Rural Development

Last week, USDA’s Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships led a webinar to share with local faith and community leaders opportunities to partner with USDA to help those in need in their communities. This webinar was the first in a series entitled, Together We Can. The series aims to...

I had the distinct pleasure of visiting the birthplace of former Agriculture Secretary Henry A. Wallace during a recent trip to Iowa. In fact, my tour of the farm near Orient in south central Iowa happened to be May 15, the day the USDA celebrated its 150 th anniversary. Wallace was Secretary of the...

Recently, representatives of USDA and other federal agencies held a collaboration meeting with the federally recognized tribes of the Bering Straits/Norton Sound Region in Alaska. The meeting was the second in a series of Tribal Collaboration Meetings scheduled with federally recognized tribes in...

Brandon, South Dakota, with a population of about 9,000, has seen significant growth in the last decade, including the area of senior care. There are two assisted living communities in Brandon, but there has never been a nursing home. This has put strain on both the patients and their families...

Over the coming weeks, the landscape in Oklahoma will change dramatically as state-of-the-art combines comb meticulously through fields of golden wheat, allowing Oklahoma farmers to deliver an estimated 150 million bushels to their local grain elevators. The varieties harvested were exhaustively...

The Upper St. Croix Watershed was the centerpiece of an Earth Day celebration last month in the community of Solon Springs, Wisconsin. Solon Springs and the Solon Springs School District commemorated the completion of a new and expanded wastewater treatment facility with ceremonies at both the Solon...

USDA Rural Development in South Dakota is interested in learning about and working with other cultures. To enhance employee understanding, Mark Heuston, Director of Human Resources with Dakota Provisions, a turkey processing firm, was invited to USDA offices recently to make a presentation on the...

During the previous 18 months, a team of USDA multidisciplinary experts reviewed, analyzed, and synthesized almost 1,000 responses from stakeholders about its June 2010 report that put forth a roadmap for the United States to produce advanced biofuels. The roadmap report provided a basis for...

Recently, I was afforded the opportunity to travel with Jared Hicks, USDA Rural Development’s Business and Cooperative Specialist, to attend the grand opening of a new 19,500 square-foot grocery store in Winnsboro, Louisiana. It was an exciting and happy day for the community residents on the south...

As USDA celebrates its 150 year anniversary; we remember many milestones such as the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) establishment in 1935. In the 1930’s, only about 10 percent of rural folks had electricity while people living in town had 90 percent coverage across the nation. With the...