USDA Blog

All of us rely on nature’s benefits during our daily routines, but few stop to think about how we can sustain those benefits over time. Luckily, there are economists, resource managers, and policymakers working on tools to help manage resources—and environmental markets are one of those tools...

Within a week after the government opened from a 16-day shutdown in October, Farm Service Agency employees were able to quickly issue payments to more than 1 million farmers and ranchers. Secretary Vilsack said that he was “proud of the commitment by USDA employees” to ensure these conservation and...

Scaling a mountain or hiking across a meadow is a peaceful, exhilarating exploration – unless you don’t know which fork in the trail to take. It used to mean taking out a folded map, holding onto it tightly so the wind won’t blow it away or trying to shelter it from raindrops. Now dealing with a map...

When the Anishinaabe people migrated from the Atlantic Ocean coast to Michigan centuries ago, they were in search of a place where “food grows on the water,” according to their tribe’s legend. Their quest ended when they found wild rice, thriving in shallow waters in the Great Lakes region. The wild...

Food is a great equalizer. Whether sharing it with loved ones around our holiday table or worrying about how we’re going to fit lunch in to our busy work days--food is something we all have in common. But we don’t always think about the path it takes to get to our plates or even the store shelves...

I just spent the morning calling people who had applied to receive a USDA Farm to School grant. They were fun calls to make as I was letting this year’s awardees know their project had been selected for funding. Today USDA announced awards for 71 projects spanning 42 states and the District of...

On a beautiful fall day on America’s first national forest, Prince Albert II of Monaco retraced the steps his great-grandfather took 100 years ago through the wilderness of the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. Prince Albert II helped celebrate on Sept. 20 the centennial anniversary of the...

The Bremmer family has raised cattle and grown crops in northwestern Illinois for more than a century. Over time, they’ve found ways to improve their operation -- the latest improvement is the use of cover crops. Brothers Ross and Chad Bremmer, fourth-generation farmers, are already seeing the...

This post is part of the Science Today feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. Breadfruit has been a hit in Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia for more than 3,000 years because of its many pluses: This...

Uh, oh! Thanksgiving is right around the corner. You bought a turkey on sale last year and froze it. You know it’s safe because you recently read that frozen turkeys are safe indefinitely and keep good quality for a year. But what you don’t know is how or when to thaw it. First of all, turkey should...