conservation

When I heard about the USDA Feds, Friends, and Farmers Feed Families food drive, I knew the Central Arkansas Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) Council could help in a big way. We ended up donating 1,800 pounds of sweet potatoes to the Grace Community Food Pantry, in Phillips County, from our Delta Blues Sweet Potato facility.

We recently marked the final day of Feds Feed Families Campaign.

José Otero-García, USDA Rural Development State Director for Puerto Rico, led the efforts of the Campaign that included the help from our sister Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). We collected 500 pounds of food and more is on the way.

Prop Canyon Dam was built in 1960 in the village of Bluewater, New Mexico by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the Lava Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) and the Bluewater Toltec Irrigation District. The earthen structure was erected to protect crops, residents and infrastructure from serious flooding, and for 50 years it did just that.

Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan visited Rhode Island last Friday to celebrate the preservation of Ferolbink Farm, one of the State’s most iconic coastal farms. The event highlighted the success of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program, which allows for conservation easements on farmland, ensuring that such farms are preserved for the benefit of present and future generations.

Support local farmers, strengthen rural communities, promote healthy eating, and protect natural resources…these goals of our Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative find a lot of support in the results of a major new scientific study by the National Research Council, Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21^st Century.  A group of fifteen experts spent three years reviewing many hundreds of scientific papers and detailed case studies of sixteen farms to understand how U.S. agriculture can “produce more crops, pollute less, fulfill consumer preferences, pay fair wages, and make a living – all with increasingly scarce natural resources such as land and water.”

This story has three parts. Read Part 1 here. Stay tuned for Part 3 later.

The hive is basically a stack of wooden boxes. Within each box a series of frames rest vertically. Each frame is about an inch thick and has built-in cells. The cells are where the bees place the nectar they’ve taken from flowers while foraging. As the water evaporates from the nectar, it becomes thicker, turning into honey. When the bees cap the full cells with wax, the frames are ready for us to harvest. (The bees flying in and out of the rooftop hive use an entrance in the side of the bottom-most box, so we’re able to remove frames from the top without stopping the work of the hive.)

USDA’s commitment to conservation was shown recently when Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the first general sign-up for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in more than four years.  Secretary Vilsack has told Farm Service Agency Administrator Jonathan Coppess that he expects the agency to keep enrollment near the limit set in legislation to maximize the benefits from the program.  FSA’s mission is to enroll approximately 4.5 million acres in the current general sign up in order to keep the total CRP enrollment close to 32 million acres.  However, the general sign up ends this Friday, Aug. 27, so FSA is making a last-minute appeal to all prospective participants to contact their county offices to complete their sign ups before time runs out.

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. 

In 2004, as a junior at Montana State University (MSU), Ashley Williams knew she wanted to use her geography degree to make a difference internationally. She had no idea that agriculture would ever play a role in making that dream come true.

But that’s what happened when Williams found herself in a small farming village of 1,000 people in Sanambele, Mali, after a chance encounter with MSU entomology professor Florence Dunkel.

A new publication by the USDA Forest Service, Private Forest, Public Benefits, explains how privately held forests in the U.S. are under substantial stress from the effects of climate change, wildfire, insects, pathogens and urban development. And since 55 percent of all national forested lands are privately held, how we address these stresses will affect the vitally important role private forests play in America.

For the USDA Forest Service, looking back at this landmark Centennial Boy Scout Jamboree is not about the numbers: it is about the heart of future generations and how they will see, understand, care for, and respect the natural resources. The agency has a longstanding history and partnership with Scouts, dating back decades. Scout troops, Districts and national groups like Arrow 5, a special Eagle Scout organization, donate thousands of volunteer hours in recreation and natural resource work on national forests and grasslands.