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...

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...