2012

It has been said that the most successful person in life (and in business) is often the one who has the best information.  For almost a century USDA Market News has been providing farmers, ranchers and businesses with the best market and pricing information.  Our real-time commodity reports, produced by the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), provide quick and easy access to volume and price information for boxed beef, cattle, hogs, and sheep.

USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development Dallas Tonsager had a unique opportunity to see the many dynamic things happening in rural Maine communities during his visit earlier this month. Each of the projects he visited represented a different way in which USDA Rural Development’s Programs are playing valuable roles, providing a multitude of benefits, including renewable energy, business sustainability, job creation and retention, distance learning, and telemedicine.

For example, I joined the Under Secretary and the Northeast Region State Directors on a ferry to Vinalhaven, a remote island community 12 miles off the coast of Maine. Once there, we were greeted by Town Manager Marjorie Stratton, and led on tours of the Fox Islands Wind site by Fox Islands Wind CEO George Baker, and COO Bill Alcorn. The three immense wind turbines will generate about as much clean renewable wind power as the Fox Islands use, which is between 10 and 10.5 million kilowatt hours per year. USDA Rural Development provided funding support to make possible the total $14 million wind turbine project.

Willie Hall and his family are enjoying the American Dream and USDA Rural Development has been with him along the way. Willie was a tenant at Roxbury Ridge Apartments, a Rural Development Multi-Family Housing complex in Shippensburg for many years. He recently accepted a full time position and took the step forward from rental housing to homeownership with the help of a Rural Development Direct low interest home loan. Willie and his family of five are now settled into a 3-bedroom home in a quiet Chambersburg suburb.

Arthur “Butch” Blazer, USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, paid a visit to the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) in Madison, Wis., recently to convene an important roundtable discussion on wood-to-energy concerns in Wisconsin and the Midwest.

Among the participants were wood scientists and technology transfer authorities from FPL and Forest Service’s Northern Research Station, representatives from the logging and paper industries, academics from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Resource Center, state natural resources officials, and other national and regional Forest Service officials.

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 USDA's rich science and research portfolio.

Although corn is perhaps the most familiar player on the American biofuel scene, scientists with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) say in the long run, barley and its byproducts could prove to be a viable renewable fuel option.

A unique partnership between USDA Rural Development and Habitat for Humanity of Douglas County, Minn., (HFHDC) has helped make Cassandra Braford a proud new homeowner.

Braford, a waitress, recently moved into her home in Alexandria, Minn., with her children, Ramsey and Riyada, and her mother, Jean. The home was financed through USDA Rural Development’s direct home loan program. Braford built her home in partnership with HFHDC.

As summer time begins, I think of children playing with their friends and having a great time as they enjoy their vacation from school.  I am also very aware that some children may go hungry during the summer months.  Fortunately for children in the Rio Grande Valley on June 1, Catholic Charities began their second year providing meals to children up to age 18 through USDA’s Summer Food Service Program.  Catholic Charities is now providing summer meals in Cameron, Hidalgo and Willacy counties in South Texas.

High above the ground in a bucket truck, Blue Ridge Electric Co-op Lineman David Brown attaches a power line to a newly erected pole above the green fields of the Sumter National Forest’s Long Creek dove field. But instead of providing electric service to an outbuilding or an adjacent housing development, Brown’s hard work is aimed at improving the forest’s dove field.

Blue Ridge Electric Co-op is partnering with the forest to install “dummy” power lines at the dove field to make the area more attractive to doves, creating conditions for hunters to be more successful at bagging their game.

Do you know about the resources USDA has to help feed hungry children over the summer? The USDA Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships hosted a webinar as part of their Together We Can Partnership Series about the Summer Food Service Program to help connect individuals and organizations to the program.

Explained in the simplest terms, the Summer Food Service Program is a federally funded, state administered program that provides free nutritious meals to children in low-income areas. The program helps ensure children receive the nutritious food that they need during the summer.  Many children from low-income families rely on school meals during the school year and no longer have access to those meals in the summer.   The program operates when school is not in session, typically from the end of the school year in late May or early June until school resumes, usually late August or early September.

At USDA we applaud today’s action by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that essentially completes the federal actions necessary to allow consumers to buy fuel containing up to 15 percent ethanol (E15).  This announcement gets us one step closer to giving American consumers a real choice at the pump.  It also supports the “all –of-the-above” energy strategy, including production of renewable biofuels, implemented by the Obama Administration to help wean us off of imported oil.

The public has a right to choose between spending their money on imported oil or home-grown energy.   Today’s action by EPA helps break down the ethanol “blend wall” thereby potentially allowing more ethanol into the market.   Iowa State University has estimated that blending ethanol with petroleum keeps the price per gallon at the pump down by around a dollar a gallon.  This is a demonstration of the Obama Administration making good on its commitments to work to reduce foreign oil imports and increase domestic energy production.