2011

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog:

We’re entering the home stretch in the First Lady’s Recipes for Healthy Kids competition. Judges will be fanning out to schools across the country to watch them prepare the delicious recipes that have made it to the semi-finals. My colleague, Audrey Rowe, recently lead a team of judges to Harold S. Winograd School in Greeley, Colo., to kick off this phase of the competition, which is part of the First Lady’s effort to partner chefs with schools through her Let’s Move! initiative.

Pioneer Care has provided quality senior care services in Fergus Falls, Minn. since 1928. That tradition will continue thanks to a new 105-bed facility that celebrated its grand opening on April 15 as part of USDA Rural Development’s annual Earth Day celebration.

Rural Development financed the construction of the new 105-bed facility with over $21 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds through its direct and guaranteed community facilities loan program. Over $2 million was raised through a private capital campaign.

On April 14^th U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) National Deputy Administrator Marie Johns, visited with Nebraska lenders during a joint USDA Rural Development and SBA annual lenders training event in Omaha, Nebraska.   Ms. Johns praised the two agencies for working together to provide lender training.  Ms.

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog:

Ensuring that Americans eat well and lead healthy lives is among our greatest goals at USDA.  First Lady Michelle Obama, of course, has taken an important role on this front – leading a national conversation and administration-wide effort.  As part of the Lets Move! initiative USDA is taking on the challenge of food deserts.  These nutritional wastelands exist across America in both urban and rural communities where parents and children simply do not have access to a supermarket.

Mangroves have declined by nearly half in the last 50 years. This is disconcerting to scientists because the hardy brackish tidal tree in an important bulkhead against climate change, according to findings is a recent study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack joined Obama Administration Cabinet members Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, as well as Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate, Small Business Administration Administrator Karen Mills, and other state and local officials to tour areas in Alabama and Mississippi affected by last week’s tornadoes.

After visiting devastated sites in Birmingham and nearby areas, the group crossed over to Mississippi, where they surveyed the damage done to Smithville, a town of approximately 1000 that was almost literally wiped off the map.

In a two-day span, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan may have changed the lives of up to 2,000 young Mississippians.

Recently, Deputy Secretary Merrigan brought an outstanding presentation on the future of agriculture to the campuses of Mississippi’s two land grant universities: Mississippi State University in Starkville; and Alcorn State University in Lorman. Each presentation was attended by hundreds of people -- mostly students who left enlightened about the world that waited for them in the wide arena of agriculture.

Approximately 40 U.S. food companies from every region of the United States set up shop last week at the annual Seoul Food and Hotel 2011 Trade Show, the largest food show in Korea. This year, excitement in the U.S. pavilion was particularly high as the United States recently concluded negotiations with South Korea on the pending U.S.-Korea trade agreement (KORUS), which will provide American agriculture with improved access to Korea’s $1 trillion economy.

The United States is already Korea’s top supplier of a broad variety of food and farm products. U.S. agriculture, fish and forestry exports to Korea totaled $5.8 billion in 2010, making Korea the fifth largest export market for U.S. farm products. Under the KORUS, American products will become significantly more affordable for Korea’s 49 million consumers, since the trade agreement will eliminate most of Korea’s tariffs (taxes on imports).

As soon as you enter the front doors, it is clear that nutrition and health are at the forefront of life at Bruce-Monroe Elementary in Washington, D.C.  That message was unmistakable on Thursday, April 28, when I visited the dual-language school to celebrate their Gold Level of Distinction honor in USDA’s HealthierUS School Challenge.  But more importantly, the event represented a broader commitment to the welfare of the kids we met, and to our nation’s next great generation.