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Last month, USDA Rural Development’s Delaware - Maryland State Office and the State Office staff in New York hosted roundtable discussions on Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) availability.  RLF programs are unique programs that provide funds to local and regional organizations to capitalize and operate revolving loan funds.  Revolving loan funds are used to assist with business financing and economic development activities to create and/or retain jobs in disadvantaged and remote communities.  As such, these are programs that have great potential for meeting USDA’s rural economic mandate in a time of scarce federal funding.

A statistician’s work is never done.   Just as we are starting to wrap up data collection for the 2012 Census of Agriculture, interviewers representing the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) are already visiting thousands of farmers across the United States to find out their 2013 planting intentions.

While all of our surveys are important in their own right, the March Agricultural Survey stands out.  For those not familiar with our reports, the Prospective Plantings is one of the most anticipated publications of the year.   Commodity traders around the world wait for this report to give them an early indication of the upcoming year’s U.S. crop production.  As a result, the information that producers report to NASS can impact business decisions of input providers, farmers, agricultural lenders and others, as well as commodity prices.

This year, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) will start issuing electronic health and transit certificates for dairy products exported to the European Union (EU) via the electronic trade document exchange system (eTDE).

A content management system created to support the domestic and international trade of U.S. agricultural products, eTDE makes official certificates available online to health officials in foreign ports. The system was built with the help of funds from the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

I recently had the pleasure of addressing a meeting marking the landmark first phase of the B-24 Project, a collaborative initiative between USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services to develop dietary recommendations for children from birth to 24 months of age. As existing Federal dietary guidance is designed for those two years and older, the end result of the B-24 project will fill an important gap and provide consistency in maternal, infant and toddler nutrition advice given across government and external organizations.

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 profile.

Most likely you’ve heard the old saying about “sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.” The “sleep tight” part relates to old-fashioned beds in which the bedding was suspended on cords pulled tight to provide a firmer sleeping surface, but you probably don’t need any extra explanation for “don’t let the bed bugs bite”!

Earlier this month, USDA Rural Development staff, Intermediary Relending providers and partners held a Rural Job Maker Initiative Roundtable at the Rural Development State Office in Raleigh, North Carolina.

If you’re a student who likes fresh air, scenic vistas, hiking and camping, the U.S. Forest Service might have the perfect job for you.

This year, some units of the Forest Service have been hosting one-day recruiting fairs that teach high school and college students how to apply for upcoming summer jobs with the government.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack met with Haiti’s Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development, Thomas Jacques, today to emphasize USDA’s ongoing commitment to help the Haitian agricultural sector recover from the devastating impact of the 2010 earthquake.

“The great thing about working in FSIS is that no day is exactly the same. There are so many initiatives that are important to both employees and stakeholders,” says Program Specialist Natasha Williams.

While winter tends to be a quiet time for tourists at Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area in western Kentucky and Tennessee, tourists of a different feather flock to the lakes during our coldest months of the year.