USDA Blog

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.

Whether shoppers stroll through a grocery store or visit a local farmer’s market, they often wonder where meat or produce comes from. The Country of Origin Labeling program, or COOL, began as an amendment by Congress to the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 in the 2002 and 2008 Farm Bill. However...

Under Secretary for Rural Development Dallas Tonsager spent a busy week recently traveling throughout the heartland as a part of President Obama’s Rural Tour. Under Secretary Tonsager attended a Rural Tour event in Iowa with President Obama and Secretary Vilsack, and then continued to South Dakota...

A stop during my recent visit to Ohio was the historic North Market located in downtown Columbus. The North Market successfully addresses the needs of small and local businesses for retail space, and provides local, healthy and sustainably grown and processed food for consumers. Over one million...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Trade Office (ATO) in Beijing has been working closely with Chinese retailer Beijing Hualian Group High End Markets (BHG) for several years, building a strong partnership. The Beijing ATO is staffed by Foreign Service Officers from USDA’s...

Tucked away in the hillsides of Somerset County, Pennwood Farms is seeing great results from its new methane digester. The 600-cow dairy farm is owned by four brothers who installed the digester in April of this year with the help of a $264,450 USDA Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) loan, a...