USDA Blog

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the U.S. Department of Agriculture blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the agency’s rich science and research portfolio. Japanese beetles are tough hombres in the bug world, ripping and chomping their way through...

Before kicking off this year’s ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ college tour in North Carolina, I took a moment to reflect on why these college visits are so important. As President Obama said in his State of the Union address, we must out-educate the world in order to win the future. Indeed...

We don’t often associate rock music with school nutrition, but perhaps that’s changed after a fun-filled, rollicking event I attended at Golfview Elementary in Carpentersville, Illinois.

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog: I had the distinct pleasure to join the White House Assistant Chef and Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiative Sam Kass, to participate in a unique Chefs Move to Schools event at Edgewater High School Auditorium, Orlando, Fla., in celebration of...

Christopher Urwiller, a second year teacher with the Scottsbluff, Nebraska, schools, had been a renter when he learned of an opportunity to purchase his own home. Twin Cities Development (TCD) and Scottsbluff High School (SHS) students were working on a joint project where TCD provided the lot for...

Katie Bowens and her family had been renting an apartment for five years. They wanted a chance to have a home of their own. The Norfolk Housing Agency (NHA) directed Katie to USDA Rural Development in an on-going partnership effort. The City of Norfolk, acting through NHA, notified the local USDA...

Despite below-freezing temperatures and high-wind advisories, more than 50 residents of Hardinsburg and Breckinridge County, Kentucky, turned out recently to celebrate the groundbreaking of a new public library. The crowd included local high school students, city and county officials, library board...

On January 24, 2011, a wintry day in Chicago, 20,000 high school students in the Chicago Public Schools were treated to a prize-winning, delicious and healthy school lunch created by their fellow students. Topping the menu was Afro-Caribe Plancha (Cuban turkey, black beans, provolone cheese and...

Volunteers are helping to turn an old industrial area of Muncie, Indiana into a wetland where wildlife thrive and people can connect with the outdoors. Since the John M. Craddock Wetland Nature Preserve Team started its work on the site in 2009, wildlife has moved in, plants are flourishing and...

Recently, an interesting letter came across my desk. The letter was from an Ohio school nurse who wanted USDA to know that students at E. J. Brown Elementary School in Dayton, Ohio, LOVE their USDA-funded Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP), now in its second year. And that makes E.J. Brown’s...