Rural America

War has always been a dirty job. Disproportionately, rural America has shouldered the task. Men and women across towns, farms, and ranches always stepped up in times of crisis. They still do. Voluntary military service by less than one percent of our population merits our gratitude.

This was a speech originally read by USDA’s Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development Anne Hazlett at the National Rx Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta, Georgia.

The mission of USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) is to anticipate trends and emerging issues in agriculture, food and rural America and produces objective economic research to inform and enhance public and private decision making. Among its research activities, ERS is conducting research on the...

In December, NASS launched the 2017 Census of Agriculture, which counts all American producers across the country – about 3 million currently – every five years. Almost 35,000 of those producers instead received the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), which looks at the financial health...

Every day, more than 90 Americans die after overdosing on opioids. That’s three people every hour. As if the death rate wasn’t bad enough, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that the “economic burden” of prescription opioid misuse in the United States is $78.5 billion a...

In the early 2000’s, shopping malls were often a pinnacle of growth and prosperity in rural America. In the recent years we’ve seen the decline of so many of these rural establishments. These shopping centers were once a sign of success in rural communities, but now sit, falling apart, as...

Compared to urban areas, in 2015, manufacturing represented a greater share of both private nonfarm rural jobs (14 percent vs. 7 percent) and rural earnings (21 percent vs. 11 percent). A new report from USDA’s Economic Research Service, Rural Manufacturing at a Glance, examines the manufacturing...

May is World Trade Month, a time set aside to acknowledge and reflect on the importance of global trade. But here at USDA, you could say that every month is “Trade Month” because few industries depend more upon – and benefit more from – trade than American agriculture.

The mission of the National Organic Program, part of USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), is to protect the integrity of organic products in the U.S. and around the world. This means creating clear and enforceable standards that protect the organic integrity of products from farm to table...

Groceries, childcare, education, transportation, insurance, utilities: these are just some of the essential places families nationwide spend their paychecks every month. Making ends meet takes hard work, but sometimes even after working long hours and shopping right families need help to make it...