As we continued our tour of the Fifth District last week, making dozens of visits in Gretna, Chatham, Danville, Ridgeway, Martinsville, Arrington, Lovingston, Palmyra, Charlottesville, Warrenton, Washington, Madison and Stanardsville, we had a chance to visit with many small businesses — some that have long served their communities and others that have just begun.

And in talking to both entrepreneurs and employees, we continued to be reminded that these small businesses are the backbones of our Main Street economies, and we must adopt policies that create favorable conditions for them to succeed and expand.

On our tour of the Danville River District and several of its small businesses, we visited the original Biscuitville, first of the 54 stores in the Virginia and North Carolina-based chain, where they still make biscuits from scratch every morning based on a decades-old family recipe.

We must continue to make policy that fosters innovation and entrepreneurial spirit of communities to see more jobs, higher wages and more investment in our area.

Robert Hurt represents Lunenburg in the U.S. House of Representatives. He can be reached at his Farmville office at (434) 395-0120.