virginia

Cindy Bomar is a dedicated person; she is dedicated to her job and to her various volunteer organizations.  And most of her charitable efforts are devoted to helping children, especially poor children.

As a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for youth in Virginia, Cindy has all too often seen the suffering of poor and neglected children and teens. “I advocate in the best interest of these children so that they are not lost in the system,” she explains.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) commodity purchases play an important role in supporting American agriculture.  One commodity purchasing effort - the USDA Foods Program - purchases about 2 billion pounds of nutritious, domestically produced foods each year and supplies this food to families, schools, food banks, and communities nationwide, also serving as a key tool for combatting hunger.

Together, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, Food and Nutrition Service and Farm Service Agency manage the USDA Foods Program. And together, we have launched the USDA Foods Business Management Improvement project, a broad effort to review and re-engineer USDA’s food procurement practices to improve the program for our customers and stakeholders.

At CNPP, we are passionate about reaching Americans with science-based messages that encourage healthy plates because we know that far too many Americans are not eating enough fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and low-fat dairy.  MyPlate was designed to serve as a strong visual cue to remind Americans to make healthier food and beverage choices at every meal, and we love to see how other partners and organizations are getting the message out about healthy eating. Read below to learn how the Partnership for A Healthier America, a National Strategic Partner, is working with other companies and organizations to make fruits and vegetables a household brand.

Guest post by Elly Spinweber, Director of Communications, Partnership for a Healthier America

This spring, a collaboration of companies, celebrities, athletes and foundations launched FNV—a new brand focused on increasing consumption and sales of fruits and vegetables among teens and moms.

Like many city kids growing up in Richmond, Va., Carolyn Brooks didn’t know much about agriculture and had never heard of 4-H. That changed quickly, however, as she was the first in her family to graduate from college—earning a B.S. and then a M.S. in biology from one of the foremost agricultural schools in the country, Tuskegee University, where she said, many people “helped me, guided me, and cared about my success.”

Brooks said that before moving to Tuskegee, Ala., she “knew nothing about the South. I had never been in that kind of environment – in a predominantly black community.”

As a young man, Tom Tidwell had a summer job with the Forest Service as a member of a Youth Conservation Corps crew.  Today, he is Chief of the Forest Service, overseeing an agency of forty thousand employees that honors a mission to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.

Chief Tidwell’s story is not entirely unique.  There are other leaders in the Forest Service who were introduced to the agency through Youth Conservation Corps, including National Forest System Deputy Chief Leslie Weldon and a host of other Forest Service employees.

We’ve all heard the old adage, “It’s not what you know but who you know.” For Matthew Roberts, the “who” was only a first step on a path that has led him to contribute more than 1,000 hours of volunteer service to the Wytheville, Virginia Service Center and his community.

Matt’s career coach thought the Earth Team program would be a great fit for the Wytheville Community College student and referred him to the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Little did anyone know how good a fit that would turn out to be.

Educators from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories recently met in Arlington, Virginia to discuss local implementation of the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP), one of the nation’s largest nutrition education programs.

Through nutrition education, EFNEP helps limited-resource families and children gain the knowledge and skills to change their current attitudes and behaviors when it comes to choosing nutritionally sound diets and improve their health and well-being.  USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) administers EFNEP and provides national program leadership.

“The 2015 EFNEP Conference brought together about 170 representatives from 1862 and 1890 land-grant universities (LGUs) to coordinate, collaborate, and receive training that they can take back and implement in their respective university programs,” said Stephanie Blake, NIFA EFNEP program coordinator.

Cross-posted from the White House Rural Council blog:

"Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well? Or will we build an economy where everyone who works hard has a chance to get ahead? ... This country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules."

-- President Obama, January 31, 2015

The American Dream is a dream of opportunity for a better future. Who better represents this opportunity than our country’s children? As parents and as leaders, we owe it to our kids to provide them access to education, housing and health care, and most importantly, an opportunity to succeed so they can help our nation compete in a 21st century economy.

Just off Florida’s 8,000 miles of coastline and tidal areas, in shallow sunlit waters, over two million acres of seagrass meadows waft in the ocean currents.

Besides providing food and habitat for manatees, sea turtles, shellfish, and other animals, seagrasses protect coasts from erosion and store vast quantities of carbon dioxide.

“Seagrasses grow off the coast of many other U.S. states, including North Carolina and Virginia, as well as around the world,” said U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station scientist Zanethia Choice. “Globally, their economic value is nearly $4 trillion.”

Have you ever wondered how American farmers and businesses track the price of their commodities?  Today, farmers, ranchers, and the entire agricultural supply chain turn to USDA Market News – administered by my agency, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) – for timely, reliable, unbiased data that serves as the information lifeline for America’s agricultural economy.

But 100 years ago, everyone was in the dark about how much things cost.  That’s why, in 1915, the first USDA Market News report was sent by telegraph, letting buyers and sellers across the country know the price of strawberries in Hammond, Louisiana.