This article discusses rural depopulation, a long-term trend that not only encompasses half of the nation’s rural counties, but also intensified in many areas in the 2000s. Technological advances that continue to make farms larger are the main driver of the trends, and as such the Great Plains and the Corn Belt are the areas with the most counties experiencing population outflows. Community banks in depopulating areas tend to specialize in agricultural lending, which is far less common in metropolitan and micropolitan areas. The unusual strength in the agricultural sector in the 2000s, even through the U.S. recession, helped community banks in depopulating rural areas avoid many of the asset quality and earnings issues that affected banks located elsewhere. The strong agricultural sector also enabled these institutions to grow assets and deposits at relatively high rates, when such growth had been challenging in these areas before the agricultural boom.
Last Updated: November 19, 2025