Virginia

During National Farmers Market Week, we celebrate farmers markets across the country, their popularity and their growth. But there wouldn’t be any farmers markets without farmers. Just as farmers markets help consumers know their farmer and know their food, they also help producers know their...

President Obama has stressed time and again that the best ideas don't always come from Washington. It is with that spirit that I met this week with a group of agricultural entrepreneurs in Richmond, Virginia to hear their thoughts on the best ways for the federal government to stimulate economic...

David Ferrell seems to rebound from setbacks with a vengeance. During his first semester of college, his mother fell ill and he had to drop out to help take care of her and his four younger siblings. Back home, Ferrell met Charles Minor, a local Virginia man who would become a lifelong influence and...

As the sun rose on the beginning of a normal workday last fall for Rural Development Area Specialist, Vanessa Ingles, little did she know that one of her recent housing repair recipients had some special gifts awaiting her. Mrs. Roxie Whorley and her granddaughter Roxanna Mize who live in the...

With Lucy the Habitat Wonder Dog as our mascot, a large group of Virginia Rural Development staff assisted on June 15 th, in the completion of the final construction and landscaping duties for Brandy Russell’s home in Ashland, Virginia.

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog: Today marks day two in the first ever National Summer Food Service Program Week, a weeklong awareness campaign to promote USDA’s Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and other programs nationwide to feed low income kids. Lots of things are happening around the...

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog: There’s a lot going on in the Church Hill North neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia! For three years, the congregation at 31 st Street Baptist Church has been growing fresh vegetables in an urban garden behind their church. More recently, they launched a...

With the thoughts of spring planting on their minds, over 200 farm producers and local agricultural staff discussed the many ways USDA can strengthen the partnership between small farmers and the USDA agencies that serve them. Eleven different USDA agencies converged earlier this month at the...

Three major problems plague the world today and what happens in agriculture will help shape the resolution of these issues, according to former President Bill Clinton.

Exports will be the focus of two highly anticipated sessions on Thursday, Feb. 24 during this year’s Agricultural Outlook Forum in Arlington, Va. USDA’s latest quarterly export forecast will be released that same day and will surely serve as a springboard for a lively discussion on the benefits of...