USDA Blog

Do you use Roma tomatoes for your homemade marinara sauce? Do you like hops in your beer and good flavor in your fried catfish? Do you enjoy strawberries, and do you wish there was a natural mosquito repellant on the market? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you can thank scientists...

On Sept. 7, 2020, Labor Day, the Pacific Northwest experienced a firestorm of historic proportions. For two days, gusty winds drove dry air from the east, down the west slopes of the Cascade mountains. Wind gusts up to sixty miles per hour collided with record-breaking dry conditions, fanning flames...

In this time of widespread remote learning, USDA Forest Service Experimental Forests and Rangelands bring the mysteries of the forest to the classroom, even when it’s at home.

Interest in agricultural careers is enjoying a resurgence in America. While there are many excellent opportunities in farming and ranching, beginning farmers and ranchers have unique needs for education, training, technical assistance, and outreach. For those within their first 10 years of operation...

Cattle grazing on a nearly half mile wide targeted strip of cheatgrass near Beowawe, Nevada, created a firebreak that helped limit a rangeland fire to just 54 acres this past August compared to rangeland fires that more commonly race across thousands of acres of the Great Basin.

Could looking through trees be the view to a greener future? Trees replacing the clear pane glass in your windows is not a work of science fiction. It’s happening now.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations is hosting its “First International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste” on September 29, 2020. As USDA’s Food Loss and Waste Liaison, I want to highlight some of FAO’s awareness-raising messages.

When we think of heroic dogs, the fictional collie Lassie and German shepherd Rin-Tin-Tin often come to mind, but life can be more dramatic and amazing than adventurous Hollywood story telling. This is especially true in the case of a highly decorated USDA Forest Service K-9 officer — an 11-year-old...

A snapshot of the next generation of young men and women realizing their dreams of becoming full- or part-time farmers reveals challenging opportunities. Some young farmers, like Hank Huffman – a 25-year-old farmer from rural eastern North Carolina – have gleaned great experiences from the...

Did you first learn about rabies through the children’s book or movie “Old Yeller”? Rabies has changed drastically over the last century in the United States, moving from a majority of cases occurring in domestic animals like the literary canine hero, to a disease occurring predominantly in wildlife...