NIFA’s AgrAbilty Project recipient uses modified lift to transfer from wheelchair to tractor. Photo credit: National AgrAbility Project at Purdue 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 USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report issued in June 2011 there are 4,861,000 people with disabilities in the workforce, and 3.3 percent are involved in agriculture and related industries. In addition, a 2010 report from BLS predicted that between 2008 and 2018 the most jobs lost by people with disabilities will be among farmers and ranchers. Read more »

Boxelder Job Corps certified culinary essentials educator, Dave Levesque, center, works with culinary arts students, Trevor Robertus, left, Mathew McGirr and Duanna Martin, right, as they create cherry puffs with chocolate sauce on June 1. Levesque was chosen as Chef of the Year for the American Culinary Federation's South Dakota Chapter. (Rapid City Journal Photo/ Tim Appel)

For the past eight years, students in the Boxelder Job Corps Center culinary arts program have benefited from chef Dave Levesque’s wide-ranging cooking experiences.

Located in the Black Hills National Forest near Nemo, the Boxelder Job Corps Center has 24 students in its culinary arts curriculum, which is one of 10 different trades taught at the school. Read more »

The UNECE team at a plant in Rosario, Argentina. During their visit to the plant, the team tested standards for new cuts of meat.

The Agricultural Marketing Service’s (AMS) Livestock and Seed Program Standardization Division recently participated in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) meetings in Buenos Aires to work on international meat standards.  The global agricultural quality standards developed by UNECE facilitate U.S. agricultural exports, which set a record this past year at $136 billion. Read more »

Fred and Suzi Dow, authors and publishers of ForestCamping.com, have devoted 18 years to visiting, personally researching, and providing the public with free, detailed information about 175 national forests and grasslands and more than 2,400 personally surveyed campgrounds. (Photo/Suzi Dow)

Fred and Suzi Dow, publishers of the U.S. National Forest Campground Guide Website have visited every Forest Service national forest and grassland but they don’t see their project as completed. They have set off for another six months of visiting, surveying, and exploring national forests that might have been thought of as completed more than a dozen years ago. Read more »

Throughout Minnesota, women are increasingly responsible for the stewardship of private forestlands, as the number of women owning and managing land across the country increases. To address this trend, the Minnesota Women’s Woodland Network (WWN) was formed in 2010. WWN provides resources to women to help them effectively care for and enhance their private forestland.

Minnesota Women’s Woodland Network members visited Camp Vermillion on May 16 for a “Walk in the Woods.”

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