Here are a few interesting blogs and online articles published this week that relate to Rural Business, ending January 24, 2009:

Conservation and community development groups are urging Obama to use the economic stimulus package to improve rural America by investing in the nation’s public forests. Improving the health and productivity of our public forests would provide employment for forestry workers displaced by the decline of timbering, and also reduce the cost of forest fires that often take place in unmanaged forest properties. Read more about it here.

Becky McCray, primary author of that great rural business blog, SmallBizSurvival, has created an interesting list of Top Rural Small Business Trends for 2009. You can read Becky’s complete list at Small Business Trends.

Can Social Media Save a Local Business? is the question Chris Brogan asked this week, and the incredible ideas described by nearly 100 blog readers in their responses are worth reading. Only time will tell whether the Simply Gourmet Bistro and Groceria in Peabody, Massachusetts will survive, but in the meantime those of us with rural businesses can learn from its struggle. It certainly made me think in new ways how I might use Twitter to promote my business to tourists passing through the Blue Ridge region - what about you?

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