USDA Blog

Roads and bridges are vital links that connect communities to their national forests. For residents living near the Bankhead and Talladega National Forests, their drive to the woods is now safer while also protecting natural resources thanks to recent construction projects for two forest bridges...

On July 11, USDA’s World Agricultural Outlook Board cut the estimate for the 2012 U.S. corn crop by 1.82 billion bushels to “reflect expected impacts of persistent and extreme June and early-July dryness and heat across the central and eastern Corn Belt.” The 12% cut, which left the projected U.S...

Recently, U.S. Senator Tom Harkin got an up-close look at Iowa’s newest community-owned wind turbine. With an American flag snapping in the breeze, he marked the project, the investors and the opportunity for wealth creation via renewable energy in a town of 116 in southwest Iowa.

Arthur “Butch” Blazer, USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, paid a visit to the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) in Madison, Wis., recently to convene an important roundtable discussion on wood-to-energy concerns in Wisconsin and the Midwest. Among...

El 23 de febrero del 2012, niños de clubes 4-H en Puerto Rico aprendieron sobre la importancia de un manejo adecuado de alimentos, por medio del campamento de inocuidad alimentaria. El Personal para al Educación de Inocuidad Alimentaria del Servicio de Inocuidad e Inspección de Alimentos trabajó en...

Yesterday, members of Puerto Rico’s 4-H club learned about the importance of safe food handling at a hands-on, entertaining food safety camp. The Food Safety and Inspection Service’s Food Safety Education Staff collaborated with the Puerto Rico Food Safety Educational Consortium to host 60 kids at...

Are you a farmer, rancher or food business entrepreneur interested in local and regionally-produced food? Are you a community leader wondering how local and regional food systems can help your local economy? Are you a consumer interested in learning more about where your food comes from?

As rural Americans look for new ways to compete globally in the areas of renewable energy production, business expansion and job creation, one factor that is often taken for granted is the availability of a ready supply of water. In much of America, with the exception of parts of the West, water has...

Today about 6.1 million of America’s veterans live in rural communities. About 38 percent of military recruits call rural America home, but these communities face real economic challenges. So over the past two years – at President Obama’s direction – USDA and the rest of the federal government have...

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. Food chemistry is the study of the chemical processes and interactions that happen within our foods. By examining...