USDA Blog

Ant keepers enjoy a fun and educational hobby, and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) also has an interest in it. You might wonder what ant keeping has to do with American agriculture and natural resources. Some invertebrates that people—including ant keepers—import into the U.S. or...

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...