October 2010

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.

Last week I went to a North American Pollinator Partnership (NAPPC) symposium at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s South Building, just off the National Mall. NAPPC is celebrating 10 years of existence, and the symposium made up day one of NAPPC’s three-day, annual conference, the focus of which this year is “Why Pollinators Matter: Benefits, Challenges, and Outcomes.”

Seventy-five years ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Soil Conservation Service, now the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), was established largely because of the efforts of one determined individual—Hugh Hammond Bennett. Bennett served as the agency’s first chief for more than 15 years, tirelessly working to educate others about the seriousness of soil erosion. On Friday, October 15, nearly 20 NRCS employees and friends took time off from work and to be Earth Team volunteers, planting oak seedlings, azaleas and phlox in Hugh Hammond Bennett’s memory at his former home.

It is an iconic fixture of rural America – the local diner. Not just a restaurant, but a social hub for a community, and when the local café in Sunburst, Montana closed in 2007 it seemed one more nail in the coffin of a small town facing decline.

The announcement last week that USDA and the Department of Justice have reached an agreement with Native American farmers and ranchers to settle alleged incidents of discrimination by USDA marks the start of a new civil rights era.  This isn’t just talk.  It is meaningful action on the part of the Obama Administration.

Saturday, October 23, 2010 -- This morning dawned a beautiful, crisp, autumn day here in the District of Columbia.  As the sun climbed above the horizon, over 500 volunteers gathered to build a playground at the Hyde Leadership Charter School in northeast DC.  Among the volunteers were Secretary and Mrs. Vilsack along with Education Secretary Arne Duncan and his wife, Karen.  Mrs. Duncan works with a non-profit group called KaBoom which advocates development of play areas for children and openspace for communities.  Both Mrs. Vilsack and Mrs. Duncan are teachers and have gained an excellent rapport over the past year advocating healthy, nutritious meals in the National School Lunch Program and also promoting the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative. 

During the past year, nearly $3 billion in guaranteed loans were issued through The USDA Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program to lenders across the country as they worked with local businesses to help create jobs in rural America.

In mid-October, USDA’s Under Secretaries for Natural Resources & Environment, Rural Development, and Farm & Foreign Agriculture Services launched a major new Wood-to-Energy Initiative that seeks to build a forest restoration economy by integrating wood-to-energy activities within the larger forest products sector.  Consisting of a broad-scale effort to coordinate USDA technical and program support to stimulate the wood-to-energy sector, the initiative takes its cue from the Administration’s emphasis on the role of renewable fuels and forest restoration in sustaining rural jobs and prosperity, which has been expressed in numerous contexts by senior Administration officials including Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

Earlier this week I traveled to Paris to attend the 24^th edition of the Salon International d’Alimentation (SIAL). This 5-day event is one of the largest international food and beverage trade exhibitions in the world, attracting 5,500 exhibitors and over 147,000 trade-only visitors representing 188 countries. I was very impressed by the wide variety of U.S. products on display and by the number of participating countries.

As America dedicates more resources to researching, developing and deploying new energy production technologies to help reduce its dependence on petroleum imported from abroad, positive discussions are occurring among energy industry leaders about the environmental and economic impact adopting these emerging technologies might have nationally.