USDA Blog

For the first time in almost 90 years, the state of California has become home to a wolf. A few days shy of the new year, OR7 meandered alone into the Golden State after crossing the state border shared by Oregon. The 2-year-old gray wolf is the first and only documented wolf in California since...

When USDA Rural Development funds a water system (as it did 800 times last year across the Nation), work doesn’t stop when the system is activated. It has to be maintained. The South Dakota Association of Rural Water Systems annually holds a training event where operators, managers, and board...

If you can name it, there’s probably a competitive event for it. For instance, coffee has its own competition called the Cup of Excellence. In the coffee world, no honor is more sought after. It is given each year to only top coffees from participating coffee-producing countries.

Business is blooming for Sarahlee Lawrence and her organic food-and-flower-growing operation, Rainshadow Organics, in the Central Oregon high desert. The 28-year old organic pioneer is proud of her venture and credits USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) as a key component to her...

Recently, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell hosted the first live terrestrial videoconference between the State Capital of Juneau and Bethel’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation (YKHC), which administers a comprehensive health care delivery system for more than 50 rural, primarily Native communities in...

The Ring Profiler may sound like the title of fantasy novel but in fact it’s an innovative tool U.S. Forest Service scientists are using to better determine how much a tree grows annually.

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. When America’s farmers and ranchers traveled from the U.S. mainland to the Aloha state for the American Farm Bureau...

The White House has called upon all federal agencies to “keep it simple” when it comes to writing. Here at USDA, we are committed to communicating clearly so that we can provide you with the most useful information possible. As Secretary Tom Vilsack has said, “Using plain writing is indispensable to...