September 2010

This summer I had the honor of organizing the Feds, Farmers and Friends Feed Families Food Drive for the Southwest Region Food and Nutrition Service.  As the human resources liaison for the region, I don’t get the opportunity to work directly with partners or clients so this food drive gave me a very unique perspective on hunger.  I collected food items, sent out reminders to staff and ensured delivery of the food to the North Texas Food Bank.

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.

While driving, have you ever wondered why there are so many fences to interrupt your  soul-satisfying, wide-open-spaces experience?  Until recently, that was the only way to keep livestock in their place, so to speak.  But today’s wire fencing and posts soon will be augmented with virtual fencing that erases these visual barriers from the landscape.

USDA Rural Development along with The Walker River Paiute Tribe (WRPT) scheduled a Resource Fair to accompany the Completion Ceremony of their newly constructed Four Seasons Fireworks Building. The Completion Ceremony and Resource Fair took place on September 17, 2010 in Schurz, Nevada. The new 60x40 steel structure replaced an old 40 foot container. The WRPT Housing Force Account Crew did an amazing job constructing the new building. The new fireworks store was funded in part by a USDA Rural Development Rural Business Enterprise Grant, funded by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

They say that variety is the spice of life. Well, you can’t get much more variety than in the plant world. Genetic variation exists for many traits in all crops. For example, although most carrots on grocers’ shelves are orange, carrots can also be white, yellow, green, or purple. Most potatoes are susceptible to potato late blight, but some wild potato species are immune. Carrot color may be unrelated to where the carrots are grown, so a local grower can grow whatever color carrot people enjoy. Variation for disease resistance or tolerance to different soil types, however, does affect local adaptation.

Many local foods can be bred specifically to adapt to local conditions and preferences. Since local breeding takes manpower, the costs for these seeds can spill over to the customers. One solution is participatory plant breeding where breeders and farmers collaborate to contribute genetic variation; resources such as fields and labor; and expertise in breeding, crops, and farming.

As part of CNN’s week-long series “Eatrocracy: Mind, Body and Wallet,” the USDA’s National Farmers Market Directory is featured in a unique way to encourage consumers to use farmers markets as a source of fresh, local and healthy food.  The series showcases our database of more than 6,200 farmers markets currently listed in the USDA Farmers Market Directory with the social networking and geo-locating mobile application, Foursquare. The series debuted yesterday  and will continue to run through the week on CNN. We’re thrilled to see several “Healthy Eating Badge” check-ins already!

When I heard about the USDA Feds, Friends, and Farmers Feed Families food drive, I knew the Central Arkansas Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) Council could help in a big way. We ended up donating 1,800 pounds of sweet potatoes to the Grace Community Food Pantry, in Phillips County, from our Delta Blues Sweet Potato facility.

As a service to farmers, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) recently presented an interactive webinar entitled “How to Sell Fruits and Vegetables to the USDA”.  The webinar was hosted by Red Book Credit Services as part of its free Red Book University educational offering.

Delivered by Ron Ulibarri of the Commodity Procurement Branch of AMS Fruit and Vegetable Programs, participants in the “How to Sell Fruits and Vegetables to the USDA” webinar learned about:

It was nice to once again experience the sounds, smells, and activity at the New Mexico State Fair – where “every day is a holiday.”  Accompanied by some of my USDA staff, rode on the 4-H float in the NM State Fair Parade.   Along the three mile parade route down Central Ave, we greeted spectators and heard compliments on 4-H.  As we passed in front of the grand stand and heard the commentator’s description of each entry in English and Spanish, I was reminded of the uniqueness of the multi-cultural emphasis in the “Land of Enchantment.”

Unless policies are changed, the volatility and price fluctuations seen by the dairy industry within the past two years will become more severe, according to a panel of dairy policy experts who presented their research findings yesterday during the USDA Dairy Industry Advisory Committee meeting.

Farm Service Agency Administrator Jonathan Coppess, hosted an informal round table discussion with farmers during the Farm Science Review, being held this week in London, Ohio.  Having grown up in Darke County, Ohio, Coppess felt right at home talking to farmers from the surrounding area.