USDA Blog

A few weeks ago, USDA Rural Development helped the Antlers, Oklahoma EMS purchase a brand new six-wheeled ATV with funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This was an important investment considering that the EMS team did not own one already.

It’s a new year at USDA, at least for those of us forecasting agricultural commodity markets. Every May, the World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB) in the Office of the Chief Economist releases USDA’s initial projections of the markets for the crops and livestock that will be produced and harvested...

USDA’s emergency food program in Flint, Mich., offers a unique response to the city’s lead crisis. To support the health of the area’s low-income residents, USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service promotes key nutrients and adequate diets. “This community is an old manufacturing town. A lot of the factory...

Lanon Baccam serves as the Deputy Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services (FFAS). Baccam oversees the domestic programs within FFAS, including Farm Service Agency and Risk Management Agency. Baccam also serves as the USDA Military Veterans Agricultural Liaison. Being an Army...

All this month we will be taking a look at what a changing climate means to Agriculture. The ten regional USDA Climate Hubs were established to synthesize and translate climate science and research into easily understood products and tools that land managers can use to make climate-informed...

Eric Grandon of West Virginia is a war hero in the truest sense. Spending nearly 20 years in the Army, he was a combat veteran in Operation Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom II, and participated in four peace-time missions to the Middle East. Yet, when a horrific flashback overtook him in 2011...

Oregon’s McKenzie River has a lot to boast about. One of the cleanest and coldest rivers in the country, it’s the most important tributary for wild spring Chinook salmon and Bull trout production in the entire Willamette River Basin. It’s part of more than 100 miles of streams that the Willamette...

James E. Church was a man who answered his calling. Like a real-life Indiana Jones, Professor Church pursued adventure around the world, ending a war and helping to found the Snow Survey Program on the way. Every hero needs a cause; Church found his in snow. Born in Michigan in 1869, Church moved...

Confronting climate change will be substantially cheaper and easier if we conserve forests, and the key to that is expert knowledge and science, Undersecretary of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Bonnie told thousands of attendees at the recent 24 th World Congress of the International...

On June 27, 11 members of the 1968 U.S. Olympic men’s track and field team returned to the Eldorado National Forest to commemorate the site that helped catapult them to 24 medals — including 12 gold — in the Summer Games that year. Nearly 46 years ago, Echo Summit, on the forest 10 miles west of...