USDA Blog

When landowners have resource problems, they turn to USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and our conservation partners. And when NRCS has challenges, we often turn to our Earth Team volunteers for help. Our more than 30,000 volunteers assist us with conservation planning and...

The USDA Forest Service’s Fuels for Schools and Beyond program promotes and encourages the use biomass to energy as a renewable and natural resource. Recently the U.S. Forest Service recognized the Darby School District in Montana for success in the Fuels for Schools Program for their innovation...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack spent part of last week in St. Louis, Mo., making several stops to promote trade and agriculture and to announce the opening of a new office in St. Louis for the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.

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. Here’s a vision fit for a nightmare: a “family reunion” of every type of Escherichia coli.

A group of schoolchildren wait patiently in line to get their lunch. This ritual takes place in schools all over the world. But for the children in Mali, a country ranked 160 out of 169 of the poorest countries in the world, this may be their one nutritious meal for the day. With the number of...

This is the first in a series of three blogs affiliated with USDA’s Agribusiness Trade and Investment Mission, which was led by Acting Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Michael Scuse. This week, it’s been my privilege to lead an Agribusiness Trade and Investment Mission to...

A free curriculum available online can help educators teach students how to spot the invasive Asian longhorned beetle. Infestations of the Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) have been initially reported by alert members of communities in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Massachusetts. As summer...

Last summer Arizona rural communities joined together to compete for a USDA Rural Development Technical Assistance grant to train communities of interest on regional economic development. The initiative, Stronger Economies Together or SET, was launched in 2009 by USDA Rural Development in...

The Asian Longhorned Beetle eradication staff in Worcester looks for pests up in the tree but also leaves presents under the tree. The Asian Longhorned Beetle (ALB) eradication program in Worcester, Mass., began when a resident from the Greendale neighborhood found a strange-looking insect in her...