#usdaroadtrip

As part of National Farmers Market Week, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Administrator Anne L. Alonzo and I traveled to New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment. The bustling Santa Fe Farmers Market was the perfect place to kick off the week! While there, we also traveled to the beautiful countryside and met with key local food stakeholders during a special session and visits to local farms.  

The round table forum and farm visits allowed farmers, ranchers, and local food organizations to share their experiences. We heard from Danny Farrar, who owns Rancho La Jolla in Velarde and is also a member of the Farm to School Board of Directors. He told us that many of the northern New Mexico farmers who sell at farmers markets are growing fruits and vegetables on small family farms of just 3 to 5 acres and on land passed down through generations. He told us that keeping his land as a working farm is as important to his culture and heritage as it is to its profitability.

Greetings from New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment!  I’m here at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, where local farmers and ranchers have come together to sell their goods to the community for more than 50 years.  This popular farmers market started with just a handful of growers and now has more than 100 vendors, more than any other in the state.  It’s the perfect place to celebrate all that farmers markets do for rural and urban communities around the country by kicking off the 16^th annual National Farmers Market Week.

Audio story from USDA Radio available on the USDA website.

The growth in Santa Fe’s market mirrors what is happening across the country – Americans want to get to know their farmers and learn where their food comes from.  Farmers markets like this one are at the heart of many towns and cities, attracting foot traffic and customers to brick and mortar stores, bringing together rural and urban Americans, and creating jobs and opportunities for local farmers and ranchers.  That’s why my agency, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), is always looking for innovative ways to help farmers markets succeed.

The fifth and final stop on our #USDARoadTrip is the backbone of our nation’s rural economy — rural business. By making historic investments and streamlining access to capital for enterprises of all sizes, USDA is helping to build a productive and dynamic rural landscape capable of supporting America’s workforce.

Local businesses foster growth and prosperity not only by creating jobs in our rural communities, but by improving the overall quality of life outside of our urban centers. Whether it’s manufacturing, service-based, retail, wholesale, or farming, when business is booming in rural cities and towns, it adds to the breadth and depth of these communities and provides more opportunities. When rural Americans can find jobs, access healthcare, and buy groceries locally rather than travel fifty miles round-trip to the nearest big city, it saves them time, expense and helps to stimulate both the local economy and the American economy as a whole. Our investments in rural businesses are a strategic investment in all Americans.

This summer we were given the opportunity to intern with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and throughout our experiences we have learned a lot about the agricultural industry and rural America. Today, agriculture plays a huge role in driving the rural economy and the American economy at large, but we realized it is also important to know how far we have come and what it took for us to get here. To get a better understanding, we took a field trip across the National Mall to Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History American Enterprise exhibit, which launched on July 1st. We were excited to learn more about the role the USDA plays in people’s lives and the immense amount of history we are a part of.

The exhibit encompassed the history of American businesses from corporate companies to small farms and everything in between. We were pleased to see how much the exhibit focused on the journey of American agriculture, from the mid-1700s to present day.  We were able to interact with pieces of history that represented major successes as well as the setbacks that agriculture faced as we proceeded through a life-sized timeline of videos, pictures, historical trivia, and games.

USDA is in the solutions business. And now more than ever, we’re committed to working beside farmers, ranchers, rural businesses and partners to find innovative and collaborative solutions that meet the ever-evolving interests of the American people.

This week, as part of our USDA summer road trip, we’ll take you through a few of our signature advancements from recent years that help us to better serve your needs, including a series of mobile and web based applications that allow you to interact with USDA programs and services your way.

Here at USDA, we know utilities mean more than just flipping a switch or turning on a faucet. Access to crucial rural infrastructure helps boost trade opportunities for rural businesses, create jobs, and strengthen our nation’s economy as a whole. That’s why we’re making smart investments to lay the groundwork for long-term prosperity in communities across the country and to provide the foundation needed for rural economies to thrive.

By spurring smart and sustainable infrastructure growth and by helping rural communities manage utility costs, we’re opening the door to a world of opportunities for rural businesses everywhere. Updated water and water treatment systems, increased renewable energy sources, and access to affordable, reliable electric systems and broadband all work to improve the quality of life for our nation’s rural residents, and open possibilities to connect to the global economy.

The second stop on our #USDARoadTrip is our recreation and conservation portfolio, including our vast and spectacular forest and grassland system managed by USDA’s Forest Service as well as some of the cooperative conservation efforts underway by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Farm Service Agency (FSA). 

With Independence Day fireworks behind us for 2015, USDA gives you another reason to look up into the night sky. With a new satellite, NASA and USDA have partnered to map Earth’s soil moisture from orbit, letting us monitor droughts, predict floods and forecast the water supply in major cities.

Cross-posted from FoodSafety.gov blog:

Summer is finally here! I can smell those steaks and burgers on the grill already. While grilling outside with our friends and family can be fun, it can also lead to food poisoning.

This summer, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service is reminding Americans everywhere that “Grilling Like a PRO” is the safest and easiest way to grill. You can’t see harmful bacteria on your burgers, chicken, and steak—using a food thermometer is the only way to know that your food is safe to eat. The PRO method is an easy way to protect you and your family from foodborne illness.

From barbecues to broadband, USDA’s broad portfolio impacts the lives of American families everywhere. This month, in celebration of our nation’s Independence Day, we’ll take a summer road trip across the U.S. Department of Agriculture and see some of the ways USDA is assisting rural communities to build a stronger America from sea to shining sea.

Our first stop will be USDA’s Consumer Food Safety portfolio to explore the ways USDA is working around the clock to ensure you and your families are protected from harmful foodborne illness. A big part of that is making sure you have the correct information at the time when you need it most. That’s why over the years, our Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has found increasingly innovative ways to bring our food safety information to you.