April 2015

This blog was cross-posted on the Chicago Council’s Global Food for Thought blog.

Farmers, ranchers and foresters have long understood the need to care for our land and water. We depend on them for food, clothing and shelter – and they depend on our natural resources for their livelihoods. 

The conversation about global food security rightly focuses on the most pressing issues of access, nutritional value, food safety, and productivity. Conservation and resource use are intrinsically tied to each of these challenges, but are not always a focal point.

With more than 6.5 million American youth actively involved in 4-H, it’s not unusual to think of 4-H as an “All-American” tradition – and that’s OK, but there’s more to the story.  The fact is, it is estimated that more than 7 million youth in 80 countries around the world are 4-H’ers.  Now, thanks to the efforts of a man from Arizona, the mountainous Asian nation of Nepal has joined the 4-H family.

Kirk Astroth, director of the Arizona 4-H Youth Development program within University of Arizona’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, spent August and September 2014 in Nepal teaching local youth development professionals the finer points of creating a 4-H program and laying the groundwork for three members of the Nepal National Youth Federation to attend the 1^st Global 4-H Summit in South Korea.  As a result, the group in January received official government recognition for the Nepal 4-H national organization.

Each industry has its own recipe for success. For the ripe olive industry, the recipe for success includes many ingredients. This includes a commitment to consistency, marketing, and research. These factors help the nearly 1,000 family farms from California supply 95 percent of the ripe olives grown in the U.S.

The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) provides the ripe olive industry many of the ingredients for its success. One of the ways we do this is by overseeing the federal marketing order for olives grown in California, which is administered locally by the California Olive Committee. Federal marketing orders and agreements are requested by various groups in the U.S. produce industry to help growers and handlers within a geographic region to overcome marketing barriers and increase awareness of the commodity. Industry groups get together to decide the tools needed to support the commercial and financial success of the businesses in the industry.

We love hearing success stories from our MyPlate On Campus Ambassadors! Over 3,450 students, representing all 50 states, have signed on to take part in the MyPlate On Campus initiative, USDA’s effort to promote healthy eating on college campuses nationwide through peer-to-peer education. Read below about how one group of passionate students is helping to spread the MyPlate message. Also, be sure to check out what MyPlate On Campus Ambassadors have been up to at Rutgers University and University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Guest post by Sitoya Mansell, MPH, CHES President, Residential Nutrition Wellness Program, and Gena Alltizer, President, CSUSB Nutrition Student Association

After becoming a MyPlate On Campus Ambassador in 2013, California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) student and Nutrition and Food Sciences major Sitoya Mansell was inspired to create a nutrition program for students on her campus.  Coming to college is a major transition for many students, and Sitoya saw the need to guide students in making healthy choices in their newly independent lives.  With the assistance of the DPD Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences and the Office of Residential Living, a nutrition education program called the Residential Nutrition Wellness Program (RNWP) was created for students living in campus housing and dormitories.

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.

The Census of Agriculture is the most complete account of U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate them. Every Thursday USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service will highlight new Census data and the power of the information to shape the future of American agriculture.

It seems that we have just wrapped up the most recent Census of Agriculture, and yet it’s been a year since those data came out. Since then we have also been able to fully wrap up follow-on surveys on irrigation and aquaculture. The latter is especially relevant to us here in Louisiana, as we had 500 aquaculture farms, which sold $90.6 million worth of aquaculture products, according to the 2013 Census of Aquaculture.

Crustaceans (crawfish, shrimp, and prawns) were produced on 566 farms in the U.S. in 2013.  Of these, 407 farms were In Louisiana.  In 2013, the U.S. crustacean sales totaled $84.9 million, with 42 percent of all of these sales coming from Louisiana. That year our aquaculture farmers sold $35.3 million worth of crustaceans.  U.S. farms producing mollusks, including snails, oysters and clams, totaled 756 with sales totaling $329 million.  Louisiana had 39 farms producing mollusks with a sales value of $13.4 million.

This is the twenty-fourth installment of the Organic 101 series that explores different aspects of the USDA organic regulations.

Across the country, more and more people are looking for organic options at their local markets.  Thanks to the remarkable growth in the number of domestic and international certified organic operations, Americans now have more choices than ever.
 
In fact, according to data released today by my agency, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), there were 19,474 certified organic producers in the United States and 27,814 certified organic operations around the world at the end of 2014.  In just one year, the number of U.S. certified organic operations increased by more than 5 percent.  And since the count began in 2002, the number of domestic organic operations has increased by over 250 percent.  You can access the full list of certified operations at http://apps.ams.usda.gov/nop/ or download the list in Excel format going back to 2010.

Calling all budding chefs! Do you like to cook and make healthy food for your friends and family? If so, you might be able to show off your skills and creativity to the First Lady of the United States and your peers from across the country. Learn more about how you can represent your state at the Kids’ “State Dinner” at the White House this summer.

First Lady Michelle Obama, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Education, and WGBH Boston invite you to enter the fourth annual Healthy Lunch Time Challenge & Kids’ “State Dinner.” Check out the past events here on the Let's Move! website and get inspired to participate in this year’s challenge.

Judy Olson, Donna Reifschneider, Vanessa Kummer, and Pam Johnson all share something in common— they are the women of “firsts”.

As the first female presidents of some of the major commodity organizations, these women broke new ground in agricultural leadership.  But it wasn’t easy being the only female leaders in a male dominated industry. Ask these four women to talk about their experiences and you will hear similar stories—they all hoped for a deeper network and the opportunity to learn from others. Today, they are all working to ensure that the next generation is right behind them—that they will be the “first but not last”. For them, leadership means being actively engaged with their industries and communities to ensure that women are valued and recognized as equal partners on farms, in businesses and in the board room, and that they share their experiences and expertise to support other women who hope to share their voice and leadership talents.

It’s a cool 37 degrees Fahrenheit as Alex Royo and I step out of the Forest Service truck and on to the muddy forest road. With the meteorologist calling for sun and a high of 66 degrees by lunchtime, I am already faced with the day’s toughest decision – do I keep my warm jacket on or leave it in the truck? Either way, half of my 3.5-mile hike is going to be uncomfortable. A quick glance at Alex reveals that he has opted to leave his jacket behind. As we walk into the forest, I can’t help but notice the contrast of colorful spring beauties and trout lilies against the dull brown forest floor. And already, there is the object of my hike -- deer pellets. To find pellets so early in the day one has to wonder, just how many deer are out here?

That’s the question that vexes hunters, scientists, and land managers throughout Pennsylvania and beyond. Each and every spring, a small army of individuals from the USDA Forest Service’s Northern Research Station, the Allegheny National Forest, multiple private land managing partners, and volunteers hike hundreds of miles of Pennsylvania’s forests to help determine how many deer the forest holds by counting the most visible part of a deer – deer pellets, which is the nicest term for deer waste.