transparency

Organic agriculture serves as an engine for rural development, representing a $35 billion industry in the United States alone. USDA is committed to protecting the integrity of organic products, and ensuring that all of our agencies work together to help the organic sector continue to grow. Members...

American organic farmers and producers are at the forefront of innovation and entrepreneurship. Organic production contributes to building a stronger rural America by creating economic opportunities for farms and businesses of all sizes. In the U.S. alone, there are now 18,513 certified USDA organic...

U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service released its second USDA Market News report covering grass fed beef yesterday. This is the first report of its kind, filling a significant data gap for the industry and increasing transparency in the marketplace. For almost a...

Yesterday, Secretary Vilsack officially launched the U.S. Government’s new Food, Agriculture and Rural virtual community on Data.gov. This will serve as a single access point for our related datasets, databases, tools, apps and data resources discussed throughout the G-8 Open Data for Agriculture...

Earlier this year, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) published the first Livestock Mandatory Reporting (LMR) Wholesale Pork reports. This was the culmination of a process that started when Congress passed the Mandatory Price Reporting Act of 2010, which added wholesale pork cuts to the...

In April of all months, “audit” is the last word most Americans want to hear but last month the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service was cheering because it passed a very meaningful audit by the Office of the Inspector General. According to the OIG, FSIS is appropriately managing meat and...

Last week, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service posted on the agency’s web site copies of recent letters that were sent to plants facing enforcement actions for inhumanely treating animals. Posting these humane handling enforcement letters on the web enhances the transparency component of this...