Fresh Promises for Rural IowaCenter 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.”
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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.
