#NIFAimpacts

Blue jeans are a classic symbol of American fashion, but did you ever wonder how your blue jeans got their color? Synthetic indigo dyes are used to give jeans their hue, but that was not always the case. Only two countries, China and Germany, currently manufacture the dyes that are used to color...

Being an educator is in Morina Ricablanca’s blood. Growing up in a family of teachers in the Philippines, she knew she would someday pursue a career in education. Ricablanca participated in an outreach program assisting troubled youth while attending Manuel L. Quezon University Law School in Manila...

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 USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. Scientists from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) are working with stakeholders to determine the course their...

Ever since their inception 125 years ago with passage of the Second Morrill Act, 1890 land-grant universities (LGU) have had a major impact on the lives of students in 18 states in the field of food and agricultural science. The legislation was created to increase the number of minorities studying...

Booker T. Washington. George Washington Carver. Educators par excellence. Pioneers in food and agricultural scientific research. Dedicated their lives to helping "lift the veil of ignorance" by bringing knowledge to African-Americans and others with limited resources. For 125 years, since passage of...

With drought reaching historic proportions in Western states, America needs people with both knowledge and experience in water management to help ensure that forests and working lands stay ahead of the effects of climate change. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food...

After searching 15 years for a way to combat a devastating disease among salmonids (salmon and trout), researchers at Washington State University (WSU) and the University of Idaho (UI) found an answer inside the fish itself. Dr. Kenneth Cain’s team at UI’s Aquaculture Research Institute cultured a...

It began with the desire of a group of South Los Angeles high school students to increase access to more effective nutrition education at their school. They started small—a monthly guest speaker, bags of veggies, cutting boards, and nutrition education. Now, their efforts have blossomed and...

This month, the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative (KYF2) celebrates an important milestone: the sixth anniversary of the first convening of the KYF2 Task Force. Since 2009, the Task Force, a dedicated team of experts from across the Department, has been hard at work in support of USDA’s...

Getting from Point A to Point B is sometimes a difficult task; that’s why we have maps. However, making maps is not always easy, either, especially when the image you’re trying to capture is carried on the wind. For nearly 40 years a coalition of government, education, industry, and other...