Blog Archives

On February 5, 2010, USDA announced a new, flexible framework for animal disease traceability in the United States. The Secretary of Agriculture and other USDA officials launched a widespread listening tour in 2010 to hear comments, concerns, and to discuss potential solutions to create a program producers can feel comfortable supporting.

USDA believes the traceability framework provides the basic tenets of an improved animal disease traceability capability. USDA continues to review and use comments and discussions collected during the listening tour to develop a flexible, coordinated approach for livestock moving interstate. The purpose of the draft proposed regulation for livestock moving interstate has always been to:

During my recent trip to Chicago, I had the great fortune to visit several places that were doing tremendous work with many of USDA’s nutrition programs.  One of the first stops was to a local school where children were really excited to learn more about where their food comes from. 

In the southeastern-most part of Colorado lays the historic town of Springfield, known for its farming and cattle ranching communities.

Access to capital, cutting edge technology and more responsive government programs will help drive rural innovation, according to participants at a White House Business Council roundtable in Charles City, Iowa yesterday. Facilitated by USDA Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Administrator Jonathan Adelstein, the forum drew a group of rural business leaders from around the region. They raised issues ranging from the length of time it takes to process passport and visa applications to new regulations on banks and financial institutions.

Adelstein, who is one of the Obama Administration’s leading advocates for rural broadband, heard an extensive discussion of the shortcomings of rural broadband in Charles City. At the same time, rural telephone cooperatives described their success working with RUS to improve their systems. Charles City Mayor Jim Erb told Adelstein there exists a “rural-rural” divide in which some communities receive exceptional broadband service while others do not. Adelstein said the Obama Administration is working to extend high speed broadband throughout rural America and that USDA programs may be able to help. The probability that economic development and job creation in rural areas will be driven by access to high speed broadband was stressed.

Not many people know the names of our small rural Alaska villages, but USDA Rural Development does!  We are pleased to share the names of 14 of these communities and the great news they received on July 15^th.

In May, 67 U.S. companies descended on Shanghai for the largest food and beverage show in China—SIAL China.  U.S. exports are expanding all over the world, and China recently emerged as the United States’ top export market in 2010, and accounted for 20 percent of U.S. agricultural exports, valued at $15.1 billion in the first half of Fiscal Year 2011.

Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website:

After retiring from the University of Texas-Pan American in 2008, Dr. Arriola, like many retirees in America, wanted to continue to be of service to his community. He formed the Texas Valley Communities Foundation, a non-profit, 501(c)3 tax exempt organization designed to provide funding and support to grass roots organizations in South Texas seeking to develop and implement effective college readiness outreach programs for Hispanics and at-risk students. Through his efforts, and with the help of grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Motor Company Fund, Meadows Foundation, and the Houston Endowment, Dr. Arriola's foundation and its partner grass roots organizations have created the Engaging Communities for College Readiness (ENCORE) program.

The Federal Seed Act (FSA) is a truth-in–labeling law that regulates the interstate shipment of agricultural and vegetable seed.  The FSA is enforced with the aid of cooperative agreements between the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and each of the fifty state departments of agriculture.  Enforcement of the FSA is one of the responsibilities of the AMS Seed Regulatory and Testing Division.

State seed inspectors, trained by the Seed Regulatory Testing Division and authorized by AMS, obtain official samples of seed which are initially tested by their state seed laboratory.  While state seed laboratories participating in FSA enforcement routinely test official seed samples for mechanical purity, germination and noxious weed-seeds, they often don’t have the ability to test seed to verify varietal labeling.

Here in Washington, D.C., and probably where you live too, it is hot! This week’s Check Your Steps blog focuses on a timely food safety step—Chill. You may feel like this guy, but in reality we don’t recommend keeping your food cold with fans, no matter how many you can find.

Bacteria grow rapidly between 40 °F and 140 °F, and when it’s above 90 °F outside, cold food heats to those temperatures much faster. Portable coolers can be your best friend during outdoor summer activities or grocery shopping, but pack them correctly to keep food at 40 °F or below so it doesn’t spoil or make you sick.

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 forests, climate change ramps up stress already occurring from extreme weather events, disease and insect outbreaks, catastrophic wildfires, and invasive species. Resilient forests are better able to absorb stress without compromising the services they afford. In the same way that good sleep, healthy diet, and regular exercise make a person resilient (though not immune) to illness, forests can be helped towards resiliency by management practices that focus on sustaining or restoring ecological integrity in relation to future conditions. While neither the many threats to forests nor the management approaches available to abate them are new to forest managers, climate change introduces additional pressure and the need for the rapid translation of emerging science into forest management practice.