USDA Blog

“The streams of a watershed are like the body’s circulatory system,” says Todd Warner, Natural Resources Director of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC), in the northwest Upper Peninsula of Michigan, along the Keweenaw Bay of Lake Superior. KBIC and USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service...

Weather-related disasters have plagued the United States this spring and the rebuilding efforts appear daunting. The same weekend that Joplin, Missouri, was devastated by an EF5 tornado, Reading, Kansas, a rural town with a population of 250 was struck by an EF3 tornado. The scale of the damage in...

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog. May 25 was a fabulous day in Dallas as I presented 154 HealthierUS School Challenge awards to schools of the Dallas Independent School District – the greatest number to a single school district thus far. 78 schools received gold awards and another 76 earned...

As the opening of this season’s USDA Farmers Market occurs today in Washington, D.C., Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced approximately $10 million is available to expand direct marketing opportunities and help to eliminate food deserts and increase food access in low-income...

Recently I attended a dedication ceremony along with members of my staff held at the Sussex County Charter School for Technology in the New Jersey community of Sparta. Also in attendance for the dedication were local and school officials as well as Real Estate Advisory Development Services (READS)...

USDA Rural Development State Director Trina George and numerous local officials and leaders were in two Mississippi counties this spring to commemorate Earth Day and highlight USDA’s commitment to good environmental practices. State Director George met with officials of the Tallahala Water...

During S.E. Felter’s early teen years, he baled hay a few miles from his Adams County, Miss. home. But now the land Felter worked as a youngster is a lake, after the Mississippi River swelled its banks and pushed water inland along creeks and rivers.

Secretary Tom Vilsack recently joined a Round Table of regional stakeholders in Nashville to discuss ways that USDA can help rural fuel station owners and cooperatives increase the availability and use of flex-fuels. About eight million cars and trucks on the road in the U.S. today can use E85 fuel...

The devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 claimed the lives of over 13,000 people and left nearly 150,000 homeless.

A large crowd of local officials, library patrons and staff filled the children’s section of the Pittston Memorial Library in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, on a hot May afternoon to hear good news from Senator Robert Casey. Smiles abounded as Senator Casey announced that the library is receiving a...