USDA Blog

This week young people across the country are celebrating FFA Week. During this time, members of Future Farmers of America (FFA) get a chance to educate the public about agriculture, but also to learn more about the industry themselves. In January, in his State of the Union address, President Obama...

“The safest bet in America is American agriculture!” That’s the way Secretary Tom Vilsack led off his remarks to the 2,000 farmers, ranchers, agriculture officials and industry leaders in attendance at today’s Agricultural Outlook Forum in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Forest Service is helping Minority Landowner Magazine celebrate its 5th anniversary with a conference in support of minority farmers, ranchers and forest landowners. Minority Landowner will convene the conference Feb. 24-26 in Raleigh, N.C., with some 300 farmers and landowners from across...

Remember the good old days when you only got the “spring sniffles” for a few weeks as the new leaves began sprouting on the trees? And doesn’t it seem like now, for some reason, you’re taking your antihistamine almost as often as you take your multi-vitamin? That’s not your imagination; that’s...

Recently, Evans Memorial Hospital in Claxton, Georgia, received $200,000 in Recovery Act loan and grant funds to purchase a state-of-the-art digital mammography system. “This equipment will provide better imaging and allow for more accurate diagnostics,” said Donnie Thomas, acting Georgia Rural...

In rural America, especially in frontier regions of South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska the shortage of health care professionals tends to be pronounced. For example, 55 of South Dakota’s 66 counties, or 83 percent of all counties, are designated Primary Care Health Professional Shortage...

When you’re Robert Mosier, it’s easy to be green. He’s a native of Greensburg, Kansas; the community totally leveled in 2007 by a devastating tornado and rebuilt “green” by USDA and other federal agencies, state and local entities, nonprofit organizations and individuals like Mosier.

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog: When First Lady Michelle Obama addressed the School Nutrition Association last year to promote her recently launched Let’s Move! Initiative, she mentioned Anji Baumann by name. Why? Anji was the first Food Service Director in the nation whose school, Gooding...

I recently began the Know your Farmer, Know Your Food College tour, and one of the locations I visited was a farmer’s market in North Carolina. Many of the regionally and locally produced products we see at farmer’s markets have a helping hand from USDA’s Value-Added Producer Grant program...

USDA took one step closer to ending hunger in America today with the announcement of 14 Hunger-Free Communities Grantees. The important goal to end hunger and improve domestic nutrition is a top priority for the Obama administration, and an aspiration our innumerable partners have rallied around...