Skip to main content
Skip to main content

USDA Blog


Showing: 1 - 10 of 178 Results
Applied Filters

FAS Program Helps Provide Qualified Teachers in Malawi

December 27, 2012 Kate Snipes, Agricultural Counselor, U.S. Embassy Nairobi, Kenya

School children in the rural communities of Malawi will soon have access to more qualified primary school educators, thanks in part to the Foreign Agricultural Service’s (FAS) Food for Progress (FFP) program.

Initiatives Food and Nutrition Trade

No Más Hambre: A Community Call to Action

December 21, 2012 Roxana Barillas, Deputy Director, Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the U.S. Department of Agriculture

The NO MAS HAMBRE Summit recently held in Washington DC to raise awareness of hunger in the Latino community brought together government, nonprofit, corporate and community leaders to talk about solutions to an endemic problem that often goes unnoticed -- nearly one in three Latino households with...

Food and Nutrition Initiatives

School Garden Turns into Living Learning Laboratory for Nevada Fifth Graders

December 21, 2012 Mark Williams, Nevada USDA Rural Development Energy Coordinator

“Can a School Garden Supplement a Community’s Food Supply in a Sustainable Way?” That was the question asked by Bob Gardner’s fifth grade class at Dayton, Nevada, Elementary School on Tuesday as students presented their science projects to classmates and adult guests.

Initiatives Energy Rural

USDA Kentucky Staff Encourages Students to Pursue Careers in Agriculture

December 18, 2012 Katherine Belcher, USDA Rural Development Public Information Officer

Middle and high school students from across the state gathered on the University of Kentucky (UK) campus earlier this month, to learn about potential careers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). UK’s College of Agriculture hosted the group, Jr. Minorities in Agriculture Natural Resources...

Initiatives Rural

Recovery Act and NRCS Help Tennessee Town Fight Erosion

December 18, 2012 Michelle Banks, NRCS

Steve Koonce, a Civil Engineering Technician with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), remembers swimming in Tennessee’s Cane Creek as a youngster, when he and friends would jump from a bridge into the water 15 feet below. But today, because of a catastrophic erosion problem, that...

Initiatives Conservation

Make It Fun!

December 13, 2012 Patrick Parnell, Foreign Agricultural Service and People’s Garden Executive Master Gardener

As fall was quickly turning into winter, we chose a brisk day in early November to close out gardening season with all of the students at Powell Elementary. Together, along with staff from the NHL’s Washington Capitals and USDA Executive Master Gardeners, we organized a harvest and “Salad Party” so...

Initiatives

Rescue Dogs Sniff for Salamanders to Save Rare Species and Help People

December 12, 2012 Bruce Hill, Santa Fe National Forest and Ellita Willis, Office of Communication, US Forest Service

Shelter dogs that are often rejected are getting a new lease on life. Plus they’re helping wildlife and people! These conservation canines climbed the Jemez Mountains, clambering over rocks, running from smell to smell, to track where rare Jemez salamanders, a species found nowhere else in the world...

Forestry Animals Plants

School Gardens on Wheels

December 10, 2012 Leslie Burks, Project Manager for The People’s Garden Initiative

USDA partnered with The Washington Capitals to bring a People’s Garden to Powell Elementary School in Washington, DC almost 2 years ago. The process began with a garden design session so parents, teachers and students from every grade could put their ideas on paper. Hundreds of ideas were collected...

Initiatives

North Carolina Faith Communities Eat Smart and Move More

December 07, 2012 Pam Niesen, Intern, USDA Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships

Let’s Move Faith and Communities challenges congregations and communities to make health a priority through wellness leadership implemented in three steps: lead, organize, and take action. Fifty North Carolina faith communities are doing just that through their partnership with Faithful Families...

Initiatives

A Green Menace Threatens a Mohawk Community

December 04, 2012 Thomas Colarusso, APHIS Plant Health Safeguarding Specialist and Dwight Cunningham, APHIS Public Affairs, Riverdale, MD

For centuries, the Mohawk community of the Akwesasne (pronounced AHG - weh - SAUCE – knee) have created traditional basketry from the abundance of ash trees found along the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Thousand Islands area in New York. But for the last three years, the trees and the matchless...

Animals Plants