Fresh Promises for Rural Iowa
Center for Rural Affairs
Presenting strategies and practices that are helping to revitalize rural communities
Swaledale Bio-Village – Business in rural Iowa using available resources …
Rural
communities face challenges in keeping their small towns alive and
vital. State spending cuts, school consolidations, and more affect
small cities daily. To combat the challenges facing their community,
several leaders from Swaledale, Iowa are working together to help their
town reverse a downward trend and begin to grow.
Swaledale,
population 174, has no grocery store or gas station. Through town
meetings held in June 2003, a committee of concerned citizens developed
a concept to draw people and businesses to their community. John Drury,
former Swaledale mayor, and a team of community members developed an
idea for a bio- and regular fuel gas station, certified kitchen, and
Iowa products store and restaurant called the Swaledale Bio-Village.
The
Bio-Village, located near the I-35 Interstate, will sell both unleaded
and diesel fuel, bio-diesel fuel made from soybeans, and up to 85
percent ethanol fuel. The Swaledale Bio-Village will also offer a
certified kitchen for people with a food product they would like to
sell in a retail store.
The
certified kitchen will serve as a business incubator, allowing cooks to
turn their small-scale food processing into a business. Retail stores
wishing to sell “home grown” products are limited to products prepared
in a regulated environment. A certified kitchen meets these legal
requirements.
Drury
explained, “If someone from North Iowa grows a lot of tomatoes and
makes salsa or spaghetti sauce, they cannot sell their product in
stores. When the product is produced in a certified kitchen, it can be
offered in a retail environment.”
(Source)
To learn more about Dean Dozen candidate John Drury, Democrat for Iowa Senate in District 6, North Iowa, click here. To contribute to his campaign, click here.
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