2011

Right now, parents are making sure their children are ready to head back to school after the summer.  Their checklist to get ready might include new shoes or a new backpack - paper, pens and other supplies.

At USDA, we are working to add another item to the list: nutritious meals and healthy lifestyles for all of America’s children.

If we want to build a strong economy and win the future, then we also need to win the race to educate our kids.  And that means making sure that the 32 million kids who eat school lunches every day are fueled by the healthiest, most nutritious food we can provide.

An August 18 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, ‘Obama on the Farm’, missed the underlying fact: the Obama administration understands that America’s farmers are some of our nation’s finest conservationists, and we have gone to historic lengths to support them in these efforts.

Sadly, rumors and misconceptions have become the norm, not the exception, especially when it comes to regulations and the Obama administration’s work on agriculture.  First, it was that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was considering treating spilled milk like an oil spill.  Not true.  In terms of water regulations, EPA has made it clear that recent rules do not seek to regulate land that occasionally ponds during heavy rains.

Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website:

Deborah is the Vice President of Food and Farms at Ecotrust, a non-profit organization based in Oregon.

Cross posted from the White House blog:

Today, I am hosting a forum focused on the rural economy at the Iowa state fair.  But, Rural America has been in the spotlight all this week as I joined President Obama to travel across parts of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois, visiting rural communities to discuss his Administration’s efforts to create jobs and drive economic growth.  From investments in rural broadband to efforts to support small-business innovation, the President talked about his commitment to rural America – and he listened to what local residents had to say.

The centerpiece of his trip was the Rural Economic Forum, held Tuesday at Northeast Iowa Community College in Peosta.  There, 200 small business owners, farmers, retirees, elected officials and others came together to discuss their ideas for a revitalized rural economy.  I was pleased to participate in that forum, along with my Cabinet colleagues Housing and Urban Development Secretary Donovan, Transportation Secretary LaHood, and Administrator Mills of the Small Business Administration.

Despite having some of the highest unemployment and home foreclosure rates in New Jersey, the city of Perth Amboy refuses to let kids go hungry over the summer.  In 2011 the city extended the Summer Food Service Program by two weeks and added 20 new feeding sites.  Through an aggressive marketing effort using local newspapers, businesses, cable TV access programming and schools to advertise site locations and activities, Perth Amboy has made providing meals to kids when school’s out a top priority.

Farm Service Agency (FSA) Administrator Bruce Nelson traveled to South Texas last week in the midst of the historic drought impacting most of Texas and the Southwest and adversely affecting thousands of agricultural producers. Nelson took the opportunity to visit with area farmers, ranchers and agribusiness representatives who are working hard to keep their operations going in the face of the natural disaster. He made a point to reassure everyone that Secretary Vilsack and the USDA are committed to helping affected producers.

Members of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) attended a weeklong meeting hosted by U.S. officials in Monterey, Calif.  The UPOV’s Technical Working Party for Vegetables, made up of delegates from 13 countries, was also able to observe a lettuce field-trial in the Salinas Valley.

Cross posted from FoodSafety.gov:

More than 15 million school-aged children are home alone after school. That means they’ll be making their own afterschool snacks, without anyone supervising their creative concoctions. Will your kids be eating on their own during the week? If so, you might want to go over these guidelines with them—before they run straight to the refrigerator and snack mindlessly in front of the TV, with their feet on the table and the family dog in their lap.

Hello, I’m Dr. Bill Huls, Facilities Manager with USDA APHIS’s Center for Veterinary Biologics (CVB).  I have been with APHIS since 2002.  The CVB regulates the industry that manufacturers veterinary biological products including animal vaccines and diagnostic test kits.  I communicate with firms on a daily basis to help ensure they are maintaining compliance with federal regulations.   This includes managing documents and items that relate to those firms – things like policies and procedures used by the manufacturer to prepare their products, procedures for who enters and exits the facility, the organization and arrangement of the facilities they make their product in, etc.  I also conduct inspections of facilities that manufacture biological products.   The work performed by the CVB helps ensure both animal and human health is safeguarded.

I decided to become a veterinarian when I was 18 after spending time with a veterinary practitioner in my hometown.  Following completion of veterinary school I joined a small animal practice.  Eventually, I bought my own practice.  My practice years allowed me to have some pretty cool and challenging experiences.

Deep amid the dense greenery of a rain forest, U.S. Forest Service scientists are nursing a special patient back to health.

The patient is on pain medication, but lucid enough to ruffle his emerald green feathers and fill the room with angry squawks when a biologist removes him from an incubator. It is a Puerto Rican parrot with a broken leg, a serious injury for one of the world's most endangered bird species.