North Carolina

Cross posted from The Huffington Post: Rural Americans face many unique challenges - and every day, the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides assistance to help grow American agriculture and increase opportunity for rural communities. Unfortunately, 90 percent of America's persistent poverty...

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.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama laid out the importance of manufacturing as we seek to make America a magnet for jobs. He believes there’s much we can achieve to create new manufacturing jobs, including in rural America. For example, we can achieve a common-sense reform of the tax...

Let’s Move Faith and Communities challenges congregations and communities to make health a priority through wellness leadership implemented in three steps: lead, organize, and take action. Fifty North Carolina faith communities are doing just that through their partnership with Faithful Families...

Each year, thousands of volunteers across the country participate in the largest single-day volunteer effort for public lands in America, National Public Lands Day. Students and staff of the Oconaluftee Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center contributed over 250 hours of service on the Nantahala and...

The US Forest Service has launched a Leaf Viewing in Western North Carolina webpage for 2012 featuring scenic drives and areas in the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests for enjoying fall foliage. Visitors to the site will see pictures and get directions to enjoy the kaleidoscope of glorious leaf...

As a writer and editor for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Washington, D.C. who relies on a bicycle to get around, I don’t get to four-wheel it very often. But I recently had the opportunity to ride a four-wheeler while visiting a North Carolina farm.

On a recent visit to North Carolina, USDA Rural Development Utilities Administrator Jonathan Adelstein visited Atlantic Telephone Membership Corporation (ATMC) in Brunswick County, North Carolina.

The USDA’s Food Safety Discovery Zone has finished its spring 2012 tour, taking hands-on food safety lessons across the Southeast. Stopping in the smallest towns and big cities like Dallas, we were able to educate over 175,000 people on preventing foodborne illness. Real food safety experts who work...

A Forest Service Recovery Act grant to the Land-of-Sky Regional Council (LOSRC) to implement the Western North Carolina Forest Products Cooperative Marketing Project has provided the momentum to help local businesses expand and diversify while offering producers and consumers a practical means of...