Based on interviews with farmers, teachers, extension educators, elected officials and others in the area, the study by UoI rural sociologists Courtney Flint and Stephen Gasteyer painted a picture of a region both blessed with tremendous natural resources and cursed by serious economic depression.

The pair led a team of nine student-researchers, who conducted numerous interviews and gathered data to assess a 20-county downstate region.

“(Southern Illinois) is defined not by flat land and row crops, but by increasingly hilly and forested terrain,” Gasteyer reported. “While Chicago is known for high, straight-line winds and frigid winters, southern Illinois is known for its sultry summers and temperate winters.”

Ag at the forefront

Perceived disadvantages of residing in the southernmost reaches of the state include higher poverty rates, lower rates of economic development and soil erosion problems, the sociologists found. “Farms are known for specialty crops and livestock as well as for grains, but the region is also known for its coal production, which has always been a double-edged sword,” said Gasteyer.

“While the decline in mining in the 1990s took a toll on the region’s economy, there are new concerns about the effect of mining on the landscape.”

“The soil types and the weather variability really make farming a challenge,” reported one person interviewed for the study. Crops are produced on 65 percent of the land in southern Illinois and vary greatly from those harvested in the central and northern regions, according to the report.

“While many farmers are producing standard grain crops, the region leads Illinois in vineyards and orchards. Specialty crops and products are an essential part of the agricultural economy and culture, though they rarely show up strongly in agricultural data collected at the state level,” Flint said.

Migrant labor issues are of concern to southern Illinois specialty growers “who claim there is no one else to do the painstaking labor of getting produce from the fields to the marketplace,” Flint reported. “Challenges from changing agricultural production pressures nationally seem magnified in southern Illinois.”

While some industries in the region are in decline, others are rising to replace them, Flint said, including biofuel, specialty agriculture, tourism, hunting and recreation, mining and the metals industry. Flint recommended those burgeoning industries coordinate with each other in future development planning.

The study found threats to the region’s watershed, blamed mostly on production agriculture, are critical issues the region faces. In addition, an assessment of the impact of the UoI’s Dixon Springs facility on the area’s agriculture industry was conducted as part of the study.

“Contributions from (Dixon Springs), such as no-till farming techniques and other animal science and horticulture innovations, have changed agriculture, not just in the region but across the country and perhaps the world,” Gasteyer announced. The facility was constructed in 1938, in part to study the area’s prevalent soil erosion problem. More than three-quarters of the farmers surveyed indicated Dixon Springs was important or very important to them.

Pride despite disadvantage

The statistics compiled from the report paint a portrait of a persistently poor region, Gasteyer found, in part because people in their prime working years often leave the area for greater opportunities, leaving a disparate number of young and old residents. However, there are many efforts underway across the region designed to stimulate development and increase collaboration across sectors, producing “jobs within the region and a great deal of commuting among the counties,” said Gasteyer.

Teachers interviewed for the study shared observations about the economic disadvantages many of the region’s children face, with many not able to connect to available opportunities due to their economic circumstances.

The report wrap-ped up with a warning that “decision-makers” should be wary of making “blanket assumptions” about the region and, instead, should consider the complexity of needs and assets across the varied social, environmental and economic conditions. The researchers recommended the formation of an advisory committee of key regional stakeholders and UoI representatives to address the report’s findings and to guide the relationship between UoI and the southern Illinois region served by Dixon Springs Agricultural Center.

Flint and Gasteyer said they began to see a clear picture of how southern Illinoisans view themselves and their region, through the many interviews conducted for the study.

One person who was interviewed remarked, “There is a pride, I think, in southern Illinois, and maybe that comes from at least partially being at an economic disadvantage to the northern end of the state. I think people from southern Illinois are really proud that they are from southern Illinois.”

The 20 counties included in the study were Alexander, Edwards, Franklin, Gallatin, Hamilton, Hardin, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Massac, Perry, Pope, Pulaski, Randolph, Saline, Union, Wabash, Wayne, White and Williamson.