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Rows of bright green grape vines provided an appropriate backdrop for the recent USDA Field Day held at Williams Muscadine Farm in Nesmith, S.C.

Bill Trado, County Executive Director (CED) of the Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) Williamsburg County office, led the event, which gathered more than 100 guests at 84-year-old David Williams’ vineyard. The event honored Williams for his outstanding accomplishments in agriculture and helped to educate guests about USDA programs.

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.

While USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is gearing up for the next Census of Agriculture right here in the United States, the agency is also sharing its expertise to help guide agriculture censuses around the world. In December, the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Armenia hosted NASS representatives to help these two nations prepare for their own censuses of agriculture.

Farmers Market Month may be over, but USDA’s commitment to promoting the use of farmers markets continues. Farmers markets are important for a number of reasons but, in particular, they’ve been an integral part of our efforts to bring nutritious foods to Americans who participate in programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Farmers Market Nutrition Program. Since the number of markets accepting nutrition assistance benefits has increased, we think it’s a great time to look at how effective farmers markets have been when it comes to increasing low income household access to nutritious foods.

The Agricultural Trade Office in St. Petersburg, Russia joined U.S. cooperators and the U.S. Consulate to host the first-ever American pavilion at the St. Petersburg Christmas Fair, which runs from Dec. 21, 2011 to Jan. 14, 2012. The pavilion showcases American cuisine including New York cheesecakes, Kona coffee, California almonds and American holiday treats.

If you've been following our favorite Social Media Moments of 2011, you can see we had a lot to choose from. Top on our list isn't necessarily a social media moment, but is an important moment in our focus on providing better service through web communication. The redesign of USDA.gov in April 2011 was only the beginning of changes we're making with our web program - USDA agencies are working to redesign their websites in 2012 for a consistent user experience and we consolidated many websites to streamline access to information, making it easier to find information that's important to you.

We chose this launch because it is a shining example of the platform that we at USDA are working to build and maintain that is relevant and responsive to your needs. This redesign was a collaborative effort with our agencies and based on insights and feedback of our users. Your feedback is important to us, and we want you to be sure that your voice is always heard.

As we enjoy the holiday season, it is a great time to celebrate all that American agriculture has accomplished, and to look ahead to a productive new year.

Our farmers, ranchers and growers make incredible contributions each day to the health and strength of this country.  Thanks to their productivity, Americans spend – on average – less than 10 cents out of every dollar they earn on food.  This is far less than families around the world.  It gives us the freedom and the flexibility to spend on our families and invest in our businesses.

When a Kansas State University football player plants his opponent’s face into the turf, the result may be a better-tasting blend of artificial grass. Turf is not a part of the USDA’s MyPlate recommendations, but defensive ends playing in the Wildcats’ stadium can skip their pre-game soy latte and get their fill during the game instead.

U.S. broiler meat exports to Sub-Saharan Africa have increased 24 percent since 2010 and 460 percent since 2001.

The U.S. is the largest supplier of China’s turkey meat imports, totaling nearly 90 percent of all imports. Turkey meat imports to China in 2011 will increase 70 percent over 2010.

Here in the Office of Communications at USDA, we work hard every day to get news and information out the digital door and into the hands of our diverse stakeholders. This steady flow of information takes the form of press releases, tweets, photos, videos, blogs and more. With the growing popularity of social media channels, this flow of information is increasingly a two-way street. In 2011 some of our best resources came from you, our readers. On two occasions we put out specific requests for your photos to personalize issues, and the responses were overwhelming.  Through the power of social media, we were able give our audience the chance to help tell the story for us, and that is our number 2 Social Media Moment of 2011.

When First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary Vilsack announced the new food icon, MyPlate, in June, we asked you to snap a picture of your plate and use the hashtag #MyPlate to show us how MyPlate became your plate. Photos of creative plates came rolling in showing us how you use the icon to help build the foundation for your healthy diet. There were - and still are - some healthy and tasty creations posted to Twitter!

USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) recently hosted two examiners from China who were on hand to learn the U.S. system for examining new plant variety applications.

AMS’s Plant Variety Protection Office and the American Seed Trade Association invited Yang Yang and Lingo Gao from China’s Ministry of Agriculture to work to improve global intellectual property protection. The two countries are working toward harmonizing their respective plant variety protection systems.