USDA Blog

The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service’s (NASS) Great Lakes Region encompasses Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio – three states with a significant impact on U.S. agriculture and a healthy crop of young producers.

Vanessa Valencia is a recent graduate from Oregon State University who majored in marketing. She is one of 14 students accepted into the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) High School Equivalency Program (HEP)/College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) internship program.

Last month I attended the Northeast Regional Equity Convening hosted by the USDA and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture on July 18, 2024. This was a unique opportunity to interact with fresh voices and discuss charged and meaningful topics like urban agriculture and nutrition sovereignty.

For nearly 20 years, Dr. Jennie L. Stephens has been a champion in breaking down barriers so that families can build generational wealth and grow working landscapes with their inherited property. South Carolina’s Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation (CHPP™), where Equity Commission Agriculture...

Nichole Espineli is studying for her master’s degree at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her determination, borne from her personal experience with food insecurity, led her to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership (CAPAL) internship...

How can the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) build on innovation to better support sustainable American agriculture? Tackling that complex question was the driving force behind our inaugural USDA Innovation Symposium. USDA’s diverse mission requirements in technology and tools make creativity...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is advancing its leadership in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) across the federal sector. On August 22, 2024, L'Tonya Davis, USDA’s first permanent Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, addressed HR professionals at the Veterans...

When Kiera Sherrod was young, her grandfather often came to her house in Albany, Georgia to plant crops in her parents’ backyard for her family to maintain and harvest. This ritual also sparked the beginning of his granddaughter’s interest in agriculture.

The seeds of digital transformation are taking root as application reviews for our agency’s first Digital Service (DS) Fellows cohort are in progress. By establishing a dedicated fellow team at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), we will be able to improve access to USDA resources and...

In Miami, crops grow 365 days a year. This fact spurred Dr. Maruthi Sridhar Balaji Bhaskar of Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, Florida, to take action to help his students. “We have lots of interest in agriculture here,” said Bhaskar, an associate professor in the FIU Department of...