Blog del USDA

Most people associate pollination with bees and birds but often forget the work of their furry colleagues: bats. Bats take the night shift, playing a major role in pollinating crops and spreading seeds. One important bat is the Mexican long-nose bat, which dwells in large colonies. Their range...

As part of USDA’s ongoing celebration of National Cooperatives Month, please join us for an upcoming webinar exploring the intersection of two important economic trends: a new wave of cooperative development and the rapid growth in demand for local foods. This webinar – The Role of Cooperatives in...

Confronting climate change will be substantially cheaper and easier if we conserve forests, and the key to that is expert knowledge and science, Undersecretary of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Bonnie told thousands of attendees at the recent 24 th World Congress of the International...

Celebratory events in recognition of National Farm to School Month are taking place across the country, and in many forms! Here in the Northeast, the Maine Department of Education chose to develop and execute their first ever Maine Harvest Lunch Week Menu Contest. Schools were invited to submit a...

When Katie Armstrong read “So You Want to be a Forester,” like many high school students she wasn’t sure what career path she wanted to follow. So she decided to attend a summer forestry camp offered by Michigan Tech. After the camp she was hooked. Then she set her goal on attending Michigan State...

From Shayla Bailey, USDA: This is the twentieth installment of the Organic 101 series that explores different aspects of the USDA organic regulations . To mark the 20 th milestone, USDA invited Dr. Jean Richardson, Chair of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), to be a guest author. The NOSB...

Velma Hansen has lived in Fort Benton, Montana for over 60 years, the last dozen of them at Canyon Villas. The engaging 91-year-old keeps an impeccably clean apartment in the rent-controlled complex financed by USDA Rural Development. As one of our hundreds of multi-family properties across rural...

Agricultural data are valuable for analysis, and thanks to the Census of Agriculture and other surveys, NASS has plenty of data available. As a cartographer, however, I obviously prefer to present the data in map form. A map gives anyone a chance to visualize data for multiple geographic areas as a...

Note: Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, was published this year by Penn State University Press ( www.psupress.org ). The following is one in a series of blogs being posted in observance of National Cooperative Month in October. Scholars of...

Tackling the child obesity epidemic that holds so many health risks for our nation’s youngest members is an important responsibility. Fortunately, USDA is not alone in this critical charge. Sound nutrition plays an essential role in all aspects of a child’s life, including their ability to learn...