Blog Archives

Thanksgiving is finally over, and now comes the biggest weekend for holiday shopping.  According to the National Retail Foundation, the average shopper spends about $380 from Black Friday to Cyber Monday.  

When planning out your battle strategy shopping budget, you may forget to account for the meals you eat before, during, and after a long shopping trip.  Those lattes, sandwiches, garlic knots, and smoothies you may buy to fuel your shopping can really start to add up and will put a damper on your holiday shopping budget. 

The countdown is over, and the big day is finally here.  It’s Thanksgiving Day, and the family is on the way, most likely with growling tummies.  You may have been preparing all month, but if not, no worries!  We’ve got you covered on how to safely handle and prepare your turkey.  Now that’s you’re ready, let’s get cooking!

Wash Your Hands 

One of the most important ingredients for a delicious and food safe Thanksgiving meal is clean hands.  Wash your hands with warm water and soap for 20 seconds throughout the cooking process, especially before handling food and after handling raw meat and poultry.  This is one of the simplest and most effective ways to prevent the spread of bacteria.  Often times, there tends to be multiple cooks in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day.  Make sure all of your helpers wash their hands before they touch any food.

 There’s always something to give thanks for at harvest time, but our gratitude shouldn’t be limited to this page of the calendar. Farmers, ranchers, and veterans come to mind as leaves become memories and daylight diminishes. This small portion of our population ensures that what we sometimes take for granted as plans for the holiday season unfold, is also available for all year round. 

     When you think about it, each time we lift a fork from our table, a farmer or rancher makes possible almost every morsel of food on the plate.  At night as we enjoy resting peacefully in the comfort of our homes, a member of our military is somewhere in harm’s way providing a blanket of security for our uninterrupted sleep. The men and women responsible for these gifts display the best of rural America’s cultural landscape.

USDA celebrates National Native American Heritage Month in November with a blog series focused on USDA’s support of Tribal Nations and highlighting a number of our efforts throughout Indian Country and Alaska. Follow along on the USDA blog.

Alaska Airlines will conduct a demonstration flight in 2016 using 1,000 gallons of jet fuel made from forest scraps. 

The aviation biofuel was derived from twigs and small branches that would otherwise have been burned in slash piles after timber harvest. These forest residuals were provided by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe via the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance Tribal Partnership Program (NARA TPP).  TPP and other NARA partnerships are made possible by a $39.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).  

As we look towards the Holiday season, here at USDA, we would like to give thanks to all of our farmers and ranchers, men and women alike, who provide us with a safe and affordable food supply. Every month, USDA shares the story of a woman in agriculture who is leading our industry and helping other women succeed along the way. Last month, a man by the name of D.H. Strongheart commented on the USDA blog asking if he could share his wife’s story. Below you will find Jennie’s story, as written by her husband, on how her passion for food and agriculture has evolved and why she is inspiring other women in agriculture to pursue their dreams.

Jennie's farming career has been an inspiring example of how agriculture can be combined with education, career development training, equity and empowerment. She has worked at a diversity of farms from New York, Vermont, New Mexico and Oregon, usually in a small to mid-scale setting (3-30 acres) and has become a leader of her generation, a generation in which smaller scale organic agriculture has become a dignified and ever-more popular career choice. Anyone who has ever worked with her knows that she is a real embodiment of leadership, hard work and inclusiveness. 

Getting people together to talk can result in great ideas. 

In June, USDA hosted 100 farmers, ranchers, retailers and producers in Chester, New York, in the Hudson Valley, to discuss opportunities and challenges in organic production, and to share information on USDA programs and services available to organic producers and processors.  

Wholesalers and retailers at the meeting all had a common challenge – keeping up with increasing market demands for organic food. Organic retail sales continue to grow at double-digit rates each year. In 2014, the market reached $39 billion in U.S. sales alone. That level of demand means a lot of opportunities for organic producers, as well as those in the process of transitioning to organic production.

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.  

Let’s talk turkey. You’re going to hear a lot about food safety as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, but what you often don’t hear about is how U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are working to make turkey, chicken and other poultry products safer to eat long before they reach your table. 

USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists are developing alternatives to antibiotics that can help prevent turkey diseases and reduce bacteria such as Salmonella and Campylobacter—two of the main pathogens in poultry that cause foodborne illness in people.

Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting with US Department of Agriculture counterparts in both Chile and Peru. My travel to South America was an opportunity to discuss our most recent trade successes and how we can further build on this great relationship and momentum. 

In Chile, I met with the Chilean Minister of Agriculture, Carlos Furche and Chilean Agriculture and Livestock Service (SAG) officials to discuss bilateral animal and plant health trade issues. US Ambassador to Chile, Michael Hammer, was also in attendance. To better understand their domestic processes and procedures for imports, I participated in a tour of a grocery store selling U.S. products including U.S. beef and visited a feedlot and a dairy farm as well as other agricultural sites near Santiago. This year Chile granted market access to U.S. live cattle and renewed domestic access to U.S. bovine embryos, more easily allowing Chile’s farmers to improve the national beef and dairy herds with genetics supplied from the U.S. The last time I visited Chile was five years ago, so it was great to refresh the cooperative and collaborative working relationship between USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and SAG.

This account was written by VT FEED Project Director, Betsy Rosenbluth and Shelburne Farms Public Relations and Marketing Director, Vera Chang.  

As principal of Sharon Elementary School in Sharon, Vt., Barrett Williams helps his teachers integrate farm to school pedagogy into curricula by making sure they have planning time during the school day and a stipend to compensate their efforts. Time and resources are limited for teachers who are under rigorous demands to meet school standards. So Williams must be creative to ensure food, farming, nutrition, and place-based learning are part of students’ education. We’re listening to Williams and his peers talk at a round-table workshop that is part of the pioneering, year-long Northeast Farm to School Institute. Williams is one of 90 school administrators, teachers, food service professionals, and community members at the Institute’s kick-off, held on Shelburne Farms’ 1,400-acre campus in northern Vermont.

 It’s fall in North America.  It’s the time of year that marks the transition from summer into winter.  It’s when the night time comes earlier and the weather cools considerably.  It’s also the time of year when most of us start to turn on our heat or start to acquire firewood. 

There are a lot of us that use firewood as a heat source.  According to U.S. Census data 2.4 million homes across the country are heated by wood.  This number does not include homes that use firewood as secondary heating or those of us that use it when we’re camping or even just to sit around in the yard.  Whether or not you use wood to heat your home or build a campfire, firewood is used by millions of Americans.