USDA Blog

In early August, USDA Rural Development Puerto Rico held a stakeholder meeting to discuss Rural Development priorities for President Obama’s 2013 budget and 2012 Farm Bill. The main objective the meeting was to obtain valuable input to develop and improve our mission area priorities for the upcoming...

For as long as Dr. Katherine Ralston could remember, she wanted to be a veterinarian. "My 6th grade teacher wrote on my report card (that I still have!), 'When you become a vet, I'll bring Clint (his black Labrador) to see you.' As I got older, I discovered more and more reasons why I wanted to...

Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website: Lance Morgan is an enrolled member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and President, CEO, and co-founder of Ho-Chunk, Inc., the award-winning economic development corporation owned by the Winnebago Tribe.

Recovery Act funding spurs a renaissance in backcountry trail maintenance. This year, visitors to the Los Padres National Forest, near Goleta, Calif., are seeing widespread wilderness trail improvements thanks to Recovery Act funds. Nearly $2.3 million was allocated to the forest for wilderness...

Dozens of people gathered in Monticello, Ky., on Wednesday to break ground on a project in which five local families began the process of building their own homes. Great partnerships can lead to great projects – and this event highlighted several strategic partners that worked incredibly hard to...

USDA’s Smuggling Interdiction and Trade Compliance (SITC), a program with USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), is in its tenth year of protecting American agriculture from invasive pests and diseases. Some of SITC’s efforts toward this goal include identifying and closing...

With just over two weeks left in the 2011 Feds Feed Families campaign, Forest Service employees are joining forces all over the country in an extraordinary show of commitment and compassion as its summer food drive moves to full gear in helping reach the USDA’s goal of 500,000 pounds of donated food...

For many American consumers, the first thing that comes to mind when they think of USDA is the mark of inspection on their food labels and products. The mark of inspection gives consumers confidence that the meat, poultry and processed egg products they are about to enjoy are safe and wholesome. And...

Right now, parents are making sure their children are ready to head back to school after the summer. Their checklist to get ready might include new shoes or a new backpack - paper, pens and other supplies. At USDA, we are working to add another item to the list: nutritious meals and healthy...

An August 18 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, ‘Obama on the Farm’, missed the underlying fact: the Obama administration understands that America’s farmers are some of our nation’s finest conservationists, and we have gone to historic lengths to support them in these efforts. Sadly, rumors...