USDA Blog

On Friday, August 27, 2010, I was in New Orleans to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation to the Gulf Coast. The event was held at the Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana. It was a hot and humid morning as we began the assembly of emergency...

This week my kids headed back to school, and I’ll be busier than last year, having been drafted to be PTA president. While getting to know the new parents at our school, I learned that several are interested in improving school meals and exploring the possibility of purchasing locally and starting a...

USDA Rural Development, Farm Service Agency, and Natural Resource Conservation Service in Nebraska held the “Feds, Farmers, and Friends Feed Families” food drive through July 30, from which 8,352 pounds of food were collected.

Chicago in August concluded our USDA Community Roundtable tour, where our Food and Nutrition Service and Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships met with almost 100 community and state partners to discuss how to improve access to SNAP at a time of growing need for food throughout the...

In the United States the slaughter and processing of meat sold in the marketplace must take place at a state or federally-inspected facility. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, or FSIS, is responsible for this important task. While these requirements are important for protecting the...

Cross-Posted from the Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Blog I recently participated in the launch of a Fruit and Veggie Rx program in Portland, Maine. It is a promising health initiative, led by the nonprofit Wholesome Wave, that allows physicians to track the overall well-being of at-risk patients...

It’s that time of year again. As summer begins to wind down (though you couldn’t tell by the Texas heat), parents are preparing for their children’s eventual return to school. As we all shift gears back into the school year, we at FNS remember our many partnerships throughout the region, especially...

Cross-Posted from the Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Blog

Every chance I get I try to see our nutrition programs at work to get a true sense of how we are improving the lives of millions of people we serve. While I was in Missouri yesterday, I stopped in at the Guadalupe Centers’ Plaza de Niños. That’s a child care center on the Kansas City Metro Community...

Meat and poultry products are important commodities within many local and regional food systems. The production of these products for local and regional markets is of course dependent on the availability of facilities that slaughter and process livestock and poultry. Media stories have recently...