USDA Blog

Access to the world via internet and mobile phone services is at the fingertips of most Americans, but this is not the reality for residents of many rural communities across the Nation. In October 2014, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced $190.5 million in grants and loans to make broadband...

Last week, we entered a bold new era of exploration and discovery as NASA launched the Orion spacecraft, a major step testing the possibility of going to Mars. As NASA contemplates sending human missions to Mars, one question we must answer is: what will the astronauts eat and what foods will assist...

Shortly after taking office, I joined other Cabinet officials on a visit to rural Southwest Alaska. We met with Alaska Native leaders and heard firsthand the difficulties facing Native Americans living in small communities in remote, rural areas. Since that time, this administration has worked each...

U.S. agricultural exports continue to be a bright spot for America’s economy, worth a record $152.5 billion in fiscal year 2014. That’s why USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and its sister agencies work so hard to keep these export markets open. So in 2011, when Morocco requested that USDA...

Quality data is paramount when it comes to helping markets reach their full potential. This is especially true in the agriculture industry where businesses are always searching for reliable data that can help them make important decisions like what to produce or how much to buy. I recently joined a...

Cross posted from the Huffington Post: Living in a rural community shouldn't have to come with a hefty price tag for healthcare. On this National Rural Health Day, we celebrate the fact that thanks to the Affordable Care Act, it no longer has to. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is already making a...

Growing up on a small crop and hog farm in Perry County, Illinois, I have memories as a child listening to the radio with my father or uncle to hear the latest agriculture news. As farmers, they relied on and trusted receiving weather, farm, and market updates from the local radio station, WDQN...

We don’t spend much time thinking about roads in the United States. We worry about the traffic on them, but we don’t often consider the importance of the actual road itself. But to the Senegalese villages of Sindone, Yabon and Laty, a new road represents a path to a more prosperous life. A new 7.5...

From Shayla Bailey, USDA: This is the twentieth installment of the Organic 101 series that explores different aspects of the USDA organic regulations . To mark the 20 th milestone, USDA invited Dr. Jean Richardson, Chair of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), to be a guest author. The NOSB...

Velma Hansen has lived in Fort Benton, Montana for over 60 years, the last dozen of them at Canyon Villas. The engaging 91-year-old keeps an impeccably clean apartment in the rent-controlled complex financed by USDA Rural Development. As one of our hundreds of multi-family properties across rural...