USDA Blog

I’m an avid camper. There’s nothing better than spending a week in the woods enjoying the calm and quiet beauty of nature. Food tastes best to me when it’s cooked over a campfire. And I want to make sure that I’ll always be able to go camping when I want to relax.

USDA Forest Service research is transforming exhausted farmland in Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee into thousands of acres of hardwood forests that will provide revenue to landowners, remove carbon from the air and serve as habitats for wildlife. In 1998...

Ever wonder exactly how many Americans struggle to put food on table? It’s a question pondered more and more during a tough economy. Today, the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) has shed some light on these conditions with their annual analysis of Americans’ success in feeding themselves and...

USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service is expanding upon its traditional Market News reports to create interactive dashboards. The dashboards, first launched in the summer of 2010, provide quick, easy access to volume and price information for cattle, hogs, and sheep.

The flooding from this year’s spring rain storms caused millions of dollars worth of damage to homes, businesses and crops in Arkansas. But some flooding was reduced or minimized, thanks to 207 small and medium-sized dams built by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), in partnership...

There is much we adults can learn from children, and one of them is being able to appreciate the simple things. I was at the Milwaukee Sign Language School in Milwaukee for a celebration of School Breakfast Week. I was thrilled by the students’ delight as Active Apple (Milwaukee Public Schools’...

This week, President Obama called on our nation to put an end – once and for all – to our dependence on foreign oil. He laid out a plan for a more secure future by producing energy here at home, and investing in efficient vehicles and buildings. You can read more about it and watch a video of the...

The near-record snowfall in Massachusetts this winter did not deter farmer Pa Thao. In fact, it strengthened his resolve to make sure that nothing happened to the high tunnel that he put up last fall, so that it would be there when he’s ready to plant mustard greens and pea tendrils in the early...

In the two years that President Obama and Agriculture Secretary Vilsack have been in office, those involved in production agriculture have participated in driving a sustained economic recovery. That’s the message I delivered earlier this week to farmers, extension staff, local business leaders and...

April Jones went into farming to grow good food, and she has succeeded. Unexpectedly, along the way she’s also managed to grow a community.