Agricultural Policy Review
A Research Publication of the Center for Agricultural & Rural Development
Winter 2026
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The United States remains a dominant force in global corn markets, accounting for roughly one-third of global production and more than one-third of exports. Maintaining productivity while addressing environmental concerns is therefore not only a domestic priority but also a global issue with implications for trade, food security, and agricultural sustainability.
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Iowa faces two dimensions of brain drain, a phenomenon that has long concerned rural policymakers. The first involves rural communities losing graduates to cities, both within Iowa and outside. The second involves young Iowa graduates leaving for regional hubs like Chicago, Denver, and Minneapolis. However, studies show that the place where students attend college significantly shapes their later-life location decisions.
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For more than two decades, Iowa State University’s Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) has conducted a series of water-based outdoor recreation surveys that have contributed to both academic research and policy discussions. Building on this established survey foundation, recent advances in anonymized mobility data offer a complementary way to measure lake recreation, particularly by providing broader spatial coverage and higher-temporal frequency observations.
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Falling costs, innovations in manufacturing and supply chain logistics, emerging energy storage systems, and climate and energy security goals have positioned large-scale solar as a cornerstone of the energy transition. Yet despite these advantages, many rural communities have responded to proposed utility-scale solar projects with hesitation or outright resistance.
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China approved genetically modified soybean varieties for pilot cultivation in 2021 and expanded to controlled nationwide adoption in 2024. This naturally raises concerns in the United States: if China, the largest soybean importer, boosts its own production, will it cut import demand and depress world prices enough to hurt US farmers?
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Food manufacturing is a cornerstone of rural and small-town economies across the Midwest. In some Midwestern counties, a single food processing plant ranks among the largest private employers. In recent years, the Midwest has experienced several large food manufacturing plant closures resulting in the sudden loss of jobs and creation of spillover effects, including significant reductions in local sales revenue and tax collections, reflecting the broader impacts of the plant’s closure on the regional economy.