Rural SD quietly shrinking

When the Webster and Britton-Hecla school districts decided to switch to nine-man football because enrollment had dropped too low to field 11-man teams, it was a sobering reminder of population decline in rural areas.

 While Brown County has managed to hold onto population because of Aberdeen's industrial, medical and retail base, every surrounding county has lost residents, and projections suggest they will continue to do so, said Michael McCurry, state demographer and assistant professor of sociology and rural studies at South Dakota State University.

 "This is a trend that has really been going on for a long time," he said.

 For example, Day County has lost about 30 percent of its population in the past 30 years. The population dropped from 8,133 to 5,710 from 1980 to 2010, according to the U.S. Census.

 Webster, the county seat, has dropped in population from 2,417 to 1,886 in that same 30-year span, according to the census. Primarily, the Rapid City and Sioux Falls areas are the ones that have not lost population, McCurry said.

 "Rural counties, many in the James River Valley, have diminishing populations, and the average age of the residents is getting older all the time," he said.

 The cause of the decline can be traced to changes in agriculture, he said.

 "There are fewer and fewer farms out there, and there are fewer people needed to work them," McCurry said.

 South Dakota has always been an agricultural state since the Homestead Act of 1862 allowed settlers to claim 160 acres of free land. There was a time a family could live off 160 acres, but now, except for niche farming, agriculture has become a commodities business where volume matters.

 Today, the average farm size in South Dakota is 1,374 acres, according to information released by the South Dakota Department of Agriculture in January.

 The change to larger farms can be seen in Spink County, where 165 farms cover two-thirds (609,210 acres) of the county's land mass, said Craig Johnson, county commissioner and director of Grow Spink, the local economic development organization. The average size of those farms is 3,692 acres.

 "The days of having a little farm on every quarter-section are long gone," he said.

 Advances in agriculture, such as 32-row planters and combines the size of buildings, have made large-scale farming possible, but it has come at a cost. Small towns, which relied on farmers to patronize their Main Street businesses and fill their schools with children, are shrinking.

 At Britton-Hecla School, class sizes are getting smaller and smaller, said superintendent of schools Kevin Coles. This year, Britton-Hecla is expected to graduate 46 seniors. In six years, that number will be 27, according to enrollment projections, he said.

 "It just seems like the migration in South Dakota is to urban areas," Coles said. "With farms getting bigger and fewer farm families, it is impacting rural areas."

  Small towns like Redfield are working to add industries so its young people can have a place to work, but it is an uphill battle.

 "You realize how hard it is to attract a new business to Aberdeen, and Redfield is 10 times smaller," Johnson said.

 Small towns have fewer resources when they are competing against a larger town to attract industry, he said.

 The state's largest city, Sioux Falls, has been the one that has prospered the most. Sioux Falls has served as a magnet for in-state residents and has attracted immigrant populations, McCurry said.

 "It just keeps plugging away with a 1 to 2 percent growth every year," McCurry said. "It just has a nice mix of businesses and opportunities there. If it wasn't for the growth of the Sioux Falls area, the state would be losing population."