July 2011

What better time than National Homeownership Month to host a housing development workshop?    Local officials in Pike County, Alabama, recognized the shortage of available housing for individuals and families interested in relocating to the area because of the hundreds of new job opportunities resulting from recent industry announcements and existing business expansions.  As one of the steps to help address this housing issue, the Pike County Economic Development Corporation (PCEDC) hosted a housing development workshop last week.

During the workshop, lenders, realtors, and developers learned about a variety of Federal and State programs to finance single family and multi-tenant housing.  Representatives of USDA Rural Development shared detailed information and met one-on-one with individuals following the workshop to answer their specific questions.  General questions about eligibility criteria, “green-building” programs and incentives, zoning issues, and rehabilitation of existing multi-tenant housing were raised during the workshop.

This spring, Earth Team volunteers with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) surveyed approximately 300 hundred acres of remote Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and private lands north of Villa Grove, Colo., looking for Gunnison sage-grouse, a ground-dwelling bird considered a keystone species in this habitat.

Every month, more than 44 million people use SNAP to get nutritious food. Most of us probably imagine participants buying items like tomatoes, squash, and apples with their benefits. But did you know that SNAP can also help people grow their own food? With SNAP, participants can buy seeds and edible plants. It’s a great way to get fresh produce right at home! All SNAP retailers, including Farmers’ Markets, can sell seeds and plants to SNAP participants.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

News by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) indicates that moving dairy cows out of climate-controlled barns and onto the land may help to lessen the ecological impact of dairy farming without any corresponding loss of production.

Staff from the Colorado State Offices of the Farm Service Agency, Food and Nutrition Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Rural Development have joined forces in support of the People’s Garden “Share Your Harvest” Campaign.  For a second year, the agencies have partnered with the Clever Kids Learning Center on the Denver Federal Center to host a garden.  Staff rotates watering and harvesting duties to ensure maximum participation.  Some of the crops planted include tomatoes, lettuce, peas, artichokes, and squash.

Over 21 million kids eat free or reduced-price breakfast or lunch at school. But what about dinner? And weekends and holidays when there is no school?  Well, the answer is the newly-expanded At-Risk Afterschool Meals in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP).  At-Risk Afterschool Meals are now available in all States, and USDA needs your help to open more feeding sites.  More places that serve meals means that more kids are getting the meals and nutrition they need.

In Baltimore, over 6,000 kids eat supper in afterschool programs every day. The Family League of Baltimore City has more than 100 afterschool meals sites. The Family League also feeds children during the summer when school is out, and it has served afterschool snacks and suppers to kids for two years.

While federal food safety agencies work hard every day to keep food safe before it gets to the consumer, the risk of foodborne illness has not been eliminated. One in six Americans will get food poisoning this year—that’s 48 million people. The USDA Meat & Poultry Hotline feels that it is important to give you information that can help prevent food poisoning when preparing meals at home.

Four simple behaviors—Clean, Separate, Cook, and Chill—are the focus of the new Food Safe Families campaign and can help you keep your family safe when preparing, serving and storing food. Have you seen our ad with a pig in a sauna, reminding Americans of the need to cook meat to the right temperature? We want consumers to understand that food poisoning can happen, and that there are ways to help prevent it.

Since the early twentieth century, 4-H (head-heart-hands-health) has been an avenue for American boys and girls to develop leadership skills, receive vocational training, participate in community service and much more.

Today, 4-H, which is USDA’s premier youth development program, has clubs in 81 different countries including Iraq, thanks to the hard work and perseverance of one USDA employee—Mary Kerstetter.

Farmer and ranchers applying for assistance for 2009 crop losses under the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE) program have until July 29 to submit an application.

SURE provides crop disaster assistance to eligible producers that have suffered crop production or quality losses. Producers must have suffered at least a 10 percent loss on a crop of economic significance and obtained a policy or plan of insurance under the Federal Crop Insurance Act or the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program.

Cross posted from the White House blog:

Last week, I met with 20 business leaders from all over Colorado at a White House Business Council roundtable in Denver.  It was an opportunity for me and my Colorado staff to get feedback on government programs, policies, and innovative ideas that are working to help create jobs – as well as ones that could be improved.  Other Cabinet officials and top White House staffers have hosted more than 100 of these sorts roundtables of around the country.  And over the coming weeks we will be holding these conversations in rural areas.

In Denver, I heard from business leaders who discussed the value of President Obama’s tax policies for businesses of all sizes, and appreciated the administrations is work to better partner with the business community.  We had a productive dialogue about how the pending trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia and Panama will benefit local agricultural producers, with the potential to create hundreds of jobs in Greeley, Colorado and other towns.  And we discussed how resorts might form partnerships on recreation to make better use of forests and other natural environments to help create jobs in communities throughout the Rocky Mountains.