USDA Blog

Making varsity, attending prom, getting into college or finding a job upon graduation … all things that many high school students spend time thinking about. We’d wager that very few of them also spend time thinking about where their food comes from, how nutritious it is, or how it got to their plate...

USDA celebrates National Native American Heritage Month in November with a blog series focused on USDA’s support of Tribal Nations and highlighting a number of our efforts throughout Indian Country and Alaska. Follow along on the USDA blog . One year ago, I joined tribal and community leaders on the...

The Weeks Act 100-mile Legacy Trail has recently been unveiled as a virtual self-guided driving tour of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The tour is named after the watershed conservation legislation of 1911 known as the Weeks Act that led to the creation of national forests east of the...

Windbreaks and other agroforestry practices provide a wide range of agricultural production and conservation benefits, helping farmers and furthering the goals of U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Perdue’s Agriculture Innovation Agenda. Windbreaks are designed to increase crop yields, reduce...

Communities across the United States are facing water challenges, impacting millions of lives and costing billions of dollars in damages. Recent events, including record-breaking drought in the West and severe flooding in the Southeast have elevated a national dialogue on the state of our Nation’s...

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 USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. Farmers love data. And while big picture items are great, growers tell us they really want and can use local data. In...

What do you get when you combine an abandoned rural high school, two Colorado farm families and potatoes? White Rock Specialties. The innovative potato packing facility in Mosca, Colorado, is an economic driver for valley potato growers and employment in this small, unincorporated community in the...

Demand for fresh lamb from ­five star restaurants drives Bob Corio’s use of cover crops and better forages that provide feed but also build organic matter in the ­fields he farms in Union County, South Dakota. “We needed something else for our sheep to eat other than hay,” says Corio, who has a...

When most people think about what USDA exports to countries all over the world, food is the first thing that comes to mind. But did you know that the United States exported nearly $7 billion in forestry products in 2010? These exports allow for the beauty and sustainability of U.S. forests to be...

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) made many significant investments in small private enterprises in rural America. Shooting Star is a farm in Northern California where that investment is paying dividends. Funds from ARRA, better known as the Recovery Act, made it possible for...