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Cross-posted from the White House blog:

Today, farmers, ranchers, and rural communities are more prosperous thanks to strong trade agreements. Foreign markets contribute to more than half of total sales for many American agricultural products. The last six years have been the strongest in history for agricultural exports, and agricultural exports now support more than 1 million good-paying American jobs. Without the expanded trade that came with past trade agreements, the agricultural economy and the American economy as a whole would not be as strong as it is today.

But new trade agreements are only possible if our negotiators can speak with one voice to negotiate free and fair trade deals. Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) — now being considered in Congress — allows them to do just that.

June is an eventful and versatile month—the start of warm summer days, school vacations, and holidays like Father’s Day and Flag Day.  We also celebrate many unusual observances in June such as Heimlich Maneuver Day, National Yo-Yo Day, and National Donut Day. But who can enjoy a donut without a nice, cold glass of milk?  June is the perfect month to combine the two as USDA joins the rest of the country in celebrating National Dairy Month.

For more than 75 years, we have celebrated dairy and all of its goodness during June.  What started out as National Milk Month in 1937 to promote milk consumption and stabilize the dairy demand has turned into a month-long celebration and tradition that acknowledges the dairy industry’s contributions to the United States and around the world.

Dairy has played an important role in America’s history since before the Revolutionary War, but it was not until

Come this October, Katie Clonan is looking forward to seeing the fruits of her labor all over Fort Collins, Colorado. That’s because Katie is the winner of the 2015 Rabies in the Americas (RITA) logo contest.  Her logo will be showcased on t-shirts, banners, and other paraphernalia shared with more than 300 attendees of the 26^th annual RITA conference from October 4-8 in Fort Collins.

“This is the first time the international Rabies in the Americas conference has been held in Colorado,” notes Dr. Stephanie Shwiff, one of several USDA-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC) scientists helping to plan the event. “We’re excited to host the conference with our colleagues in the Wildlife Services National Rabies Management Program and other members of the RITA planning committee. One of my favorite tasks so far has been partnering with Colorado State University’s (CSU) Department of Art and Art History to sponsor a logo contest.”

Cindy Bomar is a dedicated person; she is dedicated to her job and to her various volunteer organizations.  And most of her charitable efforts are devoted to helping children, especially poor children.

As a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for youth in Virginia, Cindy has all too often seen the suffering of poor and neglected children and teens. “I advocate in the best interest of these children so that they are not lost in the system,” she explains.

Ray McCormick is no stranger to conservation. Like his father and grandfather before him, Ray is a steward of the land and sets a high standard of conservation excellence. Last week I had the pleasure of meeting him and discussing his experience with our latest online tool – the Conservation Client Gateway.

During his 30 years of working with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Ray has made many trips to his local field office. However, now that he has a Conservation Client Gateway account, Ray can replace most of those trips with a few clicks of the mouse. He can log in to request conservation assistance, review and sign documents, track payments and much more - all at his convenience.

Recently, I visited the 1.1 million acre Yakama Nation reservation located in southwestern Washington State. Touring the reservation, I was able to see first hand how funds from the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) will help the over 10,000 members of the Yakama tribe.

Through RCPP, NRCS is working with the tribe to accelerate the recovery of fish stocks, including the Middle Columbia Steelhead, reconnect floodplains and improve irrigation water conservation.

Four-thousand and counting! 4,024 to be exact. That is the number of participants in the U.S. Food Waste Challenge at the end of April, 2015.

These participants-- businesses, schools and organizations from across the country— are working to reduce food loss and waste in their operations.  And, they have taken the time to join the U.S. Food Waste Challenge by sharing their activities on the USDA Food Waste Challenge website or working with EPA experts to measure their food waste reductions through the Food Recovery Challenge.

Population loss persists in rural America, especially in more remote areas with limited scenic amenities. Communities in these areas are attuned to the annual out-migration of their “best and brightest” high school graduates, typically a third or more of each class.

But stemming rural population loss--and spurring economic development--may depend less on retaining young adults after high school and more on attracting former residents some years later. Researchers at the University of Montana and USDA’s Economic Research Service visited 21 rural communities during 2008 and 2009 and conducted 300 interviews at high school reunions. The aim was to better understand what motivates return migration and the barriers to such moves. Reunions allowed for simultaneous interviews with both return migrants and nonreturn migrants.

Getting from Point A to Point B is sometimes a difficult task; that’s why we have maps.  However, making maps is not always easy, either, especially when the image you’re trying to capture is carried on the wind.

For nearly 40 years a coalition of government, education, industry, and other organizations has worked to monitor “precipitation chemistry” – in other words, tracking the makeup and whereabouts of acid rain.  Their latest efforts have resulted in maps that indicate how nitrogen deposition in the United States threatens aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico.

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.

Weddings, dads, and grads make June a joyful month, but here at the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, June is eventful for a different reason altogether. It’s when we conduct some of the most widely-anticipated agricultural surveys. During the first two weeks of the month, we’ll survey more than 125,000 farmers across the United States. Although NASS surveys and publishes reports throughout the year, June means game on!

In this single month, we conduct the June Area Survey, the June Agricultural Survey (also known as the Crops/Stocks Survey), and the June Hogs and Pigs Survey. Through these, we will gather information about this season's crop production, supplies of grain stocks, livestock inventories, land use, detailed estimates on the number of acres producers planted of particular agricultural commodities, and much more. Because of the prominent influence and impact these surveys have in the agricultural industry and on government programs and policy, its important farmers and ranchers participate.