By DTN Staff

Drive through any small town in rural America, and you'll likely find a familiar story: a shuttered clinic, a consolidated school, a Main Street holding on by its fingernails -- and a community that refuses to quit. In our special series "Rural Resilience," DTN/Progressive Farmer looks beyond the fencerows and into these communities that farmers and ranchers both rely on and help sustain.

The challenges facing rural America are undeniable: aging populations, workforce shortages, policy uncertainty and infrastructure gaps. But so is the capacity to respond -- to collaborate across county lines, innovate with limited resources and welcome new people and ideas while preserving local identity. Rural resilience doesn't mean resisting change. It means harnessing it. Resilience, after all, is not about bouncing back to what was -- but about building what comes next.

On this page, you will find links to stories that originally appeared in the special April 2026 issue of Progressive Farmer magazine, "Rural Resilience," as well as links to DTN's latest coverage of issues affecting rural America.

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"RURAL RESILIENCE" SPECIAL PACKAGE

For stories, blogs and bonus content related to Progressive Farmer magazine's "Rural Resilience" special coverage, see:

-- Editors' Notebook: " Rural Resilience: How Small Towns Are Surviving -- and Thriving -- Against the Odds," https://www.dtnpf.com/… (5/8/2026)

-- "Rural Resilience - 1: As Farm Belt Tightens, Rural Main Street Economies Adjust," https://www.dtnpf.com/… (5/8/2026)

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LATEST DTN STORIES RELATED TO RURAL AMERICA:

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