research and science

Mention the words “hall of fame” to most people, and they’re likely to imagine a stellar baseball player or someone who’s written a string of hit songs.  But at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, we have a Hall of Fame that isn’t about batting averages or popular tunes; it’s about changing the world.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA's rich science and research portfolio.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA's rich science and research portfolio.

When I was growing up on the farm in South Carolina, my family used a very simple method of estimating our production. As long as we planted the same acreage, we assumed that we were getting the same amount of crops at harvest time. But while this approach is still used on some farms, it is impossible to use these assumptions to get reliable state and national production estimates. So how does the USDA go about measuring the yields to get an accurate forecast for the annual crop production?

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

What are U.S. farms like?  Are they largely family businesses, or corporate operations?  Describing farms is challenging because they vary in size and other characteristics, ranging from very small retirement and residential farms to businesses with sales in the millions of dollars.  Descriptions based on U.S. averages hide much of the variation.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA's rich science and research portfolio.

By Tara Weaver-Missick, Branch Chief, with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service (ARS)

Summer field sports are under way, and sports fans around the world are having spirited discussions on their favorite team’s chances of winning.  A key factor of sports success is the condition of the field, and USDA scientists are just as interested in those field conditions—but from the angle of fighting the bugs that could be eating the field!

Written by Rick Borchelt

Butterflies are a great barometer of the health of our environment – because they spend part of their lives as caterpillars eating leaves and other vegetation, and part as adults visiting flowers and other food sources, they can be exposed to many contaminants that give us an early warning of problems in the ecosystem.  Butterflies are often used as an early signal that critical habitat is being eroded or lost because many of them are finicky about the kind of habitat they require and have a narrow range of plants they can feed on.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA's rich science and research portfolio.

By Shahla Shapouri and Stacey Rosen, Economists, Economic Research Service

Depending on the pulse of the global economy, the poorest citizens in the poorest countries can be beneficiaries or casualties of the food situation. How will these countries fare in the coming years, given a recovery from the worldwide recession?

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA's rich science and research portfolio.

By Tara T. Weaver-Missick, Chief, Information Products and Services Branch, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Information Staff

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA's rich science and research portfolio.  

By Jennifer Donovan, Michigan Technological University

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA's rich science and research portfolio.

Are we seeing a resurgence in small farms? The latest Census of Agriculture reported that there were more small farms in 2007 than in 2002. But it’s important to understand the diversity among small farms, and the broad definition of a farm.