USDA Blog

Today, I am in Athens, Georgia, visiting the University of Georgia (UGA) and meeting with university leaders, faculty, and students to learn about the great work being done here to advance agriculture and solve some of our most pressing challenges. NIFA has a long history of investing in...

Every day, USDA provides assistance to help grow American agriculture and increase opportunities for rural communities. Unfortunately, 90 percent of America’s persistent poverty counties are in rural America. Earlier this year, we launched the StrikeForce Initiative for Rural Growth and Opportunity...

Eighty-five percent of all flowering plants depend on pollinators, like bees and bats, to reproduce. But these critical pollinators are in trouble as habitat loss, disease, parasites and environmental contaminants are causing a decline of many species, including some of the more than 4,000 species...

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 USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. Some say careers in agriculture are a thing of the past, but don’t tell that to Krish Jayachandran, a professor and co...

From the top of Limestone Ridge, 6,000 feet up, the scars of a massive wildfire on Arizona’s White Mountain Apache Reservation in east central Arizona are still visible. As far as the eye can see are bare mountain ranges where century-old ponderosa pines once stood. A decade ago, the Rodeo-Chediski...

With a view of majestic mountains in the background, visitors to the Cranberry Mountain Nature Center of the Monongahela National Forest find themselves immersed in a bevy of beautiful plants in bloom and fluttering monarch butterflies. Beneath the natural grandeur, a very essential ecosystem...

West Virginia and Appalachian Ohio have a lot in common beyond their shared state border. With a strong agricultural heritage, these vast rural areas are known for their forest and timber industries, and they are integrating food systems into local economic development. Earlier this month, I joined...

In rural America, the local community drives the rural economy. Main Street businesses are critical to economic growth. Money spent and invested locally rolls through a community and generates even more economic benefits. That’s why rural small businesses are critical to strong rural communities...

Cross posted from DairyGood.org: Whether it’s cheese, milk, or yogurt, dairy products are a staple in the diets of Americans and people all over the world. June is National Dairy Month, a time when we honor our nation’s dairy producers and processors for making sure that we can enjoy quality dairy...

Finding a sense of place is a huge factor in the life of this district interpreter on the world’s largest temperate rainforest - the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. Corree Seward Delabrue has either lived in or travelled through many of our nation’s states. But Alaska holds the allure of the...