News from rural America.

A double whammy could be coming for SNAP recipients in states like Texas, construction of AI data centers is plowing ahead in Indiana and descendants of a historic Jewish farming settlement in New Jersey safeguard its legacy.

TRANSCRIPT

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, this is the news from rural America.

Changes made by the GOP-led Congress to food assistance could pose a challenge to grocery stores as well as recipients.

Eric Cooper with the Food Bank of San Antonio says there are Texas counties where half of households rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to feed the family.

With that much of the population, a grocer, their revenue is dependent on those SNAP benefits also.

Gina Plata-Nino at the Food Research Action Center says many of these vulnerable grocery stores are in rural America where other options can be hours away.

So if the cost of food increases for a family that now has to travel two hours, right, when you think of gas, when you think of time.

Changes in the law include putting the cost burden on the budgets of individual states and expanding work requirements.

Padanino says these new requirements will add unanticipated burdens.

They don't come with a transportation offer.

They don't come with a job offer, with a remote option.

The Trump administration's artificial intelligence strategy calls for removing land-use rules that limit construction of data centers.

But the goal of supporting American AI dominance comes with environmental impacts.

In Indiana, Ben Murray with the Food and Water Watch says fossil fuel plants are reopening to help meet the industry's high energy demands.

Anything that prolongs our reliance on fossil fuel is going to increase the problems that we're seeing from the climate crisis.

Murray says new research finds emissions from data centers owned by four tech giants were more than seven times higher than officially reported.

These companies can seem as if they're decreasing their emissions and meeting net zero goals, but in reality, emissions are amping up faster than ever for these companies.

What had recently been a 1,200 acre corn and soybean field outside New Carlisle is now eight AI data centers with plans for 22 more.

Descendants of a historic Jewish farming settlement are safeguarding its legacy.

Anya Slepian explains.

In 1882, 43 Jewish families immigrated from the Russian Empire to Salem County, New Jersey, and formed a colony called Alliance.

Five generations later, William Levin and his wife, Malia, started a non-profit to preserve and rebuild that farming community.

We thought maybe we could do something Jewish and creative and revive perhaps the spirit of the Jewish agrarian community that once thrived in South New Jersey.

American Jews are mostly urban, but Malia Levin notes the ancient Jewish texts originated in an agricultural society.

If you go back to a more agrarian-based lifestyle, the Torah can seem more relevant and immediate for you.

The Levins have used the land to grow traditional crops like tobacco as well as kosher grapes.

I'm Anya Slavyan.

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.