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National Agriculture Day: Fifty Years Later, Farmers Are Growing a Climate for Tomorrow

Fifty years after the creation of National Agriculture Day, America’s farmers, ranchers and private forestland owners find themselves on the front lines of climate change. They are uniquely positioned to deliver solutions by implementing climate-smart practices that conserve natural resources, build healthier soils, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and sequester carbon.

Next Steps in Providing Financial Assistance to Borrowers Who Have Faced Discrimination: Organizational Deadline

Section 22007 of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law by President Biden in August 2022, directs USDA to provide financial assistance to producers who have experienced discrimination in USDA’s farm lending programs. This program provides USDA the ability to deliver financial assistance for those farmers, ranchers, or forest landowners determined to have experienced discrimination in USDA's farm lending programs prior to January 1, 2021. These funds are one step in the long march towards justice and an inclusive, equitable USDA.

National School Breakfast Week: Kids Love School Breakfast

I recently had the opportunity to join my daughter for breakfast at her school. Every morning, she asks me what’s on the menu for her school’s breakfast. And that morning was no different. The moment I told her, they were serving mini pancakes – her favorite – with craisins and applesauce, she couldn’t wait to get to school.

School Meals Served up Fresh in Southern California

This past February, I attended the Urban School Food Alliance winter meeting in Los Angeles, California, which included Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) sessions focused on child nutrition programs. Participants, which included food service directors from around the country, had the opportunity to ask questions about the child nutrition programs they administer, including the recent updates. Engaging with program leaders and seeing what child nutrition programs look like ‘on the ground’ is important to us. In addition to learning from the group, the meeting was a reminder of the many partners we have that share a common goal of continuing to elevate the role that healthy meals play in schools and for our children’s future.

Massachusetts’ Flexible Services Program: Improving Food and Nutrition Security Improves Health

Several studies consistently link poor access to food to poor health outcomes, including heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. Project Bread, a Massachusetts’ nonprofit focused on permanently solving food insecurity, teamed up with MassHealth to pilot the Flexible Services Program, or FSP, to bolster food security and meet nutritional needs from birth throughout childhood and beyond, improving health outcomes at every stage of life. Since April 2020, over 7,000 MassHealth members (ranging in age from 0 months to 64 years) with complex health issues were given an array of food resources, including gift cards for groceries, cooking supplies, refrigerators, cooking classes, transportation assistance, and nutrition education.

NRCS Engineer of the Year Monitors Potential Inundation Areas Below Watershed Dams in Kansas

Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)’s 2023 Engineer of the Year, Peter Clark is clear about the importance of what people like him do. Engineers “harness the math, harness the statistics … and apply science” to figure out how to solve a problem, such as building a dam to help capture and slowly release runoff from rainfall events to reduce flooding impacts.