Accessibility
Disclaimer
USDA and the Agricultural Research Service are committed
to making their web sites accessible to all USDA customers and
employees. All of the agency web sites 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 sites currently meet the Section 508 accessibility
standards. Furthermore, ARS continues to work on making all
web sites accessible. Thank you very much for your patience
through this redesign process. If you have any comments or
suggestions for improvement, please contact the ARS
webmaster.
Commercial
Endorsement Disclaimer
The use of trade, firm, or corporation names in this web site
is for the information and convenience of the reader. Such
use does not constitute an official endorsement or approval
by the United States Department of Agriculture or the Agricultural
Research Service of any product or service to the exclusion
of others that may be suitable.
USDA
Nondiscrimination Statement
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or part of an individual's income is derived from any public assistance program. (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 to USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410, or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.
Equal Opportunity Data Required To Be Posted By The NO FEAR Act
USDA is posting this summary statistical Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaint data under Title III, "Equal Employment Opportunity Complaint Data Disclosure," of the NO FEAR Act. The NO FEAR Act requires Federal Agencies to post cumulative year-to-date summary statistical EEO complaint data on a quarterly basis during each Fiscal Year (FY) as follows: January 31; April 30; July 31; and October 31.
Government
System Usage Policy
This
information service operates on a U.S. Government computer
system. This system is monitored to ensure proper operation,
to verify the functioning of applicable security features,
and for other like purposes. Anyone using this system expressly
consents to such monitoring and is advised that if such monitoring
reveals evidence of possible criminal activity, system personnel
may provide the evidence of such activity to law enforcement
officials. Unauthorized attempts to upload or change information;
to defeat or circumvent security features; or to utilize this
system for other than its intended purposes are prohibited.
Pesticide
Disclaimer
This web
site may report research involving pesticides. It does not
contain recommendations for their use nor does it imply that
uses discusssed here have been registered. All uses of pesticides
must be registered by appropriate State and/or Federal agencies
before they can be recommended.
USDA
Privacy Policy
Thank
you for visiting the ARS website and reviewing our privacy
statement. Our privacy policy is clear: We will collect no
personal information about you when you visit our website
unless you choose to provide that information to us.
Here is
how we handle information about your visit to our website:
Information
Collected and Stored Automatically
If
you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website,
read pages, or download information, we will gather and store
certain information about your visit automatically. This information
does not identify you personally. We automatically collect
and store only the following information about your visit:
- The
Internet domain (for example, "xcompany.com" if you use
a private Internet access account, or "yourschool.edu" if
you connect from a university's domain) and IP address (an
IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to
your computer whenever you are surfing the Web) from which
you access our website;
- The
type of browser and operating system used to access our
site;
- The
date and time you access our site;
- The
pages you visit; and
- If
you linked to the U.S. Department of Agriculture website
from another website, the address of that website.
We use
this information to help us make our site more useful to visitors
- to learn about the number of visitors to our site and the
types of technology our visitors are using. We do not track
or record information about individuals and their visits.
If
You Send Us Personal Information
If you choose to provide us with personal information, as
in an e-mail to the Secretary or someone else or by filling
out a form with your personal information and submitting it
to us through our website, we use that information to respond
to your message and to help us locate for you the information
you have requested. We treat e-mails the same way that we
regard letters sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
We are required to maintain many documents under the Presidential
Records Act for historical purposes, but we do not collect
personal information for any purpose other than to respond
to you. We only share the information you give us with another
government agency if your inquiry relates to that agency,
or as otherwise required by law. Moreover, we do not create
individual profiles with the information you provide or to
give it to any private organizations. The U.S. Department
of Agriculture does not collect information for commercial
marketing.
When
You Visit USDA Agency/Staff Office Websites
Please read the USDA Agency/Staff Office Privacy Statement
when you visit those websites. Where necessary, an Agency/Staff
Office may have additional privacy criteria, conditions, or
information that you should know.
Information
Systems Security Program Manager
The ARS ISSPM
is with Office of the Chief Information Officer's Cybersecurity
Branch.
Links
to Other Sites
Our website has links to many other federal agencies. In a
few cases we link to private organizations, with their permission.
Once you access another site through a link that we provide
you are subject to the privacy policy of the new site.
Website
Security
Information presented on the USDA website is considered public
information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate
byline/photo/image credits is requested.
- For
site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains
available to all users, this government computer system
employs software programs to monitor network traffic to
identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information,
or otherwise cause damage.
- Except
for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other
attempts are made to identify individual users or their
usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes
and are scheduled for regular destruction in accordance
with National Archives and Records Administration General
Schedule 20.
- Unauthorized
attempts to upload information or change information on
this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable
under the Computer
Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National
Information Infrastructure Protection Act.
Children's
Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998
Comments
or Questions
If you have any comments or questions about the information
presented here please forward them to howard.baker@usda.gov
Quality
of Information
Quality of Information Requests
Guidance Documents
ARS currently does not maintain any guidance documents
identified as significant under Executive Order 12866 on Regulatory Planning and Review.
Public comments to request such a document may be addressed to: Deputy Administrator via webmaster@ars.usda.gov.