USDA Blog

District of Columbia science classes help in an enhanced pest detection program. The Challenge – Non-native wood-boring insects and pathogens that infest and kill trees pose a serious threat to our nation's forests. But monitoring trees to look for emerging insects is time-consuming and resource...

I have lived and worked abroad for most of my adult life, including many years in Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia, so it was not too difficult adjusting to life in the Brazilian Amazon. I learned to speak Portuguese in the field; my tutors were the field assistants that I hired locally. The...

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. The very name mahogany is synonymous with luxury and sophistication. This beautiful wood has been traded internationally...

Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website: Ross Racine is the Executive Director of Intertribal Agriculture Council. He assumed those duties in January 2001. He served as the IAC Natural Resources Director beginning in 1991, and as the IAC Director of Programs since 1999.

In conjunction with National Bike Month, the National Forests in Florida celebrated the renovation of the Munson Hills Off-Road Bicycle Trail on the Apalachicola National Forest. The project was funded by the Recovery Act. The ribbon-cutting event in Bristol, Fla., was attended by an enthusiastic...

Recovery Act funding spurs a renaissance in backcountry trail maintenance. This year, visitors to the Los Padres National Forest, near Goleta, Calif., are seeing widespread wilderness trail improvements thanks to Recovery Act funds. Nearly $2.3 million was allocated to the forest for wilderness...

With just over two weeks left in the 2011 Feds Feed Families campaign, Forest Service employees are joining forces all over the country in an extraordinary show of commitment and compassion as its summer food drive moves to full gear in helping reach the USDA’s goal of 500,000 pounds of donated food...

Deep amid the dense greenery of a rain forest, U.S. Forest Service scientists are nursing a special patient back to health. The patient is on pain medication, but lucid enough to ruffle his emerald green feathers and fill the room with angry squawks when a biologist removes him from an incubator. It...

Over the past year, the USDA Forest Service has been providing technical advice and assistance to the Deputy Minister for Forestry in the Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture and Food. From July 18-30, the Forest Service hosted a six-member delegation of Bulgarian forestry officials to provide insight...

If you are looking for inexpensive, fun and healthy recreational activities in the great outdoors, then look no further than our national forests and grasslands.