USDA Blog

June is Homeownership Month in America. Earlier this month, representatives of Native American Tribes traveled from as far away as Massachusetts to Anchorage, Alaska, to attend the three-day National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC) Conference. Now in its 38 th year, the main theme was...

At 11:00 am today, Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, will be helping open the 2012 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, hosting visitors from around the world who will come to the Mall in Washington, D.C. for this annual event. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the only federal agency...

GE Aviation is collaborating with USDA Rural Development, the Ohio Aerospace Institute (OAI), air carriers and producer groups to investigate opportunities for an Ohio or Midwest-regional approach to providing renewable-jet fuel in support of production engine testing at GE Aviation’s sprawling...

Today I participated in event with Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel to highlight the challenge of increasing access to healthy foods. It’s a conversation that I and others at USDA have had many times before. From small towns to big cities, people are talking about how to get more fresh, healthy food into...

Today, American agriculture is thriving. Farm income is strong, and we are in the three best years for agricultural exports in history. The prosperity of our agriculture sector is driving the economy forward, creating jobs, and ensuring that Americans have the most affordable food supply of any...

Well into the wee hours of night, for five successive evenings, teams of scientists from across the southeastern United States waited and watched as bats in the Apalachicola National Forest swooped down to feed on their insect prey only to be captured in sheer mist nets. The scientific teams and U.S...

The name and memory of U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer Kristine Fairbanks has a lot of meaning for the Forest Service law enforcement community and especially to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska regions of the agency.