April 2023

Can you imagine a day when healthcare is mostly proactive as opposed to reactive? Imagine if everyone has access to the vital conditions for health and wellbeing: the factors that people depend on to reach their full potential. What does that future look like?

Invasive fruit flies, such as the Oriental, Mexican, Mediterranean, and European cherry fruit fly, pose threats to many U.S. commercial and homegrown crops. If established, these flies could cause significant economic losses, requiring costly treatments to protect fruits and vegetables and reducing the marketability of infested fruit both locally and abroad. What’s at stake? The market value of invasive fruit fly-host commodities totaled approximately $11.7 billion in the United States in 2022. Approximately $8.3 billion of that was from California and $2.9 billion from Florida.

WIC is one of the most powerful, evidence-based public health programs, setting moms, babies, and young kids up to be healthy and thrive. The program is associated with incredible outcomes like improved diet quality, birth weights, and cognitive development, and reduced infant deaths, premature births, and health care costs. It’s no wonder more than six million women, infants, and children across America participate in the program.

For America’s farmers, science can act as a form of capital. According to Dr. Alexis Racelis, access to science is not always funded, developed, or distributed equitably.

How you start your day sets the tone for the rest of your day! School breakfast programs are critical in building a healthier future for America’s children.

Nearly 300 of the nation’s best and brightest young people were in Washington, D.C., last week to attend the 2023 National 4-H Conference, hosted by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). With the theme of “From Youth Success to the Future’s Best,” 4-H delegates in attendance represented 43 states, two U.S. territories and 57 Land-grant Universities (LGUs).

The 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s work is under way, and we welcome your involvement in the process to update the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines. The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) encourage public participation in the committee’s review process. You can get involved by:

Every year, thousands of farmers, ranchers, and businesses grow and produce organic products – and all these operations are audited by qualified organic inspectors. Organic inspectors visit fields, pastures, or processing plants to conduct annual reviews where they meet with farmers and processors, ask questions, and observe processes. Annual inspections by qualified inspectors strengthen consumer trust in the USDA organic seal and ensure families are getting what they paid for when they choose to buy organic.

We see them every time we purchase fresh fruits and vegetables: price look up (PLU) labels. The little coin-size stickers are stuck to everything from apples, bananas, and cantaloupes to watermelons, yams, and zucchini.

After years of working in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in Louisiana and Washington, I am thrilled to bring my state-level experience to my role as Senior Advisor for USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). Though I now have a nationwide scope, field work will always be near and dear to my heart, and for policymakers to make the best decisions, we must remain attuned to the stories and impacts on the ground, where clients interact directly with our programs.