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It has been more than a year since Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Initiative to encourage conversations about local food systems.  In that time, the initiative has strengthened the local foods movement that was already sweeping across the country.

Local fire departments and emergency service personnel play a critical role in ensuring community safety.  Every community, no matter how small, should have access to top-quality emergency services.

Representatives of USDA Rural Development and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recently met with leaders from the Sac and Fox Tribe of Mississippi in Iowa to share information on ways the two federal agencies could assist the tribe with funds for such things as community improvement projects and job-creation and entrepreneurial opportunities.

During the past year, nearly $3 billion in guaranteed loans were issued through The USDA Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program to lenders across the country as they worked with local businesses to help create jobs in rural America.

In September, I was one of 28 Junior Professionals and two advisors from USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) who traveled to the Midwest for an annual agricultural training trip. This training opportunity exposed members of FAS’s Junior Professional Advisory Committee (JPAC) to a broad range of U.S. agriculture in Minnesota and Iowa. The trip also helped maintain and build direct relationships with the U.S. agricultural industry, reinforcing the Agency’s connection to its primary constituents.

As I have been discussing Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food with producers and local-food advocates across Iowa, one thing has become quite evident: access to capital is a huge barrier.  In fact, at a meeting last month to develop an Iowa Food and Farm Plan that will be presented to the state legislature, access to traditional financing was listed as a major obstacle.

By Bill Menner and Janie Dunning, USDA Rural Development State Directors of Iowa and Missouri

Bringing broadband to rural communities is about more than guaranteeing your daughter has 24/7 access to Twitter, or giving your son unlimited opportunities to play video games.

By Darin Leach, USDA Iowa Public Information Coordinator and by Vicki Schurman, Nebraska Public Information Coordinator

Earlier this month USDA Rural Development housing administrator Tammye Trevino and four state directors participated in tour to celebrate national Homeownership Month. The theme of national Homeownership Month this year is “Protecting the American Dream.”

This week I had the pleasure of meeting with representatives from eight German companies who are in Iowa to learn more the approach to biofuels in the US, and specifically in Iowa.

Tammye Trevino, Rural Development Housing Administrator, joined me in recognizing two Missouri families in a celebration of reaching the American Dream of homeownership on Monday, June 14, 2010.