USDA Blog

Doug Harper, a fifth-generation farmer, moved to the Texas Gulf Coast area in 2012, looking forward to the potential for increasing corn, cotton, milo, and watermelon production there. Texas farmer Doug Harper comes from a long line of farmers. Growing up in the business, he knows there are always...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is helping Tribes in Washington State find and fight invasive species with funds from the 2014 Farm Bill Section 10007. The Reaching American Indian (RAIN4) project helps tribes identify and combat invasive...

Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Ted McKinney is leading a USDA trade mission to Central America this week, making it a good time to review where we stand as far as CAFTA-DR, the United States’ free trade agreement with five Central America countries and the Dominican...

Interested in being part of our process as we develop the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA)? Start today at DietaryGuidelines.gov.

Last week, nearly 1,600 agriculture stakeholders gathered at the 94 th Annual Agricultural Outlook Forum, the USDA’s largest convening. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and other distinguished speakers shared their insights on upcoming challenges and opportunities in agriculture, including...

Get your foodie passport ready to tour scrumptious California veggie country! With over 970 thousand acres of harvested vegetables, melons, and strawberries, the just released USDA NASS Vegetables 2017 Summary places California at a whopping $7.85 billion in vegetable production – over half of the U...

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reports that more than 25 million Americans – almost 8 percent of the population – were affected by major disasters in 2017. From severe flooding in Puerto Rico and Texas to mudslides and wildfires in California, major natural disasters in 2017 cost...

USDA researchers tackle tough problems critical to American agriculture. Addressing how to nurture heathy soils, improve crop yields, or prevent livestock diseases, they carefully plan experiments and analyze data that can lead to better on-farm decisions and more productive practices. But even...

What if, before you purchased a hat or sweater, you knew the wool used to make it came from sheep raised on a ranch managed to improve soil health and increase soil carbon?

Since its inception nearly 100 years ago, USDA’s Agricultural Outlook Forum has provided analysis of the farm economy, including the short- and long-term outlook for agricultural commodity markets. Producing credible and reliable information about supply and demand conditions for all the major crop...