USDA Blog

Since 2008, a cooperative of 154 oil palm farmers that comprise the Aguan Valley Palm Producers Association (APROVA) more than doubled their profits and their fruit collection capacity and opened their own refinement plant with assistance provided by TechnoServe under USDA’s Food for Progress (FFPr)...

By Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture The timing of the School Nutrition Association’s (SNA) annual legislative action conference couldn’t have been better as USDA and the Obama Administration continue working on advancing the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act. I really appreciated the...

With 3,000 employees and visitors stopping by the U.S. Department of Agriculture cafeterias on a daily basis, I was pleased to kick off the annual National Nutrition Month at the South Building Cafeteria at the USDA headquarters here in Washington today. I was joined by fellow USDA employees to...

With much of Mississippi located in rural areas and many of those rural areas lacking broadband access, it should be no surprise when USDA Rural Development’s Mississippi team chose to take extra initiative to make sure that Mississippi’s rural cities and counties take full advantage of the...

Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan visited the Utah Food Bank in Salt Lake City today, where she took a tour of the facility and helped assemble meal packets with USDA foods. Merrigan highlighted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and the ARRA funding that Utah Food Bank...

Today I am fortunate to attend an event in Nampa, Idaho, with Congressman Walt Minnick to celebrate Secretary’s Vilsack’s announcement of a new green curriculum for the USDA Forest Service’s 28 Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers, located in 18 st

Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan was at Utah State University yesterday, for a presentation to local leaders and students interested in food and agricultural policy. Attendees filled the auditorium to capacity with standing room only in the aisles to hear about what USDA is doing to strengthen the...

José Otero-García, USDA Rural Development State Director, and Tammy Treviño, USDA Rural Development Rural Housing Administrator sponsored a Self-Help Housing Forum at the Sacred Heart University in San Juan and was web connected with the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus and with the...

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 the USDA's rich science and research ipsportfolio. ----------------------------------------------------------------

Fifteen years ago, USDA and all of America experienced a tragedy that shook us to the core and united us in ways that brought out the best in our country. At 9:02 am Central Standard Time on April 19, 1995, a bomb exploded in the A.P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168...