORWG steering committee kickoff meeting and will continue to support this steering committee as they establish a vision and mission for the NEORWG. 1C and 1D. Work towards objective C is underway, and we will report on preliminary findings in the next reporting period. On the recommendation of the TAC, we are not pursuing Objective D at this time. 2. Food Systems and Agriculture 2A. For the time being we have completed the Twitter/Food security prediction work and are still disseminating the results of the paper published in Applied Agricultural Policy and Perspectives (Goetz et al., 2022). We are in the process of initiating the work on nutrient density contributions from Northeast U.S. agriculture. 2B. As reported on NERCRD 2021, work under this objective is being carried out primarily via partnership with Claudia Schmidt on her separately funded Agritourism project, which most recently developed a series of agritourism and direct sales fact sheets for all 50 U.S. states. Another major effort during this reporting period was providing project management and editorial support to the development of the first conference proceedings of the International Workshop on Agritourism (IWA). Published in July 2023, this volume increases access to the scholarship that was shared during the three-day conference, which was hosted by UVM in Burlington, Vermont, USA, 8/30-9/1/2022, and engaged more than 500 attendees. It contains 26 peer-reviewed, open-access papers, and can be used by Extension audiences, policy makers, and others interested in supporting farm viability, agricultural literacy, and community vitality through agritourism. 2C. NERCRD graduate researcher Yuxuan Pan has led two studies under this objective, gaining valuable professional experience in addition to contributing to the knowledge base. In one study using Household Pulse Survey data from the Census Bureau, we found that the pandemic significantly impacted both food sufficiency and mental health. We are currently preparing to submit this for publication in Social Science and Medicine. In the second study, conducted in collaboration with Penn State and USDA-ERS, we 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. We shared these preliminary findings at the AAEA meetings in July 2023, and will write them up for peer-review in the next reporting period. 2D and 2E. Currently work on these objectives is on hold, with the departure of Dr. Entsminger to the University of Maine (see also Problems/Changes section below). We will reassess the feasibility of this work once we have a new Associate Director on board. 3. General Capacity Building and Communications 3A. As reported above (1B), we co-facilitated the formation of the NEORWG and are continuing to support this nascent network as they develop their vision, mission, and goals. In addition, we hosted a NET virtual networking session for agritourism Extension professionals, which initiated a new national agritourism knowledge-sharing network. NERCRD staff will support this group further by assisting with a workshop at the upcoming NET conference in September 2023, where participants will co-create a new national resource repository, allowing for a more robust support system for agritourism in the U.S. Penn State Extension Educator Peter Wulfhorst, who is helping us with capacity-building efforts while we search for a new Associate Director, attended the national Braver Angels conference in July 2023, to learn more about the group's efforts to bridge political divides. We are exploring whether and how to engage this group or its programs in the Northeast. Wulfhorst has also led the planning for a Northeast Digital Equity Summit, which is scheduled for 9/19/2023. 3B. As reported in NERCRD 2021, we send routine emails to our subscribers and social media followers in which we curate events, opportunities, and resources from around the nation that can expand capacity for community and economic development programming and research. We also use this platform to share innovative and promising programs in the region that can potentially be replicated. 3C. Our most successful strategy for reaching new audiences and growing our subscriber list during this reporting period was to hold two webinars in relatively novel topic areas -- one on "Dealing with Contentious Public Issues," and another on local climate action planning. We plan to continue to hold periodic engagement events like these going forward to grow our network. We also launched a LinkedIn account, which we will use to engage with stakeholders, publicize their events and opportunities as well as ours, and stay abreast of current "conversations" in our topic areas of interest. 3D. As described under Objective 2B above, the Center's support was critical to the development of the IWA conference proceedings. We also supported the development and distribution of a set of factsheets providing detailed business and demographic data for the agritourism and direct-sales farms in all 50 US states.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Arbogast, D, Lindblom, J, Phillips, M, Rocker, S, and Powell, J. 2022. Outdoor Recreation and Extension-Resources Roundup and National Networking. November 17.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
NERCRD. 2023a. NERCRD Newsletter, February 2023 Edition, February 1, 2023. https://mailchi.mp/f26ebb9e4f9c/nercrd-news-february-2023-6260627.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
NERCRD. 2023b. Events, Opportunities, and Resources, March/April 2023 Edition, March 24, 2023. https://mailchi.mp/ad47b3b61b7a/events-and-opportunities-march-april-2023.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
NERCRD. 2023c. Events, Opportunities, and Resources, April/May 2023 Edition, April 20, 2023. https://mailchi.mp/4a6b056f2f67/events-and-opportunities-april-may-2023.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
NERCRD. 2023d. Events, Opportunities, and Resources, June 2023 Edition, June 2, 2023. https://mailchi.mp/c7581900b7a2/events-and-opportunities-june-2023-6269919.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
NERCRD. 2023e. NERCRD Newsletter, June 2023 Edition, June 26, 2023. https://mailchi.mp/b1e7d6c5fc01/nercrd-news-june-2023-6269915.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
NERCRD. 2023f. Events, Opportunities, and Resources, July 2023 Edition, July 14, 2023. https://mailchi.mp/a78a2a6fa106/events-and-opportunities-july-6272819.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Entsminger, Jason, John Green, Rachel Welborn, Renee Wiatt, Zuzanna Bednarikova, Rianna Gayle, and Yuxuan Pan. 2023. Comprehensive Summary of National Rural Development Stakeholder Listening Sessions. Regional Rural Development Centers. https://www.usu.edu/rrdc/listening-sessions.
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