USDA Blog

Stewardship of the land is a sacred principle for many American Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages. For those looking to create a conservation strategy, however, it is important to understand early on that the terrain doesn’t stop where your land ends. Through the Regional Conservation...

Have you ever wondered how American farmers and businesses track the price of their commodities? Today, farmers, ranchers, and the entire agricultural supply chain turn to USDA Market News – administered by my agency, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) – for timely, reliable, unbiased data...

February 7 marks the first anniversary of the Agriculture Act of 2014, commonly known as the 2014 Farm Bill. This milestone provides an opportunity to report on the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) efforts during the last year to implement the many provisions of relevance to the...

The first step in running a successful farm or ranch business is identifying a product to create and connecting that product to potential customers. For some new and beginning farmers, it can be a challenge to connect to the right market opportunities and to build a business that fits. At USDA, we...

More farmers, ranchers and others who rely on the land are taking action to improve the health of their soil. Many farmers are actually building the soil. How? By using soil health management systems that include cover crops, diverse rotations and no-till. And when they’re building the soil they’re...

Finding unique gifts for Valentine’s Day just got a whole lot easier. With 122 ski areas, and thousands of miles of trails, riv­­­ers and streams, the U.S. Forest Service has plenty of ideas for a special outing with your l­­­oved one. Show some warmth by sweeping your loved one away from colder...

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 profile. The Matrix is in a classroom near you – not the 1999 hit movie, but a blockbuster nonetheless. The National Agricultural...

If you live in the western United States and you’re sipping a glass of water, irrigating your crops, lighting your home with hydrological-sourced energy, or enjoy skiing or fishing, you’re probably using information made available from USDA’s snow survey program. Snow provides 50 to 80 percent of...

This month, nearly 1.4 million women, infants and children in California have greater access to the healthy foods provided through the state’s Women Infants and Children (WIC) Program. In 2012, USDA notified the California Department of Public Health that it must continue a self-imposed moratorium...

Since 2011, Julie Carr and her husband Robert slowly watched everything they worked for dry up and wither away. Julie calls those days lemonade days — long stretches of hardship where life is throwing nothing but lemons and by the end of the day she has made lemonade. But those days were anything...