USDA Blog

Two-thirds of Maine's population or about 780,000 residents live in the "wildland-urban interface.” In these areas structures intermingle with natural vegetation, and wildfire threatens lives, homes, and property. The Maine Forest Service’s Division of Forest Protection established a Wildland-Urban...

No, no, the subject doesn’t have any connection to two children’s movies titled “Transformers” or “Toy Story”. It does, however, pertain to an engaging session that was held among South Dakota staff to broaden their understanding of cultural transformation. The sessions were led by two dynamic...

I’m Dr. Beverly Schmitt. I work for USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa, where I’m the Director of the Diagnostic Virology Lab (DVL). I’ve been with NVSL for 19 years. Before I came to APHIS, I served as the virology lab...

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak before a group of city and town planners at a forum hosted by the American Planning Association. Before I spoke I asked the crowd to raise their hands if they had worked in a community of less than 50,000 population. To my surprise, three-quarters of...

This week, I am taking 21 representatives of foreign embassies in our nation’s capital to Washington state and Oregon for the Foreign Agricultural Service’s 26 th annual orientation tour. These representatives are from Angola, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, Fiji, France...

In Illinois, the city of Elgin has completed a U.S. Forest Service Recovery Act-funded urban forestry project that channeled over one million dollars into the local economy. Working with businesses such as tree service firms, nurseries, landscapers, hotels, restaurants, graphic designers, and...

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 the USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. Working in science can be a real pleasure, especially when your research translates into a life changing experience. The...

Cross posted from the White House blog: On Saturday, I visited the Port of Miami to see firsthand the success story of American agriculture and the jobs it is creating. Despite historic natural disasters, our agriculture business is booming.

Recently I visited the Deer Run Farm in Brookhaven, New York on a tour of farms across the nation to talk face-to-face with producers and growers about produce safety. Farmer Bob Nolan from Deer Run Farm invited us to walk through his fields so he could share with us his thoughts and concerns about...