#rural-economy

#rural-economy

WEBSTER SPRINGS, WV. In West Virginia, many of the thousands of bridges spanning mountain valleys and gorges are named for local veterans and on Main Streets in small towns, banners feature hometown soldiers, some of whom fought and died in past conflicts. It's a state with one of the country's highest per-capita populations of veterans. Service in the military including the various branches of the National Guard has long been seen not just as a patriotic duty, but as an economic lifeline.

Nicola and Jana work off the land in Kotevska's home country of Macedonia. In an early scene, they bring literally three tons of potatoes to be sold, only to go home with the unusable crop due to increasing regulation and wholesalers looking for irrational deals. It's not that the earth doesn't support these people in their efforts to continue their generation-spanning work, it's that the system has let them down.

"No government in modern history has done more damage to rural Britain than Labour is right now," Anderson said. "Farms are closing at twice the rate new ones are opening."