The Hill News

Things were going well in rural America. 
 
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City credited smalltowns, specifically farming communities, with leading the country’s recession recovery in 2010. 
 
Farm household incomes climbed. Agricultural exports reached new records. Buying power from the Heartland trickled out to the coasts. Farm policies came in well under budget. Crop prices for many commodities grew to help offset increasing input costs (if you think filling up an SUV once a week is expensive, try filling up a tractor or combine multiple times a day).
 
And the Fed said the good news should extend into 2011, unless something unforeseen happened.
 
It did, and Mother Nature rained on the parade. And rained and rained and rained â€" or in some parts of the country, kept the rain from coming at all.

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