Written by some of the foremost experts on rural America, this book focuses on policy-relevant research on the problems of rural areas. In each chapter, rural policy needs are identified by examining the flow of events and rural sociology of the 1980s. Chapters are: (1) "Critical Times for Rural America: The Challenge for Rural Policy in the 1990s" (Cornelia B. Flora and James A. Christenson); (2) "Rural America and the Industrial Policy Debate" (William W. Falk and Thomas A. Lyson); (3) "Financing Rural Businesses" (Mark Drabenstott and Charles Morris); (4) "Rural Banking" (Gary P. Green); (5) "Small Businesses" (Jan L. Flora and Thomas G. Johnson); (6) "Issues Facing Agricultural Policy" (Louis E. Swanson and Jerry R. Skees); (7) "Agricultural Labor" (William H. Friedland); (8)"The Rural Poor: The Past as Prologue" (Kenneth L. Deavers and Robert A. Hoppe); (9) "Work and Poverty in Rural America" (Ann R. Tickamyer and Cynthia M. Duncan); (10) "Meeting Rural Family Needs" (Janet L. Bokemeier and Lorraine E. Garkovich); (11) "The Aged in Rural America" (Marvin A. Kaiser); (12) "Health Care in Rural America" (Doris P. Slesinger); (13) "Rural Education" (Daryl Hobbs); (14) "American Indian Development Policies" (C. Matthew Snipp and Gene F. Summers); (15) "The Doubly Jeopardized: Nonmetropolitan Blacks and Mexicans" (Leif Jensen); (16) "Capacity Building and Rural Government Adaptation to Population Change" (David L. Brown and Nina L. Glasgow); (17) "Rural Transportation" (Ronald C. Wimberley); (18) "Family Planning and Fertility in International Context" (Gretchen T. Cornwell and C. Shannon Stokes); (19) "Water Quality and Agriculture" (Stephen B. Lovejoy and Jerald J. Fletcher); (20) "Soil Conservation" (Ted L. Napier); (21) "Farmland Tenure Policy" (Patrick H. Mooney and Jess Gilbert); (22) "Forest Resource Policy" (Louise Fortmann and Sally K. Fairfax); (23) "The Waste Management Problem" (Steve H. Murdock and others); (24) "Telematics and Rural Development" (Don A. Dillman); (25) "Rethinking Biotechnology Policy" (Frederick H. Buttel); (26) "International Development" (Conner Bailey); and (27) "A Rural Policy Agenda for the 1990s" (James A. Christenson and Cornelia B. Flora). An index and author profiles are included. (SV)