September 2011

USDA Forest Service research is transforming exhausted farmland in Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee into thousands of acres of hardwood forests that will provide revenue to landowners, remove carbon from the air and serve as habitats for wildlife.

In 1998, scientists with the Forest Service’s Center for Bottomland Hardwoods Research, in Stoneville, Miss., began testing methods of afforestation – growing trees on barren farmland. The result was a tree-planting technique that mixed cottonwoods trees (poplars) with hardwood yearlings to produce strong, straight-stemmed hardwood trees.

Ever wonder exactly how many Americans struggle to put food on table?  It’s a question pondered more and more during a tough economy.  Today, the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) has shed some light on these conditions with their annual analysis of Americans’ success in feeding themselves and their families.

The report, Household Food Security in the United States in 2010, provides an important analysis of how well people are faring on this front during difficult economic times.

In 2010, just over 85 percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year.  However, about 17.2 million households were unable, at some point in the year, to provide either enough food or adequate food for at least one member due to a lack of resources.  That equates to nearly 49 million people in the United States – roughly one in six – who lived in a food insecure household in 2010.

USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service is expanding upon its traditional Market News reports to create interactive dashboards.  The dashboards, first launched in the summer of 2010, provide quick, easy access to volume and price information for cattle, hogs, and sheep.  

The flooding from this year’s spring rain storms caused millions of dollars worth of damage to homes, businesses and crops in Arkansas.

But some flooding was reduced or minimized, thanks to 207 small and medium-sized dams built by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), in partnership with local watershed districts.

Every day, thousands of USDA employees fight on the agricultural frontline to keep our nation safe from the “bad bugs” that threaten our nation’s $500 billion agricultural industry.

The Professional Development Center (PDC) provides training, leadership and consultation to Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) employees and others who work to protect the Nation’s agriculture and natural resources from plant pests and diseases.

In 2009, Eunice Mwongera decided to expand Hillside Green Growers and Exporters Company, her family-owned fruit and vegetable business. A graduate of Nairobi University and former finance officer at the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture, Mwongera, applied for the USDA Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural Science and Technology (Borlaug) Fellowship Program. Not long after, she was paired with a mentor at Southern University Agricultural Research and Extension Center for six weeks to learn U.S. best practices in agribusiness development and management. The fellowship was part of a program that provided U.S.-based agribusiness and collaborative research training to African women.

With food, agriculture, and natural resources at the center of many of the biggest challenges we face today, nothing is more critical than making sure our agricultural system is based on sound science.  As USDA’s Chief Scientist one of my responsibilities is making sure our Department’s research system maintains the highest standards of what is known as “scientific integrity.”  Scientific integrity includes making sure that scientific research proceeds free of outside influence or coercion, and that scientific findings are not suppressed or altered.

I am pleased to say that Secretary Vilsack has recently released a policy on scientific integrity, and charged me to implement it across the Department.  This policy follows directly from the guidance provided by President Obama and the further guidance from Dr. John Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The policy directs everyone at USDA – career employees, political appointees, and contractors who are involved in developing or applying science – on the proper conduct and use of science.

In June, President Obama established the Rural Council, which is chaired by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.  As a result, numerous rural roundtables have been held and will continue to be held throughout the country.

Revitalizing rural America is a priority to this Administration.  The rural roundtables are an opportunity for stakeholders to provide input, identify challenges and make recommendations.

On my recent trip to the great state of Alabama, my USDA colleagues from Rural Development, Farm Services Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and National Institute of Food and Agriculture supported me at a rural roundtable held in the community of Dothan.  We had excellent attendance and constructive input from community leaders attending.

Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website:

Bruce formed the nonprofit organization Choose Outdoors in 2008 to bring together the diverse outdoor recreation interests that enjoy the National Forests and Grasslands.

As the Labor Day holiday approaches and National Chicken Month begins, we have some tips and recipes to help you on your path to becoming a grill master.

While you probably know that all chicken is inspected to make sure it is safe to consume, understanding grading and classes of chicken can help you choose the right type of chicken for grilling, broiling, or frying. Companies use grading services provided by the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to ensure that their products have the level of quality consumers expect when they see our “Grade A” shield on the package.