USDA Blog

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog: As part of Let’s Move!, First Lady Michelle Obama has challenged community and faith leaders to combat hunger. One of her goals for Let’s Move Faith and Communities is to encourage these trusted leaders to start 1,000 Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) sites...

Our June Feds Feed Families totals are in, and I would like to give my USDA colleagues across the country a discreet, virtual high-five. Today, Secretary Vilsack announced that USDA donated just over 100,000 pounds of food to the Feds Feed Families food drive during the month of June. What a great...

As we reflect on this important month that celebrates our nation’s 235th anniversary, I thought I’d share a story about how Farm Service Agency (FSA) in California is helping people achieve and celebrate their own version of the American Dream. This morning, I visited with a Liberian immigrant...

Born and raised in New England I can’t claim to know the finer details and intricacies of the delicious and competitive world of barbeque. So when I came to Tennessee to highlight economic development opportunities at Cumberland University’s Cumberland Culinary Center I was pleased to see first-hand...

Forests absorb carbon like a giant sponge into what scientists call a carbon sink. This fact is well known throughout the scientific community. However, what scientists weren’t sure of until now is the amount of carbon forests can store. For years scientists knew a large amount of carbon was somehow...

In President Obama’s July 11 press conference, he asked us all to look at the steps we can take short term in order to put folks back to work. At the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), we have been promoting the domestic biobased industry because we know green jobs represent a growth investment...

Hello, I’m Dr. Andrea (Andy) Morgan, Associate Deputy Administrator of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)’s Animal Care (AC) program. In 1985, when I hadn’t been out of vet school long and was working at a small animal practice, I got ahold of a brochure about APHIS’ Public...

President Obama has stressed time and again that the best ideas don't always come from Washington. It is with that spirit that I met this week with a group of agricultural entrepreneurs in Richmond, Virginia to hear their thoughts on the best ways for the federal government to stimulate economic...

Although raging waters had subsided at Deanna Young’s home in Ponca, Ark., a flood of emotions hit her when she found out USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) would pay 100 percent of the cost of protecting her home from falling into Adds Creek.

One of Mississippi’s largest USDA Rural Development awards was recently celebrated in Lowndes County, where local leaders expect the improvements made by this award to lead to hundreds of jobs. USDA Rural Development State Director Trina George was joined by U.S. Senator Roger Wicker and numerous...