Non-Discrimination
Statement
The U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development prohibits discrimination in all its
programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex,
religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or
family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with
disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program
information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA's
TARGET
Center
at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD).
To file a complaint of
discrimination write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten
Building, 14th and Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call
(202) 720-5964 (voice or TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and
employer.
USDA Rural Development
is committed to making its website accessible to all USDA customers and
employees. Our web pages are undergoing review and redesign as necessary to
ensure that they meet or exceed the requirements of Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Many of our web pages currently meet the Section 508 accessibility standards.
Furthermore, USDA Rural Development continues to work on making all web pages
accessible. Thank you very much for your patience through this redesign
process. If you have any comments or suggestions for improvement, please contact
Anne Todd at
atodd@rdmail.rural.usda.gov or at (202) 720-1021.
The
Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards ("Section 508
final rule"), National Federation of the Blind's
Guidelines for Web Accessibility and the World Wide Web Consortium's
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines describe the elements of accessible web
pages. Yahoo lists companies that provide
assistive computer technology, including screen reading software.
Many of the documents on the Rural Development website are in HTML or ASCII
(plain text) formats. These formats are generally accessible to people who use
screen readers. We also have a large number of documents in Adobe® Acrobat®
Portable Document Format (PDF).
Adobe Acrobat PDF Files
PDF format is used to preserve the content and layout of our hard copy
publications. Publications in PDF can only be viewed and printed using the Adobe
Acrobat Reader™, version 3.0 or higher. You can download and get help using the
Acrobat Reader at the
Adobe Systems, Inc. site. The downloadable Acrobat Reader software is
available at NO CHARGE from Adobe.
People using screen-reading devices generally are unable to read documents
directly in PDF format, unless they have an accessibility plug-in installed on
their system along with the Adobe Acrobat Reader. This plug-in is available at
NO CHARGE from Adobe. Adobe also has online tools that will convert PDF files to
HTML on request.
Requesting Alternative Formats
The USDA TARGET Center converts USDA information and document into alternative
formats, including Braille, large print, video description, diskette, and
audiotape. For more information, visit the TARGET Center's website at
www.usda.gov/oo/formats.htm or call the Center at (202) 720-2600
(Voice/TTY).
Style Sheets
Some of the web pages in our website set font sizes, font colors, and font types
using style sheets. You may adjust your browser settings to disable these styles
and/or override them with your own preferred font sizes, colors, and types.
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