Recent Books:

Fafchamps, M. (2004). Rural Poverty, Risk and Development. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.

- Marcel Fafchamps, professor in the Department of Economics and Mansfield College at University of Oxford investigates the relationships between rural poverty, risk, and development. Building upon his work in the area, Fafchamps summarizes the contributions of recent theoretical and empirical work to our understanding of how risk affects rural poverty levels in developing countries. In particular the book examines what we do and do not know about risk coping strategies among today’s poor rural societies. Ways in which these strategies may be re-examined and improved by governments and international organizations are proposed. Rural Poverty, Risk and Development is an important contribution to the development literature and should be read by anyone interested in exploring the causes of and solutions to poverty in rural areas, including journalists research rural poverty and development.

Martin, P., Fix, M., Taylor, E. (2006). The New Rural Poverty: Agriculture and Immigration in California. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

- Philip Martin, a labor economist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis, Michael Fix, vice president and director of studies at the Migration Policy Institute, and J. Edward Taylor, a professor of agricultural and resource economics and director of the Center on Rural Economies of the Americas and Pacific Rim at the University of California, Davis all co-authored this book which examines the role of immigration and its effect on rural poverty in America. The New Rural Poverty examines the effect of rural immigration on agricultural areas in California and meat and poultry processing centers in Delaware and Iowa. The authors examine the interdependencies between immigrants and agriculture in the United States, explore the policy challenges and options, and assess how current proposals for immigration reform will affect rural America. The book is extraordinarily informative on several fronts, including economics, making it a valuable source for journalists researching immigration and poverty, especially in California.

Summers, G., Harvey, M., Mushinski, D., Pickering, K. (2006). Welfare Reform in Persistent Rural Poverty: Dreams, Disenchantments, and Diversity (Rural Studies). State College, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

- Kathleen Pickering, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Colorado State University; Mark H. Harvey, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Southern Rural Development Center at Mississippi State University; Gene F. Summers, Professor Emeritus of Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; and David Mushinski, Associate Professor of Economics at Colorado State University all look at welfare reform as it has been experienced in four rural and impoverished regions of the United States: American Indian reservations in South Dakota, the Rio Grande region, Appalachian Kentucky, and the Mississippi Delta. Welfare Reform in Persistent Rural Poverty sheds light on the opportunities and challenges that welfare reform has imposed on low-income families situated in disadvantaged areas. Combining both qualitative and quantitative research, this book is an excellent guide for scholars and journalists seeking to research the problem of poverty in rural America.