By Jill Lee, National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Jim Hafer’s passion for teaching is second only to his savvy in leveraging opportunity. He noticed many retirements at the local power plant and coal mines and saw opportunity for his agriculture students at Chief Dull Knife College in Lame Deer, Mont. With funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), he decided to train students to fill the upcoming talent gap. Read more »
By Tanya Brown, Farm Service Agency
To the untrained eye, a trip through Jim Duke’s Herbal Village in Fulton, Md., looks like a homestead for weeds and other unwanted vegetation. But for a group of master gardeners from the People’s Garden initiative, it was a journey through the land of healing.
“It gave me a deeper appreciation for the work done at USDA,” said Linda Parker, master gardener from Forest Service. “It’s a different part of USDA than what I’m used to seeing.” Read more »
By Anita Regmi, USDA Research, Education, and Economics
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.
Living and traveling through rural South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, I have seen firsthand the challenges faced by many families as they strive to eke out a livelihood off a small, unyielding patch of land. The difficulties faced by such families will only become more severe as climate change, population growth, and increased use of arable land to produce alternative uses for food such as biofuels erode food availability. Read more »
By Bill Menner and Janie Dunning, USDA Rural Development State Directors of Iowa and Missouri
Bringing broadband to rural communities is about more than guaranteeing your daughter has 24/7 access to Twitter, or giving your son unlimited opportunities to play video games. Read more »
By James Miller, Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services
Earlier today I announced, on behalf of Secretary Tom Vilsack, an opportunity for landowners to enroll environmentally sensitive land into the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). CRP is administered by the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) on behalf of the Commodity Credit Corporation. Read more »
By Lisa Pino, Deputy Administrator for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
The Latino community faces dual challenges when it comes to nutrition since hunger and obesity can often co-exist. Hispanics in the U.S. have higher rates of both food insecurity and obesity. The USDA Food and Nutrition Service is addressing the challenges through its 15 nutrition assistance programs, many of which include nutrition education. Read more »