September 2011

A USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) project designed to alleviate crop losses from flooding and restore wetlands along the Arkansas and Petit Jean Rivers is also protecting a significant archeological site in Yell County, Arkansas.

At two town hall meetings in Minnesota this week with Food Safety and Inspection Service employees, I had the pleasure of unveiling a new plan for food safety over the next five years. I’m very excited about our new Strategic Plan for FY 2011 through FY 2016, which will serve as the agency’s roadmap to ensuring that food produced under FSIS’ authority is safe for the American public.

This Strategic Plan should allow every single person in FSIS to have a direct line of sight between what they do every day and our objectives, and each of us should see ourselves as accountable to the public for protecting them from foodborne illnesses. We are putting forward detailed strategies and measureable tactics to reduce foodborne illness and chart our progress over the next five years, so this will serve as a foundation document for both the long-range and day-to-day operations of the Agency.

The Pacific Northwest Research Station’s Wenatchee Forestry Sciences Lab started our employee-tended People’s Garden in 2010. Since that time, we’ve harvested 3,976 pounds of fruits and vegetables that we’ve donated to Wenatchee-area food banks and community organizations, providing healthy produce to families that otherwise would not have them. Our harvest this year so far has totaled 1,476 pounds.

Doing more with less is a phrase we have all become accustomed to in recent years. U.S. Forest Service trail crews embody this spirit.

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend the day with a trail crew out of the Whitman district in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. Half of the crew was tasked to a project on a different part of the forest, but the five of us effectively cleared three miles of trail in the foothills of the Wallowa Mountains.

South Dakota is in the middle of the Great Plains, a vast prairie ecosystem stretching across much of North America that two hundred years ago was covered in native grasses and wildflowers. Today, visitors can get a glimpse of the prairie of the past, with the help of NRCS’ Conservation Technical Assistance Program.

This week, I am taking 21 representatives of foreign embassies in our nation’s capital to Washington state and Oregon for the Foreign Agricultural Service’s 26^th annual orientation tour. These representatives are from Angola, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, Fiji, France, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, and Switzerland. Their expertise ranges from agricultural to environmental affairs and economic to commercial affairs.

In Illinois, the city of Elgin has completed a U.S. Forest Service Recovery Act-funded urban forestry project that channeled over one million dollars into the local economy.

Working with businesses such as tree service firms, nurseries, landscapers, hotels, restaurants, graphic designers, and printers, the city engaged in a successful 18-month public-private partnership effort.

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.

Working in science can be a real pleasure, especially when your research translates into a life changing experience. The following note from Arion Thiboumery, Vice President of Lorentz Meats and one of the Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education’s (SARE) early Graduate Student grants, submitted a very modest proposal to establish a small-meat processors working group and publish a guide of useful resources. He accomplished that and much more. Read on...

Cross posted from the White House blog:

On Saturday, I visited the Port of Miami to see firsthand the success story of American agriculture and the jobs it is creating. Despite historic natural disasters, our agriculture business is booming.

Recently I visited the Deer Run Farm in Brookhaven, New York on a tour of farms across the nation to talk face-to-face with producers and growers about produce safety. Farmer Bob Nolan from Deer Run Farm invited us to walk through his fields so he could share with us his thoughts and concerns about how the government will shape a new produce safety rule.