Missouri

Cross posted from the White House blog: Twenty business leaders from Mexico, Missouri, joined me at the Mid America Brick plant recently for the first White House Business Council Roundtable meeting in Missouri. President Obama asked me, along with other senior Administration officials, to...

In December of 2009 an apartment building owned by Rodney and Betty Hestekin sustained major damage in a fire. The building had been financed through USDA Rural Development’s Multi-Family Housing program. All 18 tenants living in the building were displaced. Rodney and Betty immediately sprang into...

What better way to celebrate Earth Day last month than to recognize projects that are environmentally friendly and to educate our elementary school youths. That's exactly what we did in northwest Missouri. The Missouri Rural Development (RD) staff partnered with the Senior Citizens Nursing Home...

The views are breathtaking in what’s known as the “driftless area” in the upper Midwest, which encompasses parts of southeast Minnesota, southwest Wisconsin, northeast Iowa and northwest Illinois. This unique area was bypassed by retreating glaciers during the end of the last Ice Age several...

USDA staff in Missouri joined Governor Jay Nixon on May 10 and May 11, 2011, at five Flood Recovery Resource Meetings to an estimated 600 people in Southeast Missouri. The meetings were held in the cities of Poplar Bluff, Sikeston, Charleston, New Madrid and Caruthersville which are located in the...

In an announcement released this week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack established the first Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) Project Area to promote the next generation of biofuels. The announcement comes as Americans are pinching pennies due to gas prices climbing to over $4 a gallon....

President Obama and Secretary Vilsack have developed a national strategy for job creation and economic vitality through investment in green energy technology and businesses. USDA Rural Development can now help finance flex-fuel pumps through its Renewable Energy for America Program (REAP)...

To “flex” or not, that is a good question. I own a flexible fuel vehicle and have for several years and as a Government Agency, Rural Development has government owned vehicles that accommodate flexible fuel. As State Director, I travel throughout Missouri and even though I have the appropriate...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack spent part of last week in St. Louis, Mo., making several stops to promote trade and agriculture and to announce the opening of a new office in St. Louis for the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) blog. Check back each week as we showcase the stories and news from the agency’s rich science and research portfolio. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of joining U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack...