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If I could use one word to describe the farmers and ranchers I have met during my time as Deputy Secretary it would be passionate. Last week, it was my great pleasure to join the White House in honoring 17 extraordinary new and beginning farmers who represent the future of agriculture—and let me say...

The Census of Agriculture is the most complete account of U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate them. Every Thursday USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service will highlight new Census data and the power of the information to shape the future of American agriculture. The 2012...

When USDA launched the Regional Conservation Partnership Program several months ago, we talked about our hope that this new way of doing business would build coalitions of unlikely partners and bring new money and resources for conservation projects to the table. The overwhelmingly positive response...

John and Nancy Mims never imagined they would be running a dairy when they met at the University of Florida and married 40-some years ago. He was going to be an architect and a pilot, and she was going to be a nurse. They were going to move to the Caribbean. But then John was drafted. After a six...

Two years ago, the Nisqually Shellfish Farm south of Belfair, Wash. didn’t have a chance. Runoff from surrounding homes and dairy farms polluted Henderson Inlet, and the state declared the water unfit for raising shellfish for human consumption. Worsening the problem, the place was overrun with an...

For the past 3 years, I have worked with a team of experts and scores of reviewers on a report published today, Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Agriculture and Forestry: Methods for Entity-Scale Inventory. If you are a landowner, scientist, or conservationist looking for new tools to estimate...

The Census of Agriculture is the most complete account of U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate them. Every Thursday USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service will highlight new Census data and the power of the information to shape the future of American agriculture. According to...

Earlier this year, in preparation for the 2015 opening of a new business history exhibition, American Enterprise, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History put out a call for current and past members of the National FFA Organization to submit their FFA jackets accompanied with their own...

Windows XP was recently retired along with the iconic photo of a verdant green field on rolling hills that was the operating system’s default wallpaper. This photo, called “Bliss,” had puzzled me for some time as it looked so familiar.

Cross-posted from the White House Blog: Today, in a major step to advance the President’s Climate Data Initiative, the Obama administration is inviting leaders of the technology and agricultural sectors to the White House to discuss new collaborative steps to unleash data that will help ensure our...