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Harvesting Health All Summer Long

The Food and Nutrition Service’s Turnip the Beet awards recognize outstanding summer meal program sponsors for going above and beyond, ensuring children receive high quality meals in a fun, safe and healthy learning environment when school is out. These nutritious meals help keep children healthy all summer and ready to learn when school resumes.

Bison Ranchers and Stewards Asked to Complete Bison Health and Management Study

What comes to mind when you think of South Dakota? Is it the Black Hills, presidential busts and bison? According to USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service’s 2017 Census of Agriculture, South Dakota has the largest inventory of bison of any state in the United States, with over 30,000 bison spread across 99 farms and ranches. We will update these numbers and find out if this holds true with the upcoming 2022 Census of Agriculture. Census of Agriculture data collection begins this fall.

Working Lands for Wildlife Launches Literature Gateway

USDA just launched a new research and visualization tool that summarizes published scientific research on bird species-vegetation relationships in the Eastern and Boreal Forests of North America. The tool, Literature Gateway: A Systematic Map of Bird-Vegetation Relationships in Eastern and Boreal Forests, can be used to identify science-need gaps and guide habitat restoration and forest management practices on the ground.

Pine Ridge Food Sovereignty Efforts Expand Tribal Nutrition Security

When applying an equity lens to nutrition programs, it is essential for policymakers to orient themselves toward the perspective of all communities they serve. We must actively take the time to see and listen to truly understand historical inequities that exist, so that we may be better positioned to address them.

85 Years of National Dairy Month

Last week, to celebrate June Dairy Month, I visited Crave Brothers Farmstead in Waterloo, Wisconsin, where I toured this family farm and cheese factory, and learned about how the Crave family crafts their award-winning cheeses. In recent years, dairy farmers have faced many challenges, and USDA has been there along the way to help support dairy businesses as they drive local economies throughout the country.