President Obama

This week, seven Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) employees were sworn in as Foreign Service Officers during a ceremony at USDA in Washington, D.C. This group of newly minted Foreign Service Officers will be posted in locales around the world, from Moscow to Brasilia, in their first positions in...

Yesterday, I was honored to represent the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the ‘New Markets, New Jobs’ conference held at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Minnesota is one of our agricultural trade leaders, ranking sixth among all 50 states for U.S. farm exports, generating nearly $8...

Exports will be the focus of two highly anticipated sessions on Thursday, Feb. 24 during this year’s Agricultural Outlook Forum in Arlington, Va. USDA’s latest quarterly export forecast will be released that same day and will surely serve as a springboard for a lively discussion on the benefits of...

Since coming into office in 2009, President Obama and I have taken important steps to avoid potential economic collapse, and strengthen the American economy for future generations. America’s families have tightened their belts during these difficult times, and government needs to do the same. That...

Cross posted from the Let's Move blog: It has been one year since First Lady Michelle Obama kicked off her Let’s Move! initiative with the goal to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation. The anniversary calls for a time to reflect on its vast contributions, but to also continue...

Members of the Tribes already know this, but President Obama, Secretary Vilsack and members of this Administration take very seriously the need to work with Tribes on a government to government basis, and to provide the Tribes with the technical and economic support they need not just to survive...

As American Agriculture moves into a new century, producers are working to reduce greenhouse gases and nutrient runoff from their operations. It is even better if, while doing so, they also develop a new revenue stream. Anaerobic digesters deliver on that objective and also contribute to Obama...

Recently I had the honor to participate in the 2011 American Sheep Industry Conference. It made me feel proud to participate as a representative of USDA, as a public servant; talking, listening and learning from sheep and goat producers as well as other stakeholders in the food, livestock and...

On Monday, January 31, I had the honor of launching the U.S. Agribusiness Trade and Investment Mission to Peru and Ecuador in a room full of U.S., Peruvian, and Ecuadorian business leaders, government officials, and news reporters.

In an address last month to students of the Peter Kiewit Institute and members of Nebraska’s agriculture industry, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack cited numerous examples of how USDA is meeting President Obama’s challenge to Americans to “out innovate, out educate and out build the competition...