The Research, Education, and Economics mission area is USDA’s foundation builder. REE provides the science that policymakers, researchers, Federal agencies, and others can draw upon to meet challenges confronting America’s food and agriculture system. REE’s science-based programs result in sound information and data used by USDA in making policy decisions to benefit all citizens of the Nation.

The REE programs range from basic research to problem solving to technology transfer. The scope of its mission reaches from seed to table, genes to jeans, spanning the entire spectrum of the food and fiber production system from production to marketing, from trade to nutrition, from biological discovery to economic analysis.

The emphasis of the Mission Area is on science, because science is the foundation of agriculture – the foundation for producing safe, affordable, nutritious food; for enhancing farmers’ incomes; for competing in global markets; for mitigating agriculture’s environmental impacts; for providing Biobased energy; and for giving consumers the confidence to make sound choices from the abundant available foods. The knowledge base developed by REE also includes accurate information on the economics of the food and agriculture systems, as well as essential agricultural statistics that document the progress science makes possible.

We invite browsers to visit the websites of the REE agencies or contact the individual agencies to further explore REE programs. In particular, we welcome young people to consider joining us in a rewarding profession in which the creation and dissemination of knowledge contributes to the well being of the entire human race.