USDA Blog

An educational program about bats, an effort to increase Dusky Canada goose breeding and an annual bird migration celebration are among the winners of the 2013 Wings Across the Americas Conservation Awards. The U.S. Forest Service awards were presented recently during the North American Wildlife and...

The U.S. Forest Service and Colorado Springs (Colo.) Utilities recently announced a new 5-year partnership to help restore the areas burned by the devastating Waldo Canyon Fire that tore through part of the west side of the city in 2012. Through the partnership, Colorado Springs Utilities will...

It may be spring time, but the staff of Northern Girl already has big plans for fall, when their new vegetable processing facility officially opens in Van Buren, Maine. Funded in part through a USDA Rural Development Rural Business Enterprise Grant (RBEG), the new 4,000 square foot facility will...

Today, the American brand of agriculture is surging in popularity worldwide. Fiscal years 2009-2012 represent the strongest four years in history for agricultural trade, with U.S. agricultural product exports exceeding $478 billion over these four years. Overall, American agriculture supports 1 in...

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. Yogurt is pretty healthy already, so how do you make it even healthier? Well, Agricultural Research Services (ARS)...

Travel is a popular activity for a lot of people. When traveling outside the United States, what you bring back really does matter. We want to protect our country from invasive plant pests and diseases to help keep our agriculture and forests safe. You don’t want to inadvertently bring a pest or...

When you walk around many of the nation’s cafeterias, you will notice that plenty of changes have taken place on school lunch menus. Thanks to new standards and other efforts by the USDA, the lunches for our children have become healthier. The new standards, which were implemented for the 2012-2013...

They’re known far and wide as The Fighting Quakers. The irony isn’t lost on the fiercely proud students and alumni of Ohio’s historic Wilmington College. Founded in 1870 by the Religious Society of Friends, Wilmington College is the “warp and woof” of rural Clinton County; its largest employer since...

I work for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency that helps farmers voluntarily implement conservation practices on their lands across the U.S.—including land on my home, Puerto Rico. I am extremely proud of recent NRCS efforts here to help farmers, ranchers and landowners make...

Applications are being accepted starting today from qualified non-profit and public organizations (intermediaries) to provide loans to create jobs by promoting new business development. Funding will be made available through USDA’s Intermediary Relending Program (IRP). Intermediaries work as...