USDA Blog

This year, more than 80 volunteers worked together to plant 20 trees, 117 native and edible understory plants, and more than 600 butterfly garden plants as part of the Cesar Chavez Community Garden Day celebration at the Edible Forest garden on the Richmond Greenway, a 2.8-mile trail in Contra Costa...

As a writer and editor for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Washington, D.C. who relies on a bicycle to get around, I don’t get to four-wheel it very often. But I recently had the opportunity to ride a four-wheeler while visiting a North Carolina farm.

The drought of 2012 is the most serious to impact U.S. agriculture since 1988. The illustrations below help to show the resiliency of the U.S. agriculture sector and how it is better positioned today to endure this natural disaster. For more information on USDA disaster and drought assistance, visit...

It goes without saying that broadband-high speed internet has changed the way we live our lives. And it should . . . this is the digital age. For many it is hard to imagine how you would get by without it. With access to the internet, one can easily sell a car, find and apply for a job, read the...

Some people have “heaven on earth.” Have you ever wondered who or what they were talking about? If you were in Wyoming, it might have been Gary and Karen Ricley and their ranch along Slater Flats. When Gary was offered an early retirement from his executive job in the auto industry in 1998, he was...

As construction gets underway, Vian, Oklahoma residents eagerly await the completion of their new regulation size track and fitness facility. This small rural community located in eastern Sequoyah County hopes to encourage fitness and healthy living with the new facility, funded in part by USDA...

Last year for Homeownership Month we visited Rita Fincher to whom we had made a Single Family Housing Direct loan to help purchase a home. I was so impressed with her story last year that I decided I wanted to go back and visit her to see “what difference a year had made in her life with her new...