USDA Rural Development tour of the Sam Kane Beef Processing Plant . (L-R) CEO Jerry Kane, CFO Harold Kane, Deputy Under Secretary Rural Development Cheryl Cook, Texas State Director Paco Valentin, Texas State Program Director Daniel Torres and Area Director Jake Sheeran.

Several Rural Development funded project sites in were visited by officials from Washington, D.C. in Texas recently to highlighted USDA’s commitment to strengthening rural communities.   Read more »

Cross-posted from the White House Blog

I’ve spent the last few days here in Iowa, a state that I was honored to serve as Governor for eight years. Yesterday, I walked the grounds of the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. The fair is refreshingly the same each year, but also a snapshot of changing rural America. The food stands, midway and cattle barns are in the same place that they’ve been for years. We’ve sculpted a “Butter Cow” since the early 1900s, but now the young people all have iPods and Blackberry phones. Their parents have cell phones. Read more »

The Gloucester food pantry is set up like a grocery store for the convenience of recipients.

Earlier this month, USDA Rural Development Area Director Lyndon Nichols, Helen Rush-Lloyd, Constituent Services Director from U.S. Rep. John F. Tierney’s office, and I delivered 80lbs of donations to a local Gloucester, Mass. food pantry named “The Open Door.” This food pantry has a slogan “Feeding People. Changing Lives.” Read more »

Left to right, Bill Menner, State Director in Iowa; Congressman Leonard Boswell and Administrator Canales. Canales was in Iowa to discuss business development issues.

“Today the conversations I have with my business colleagues, family and friends are focused around the best ways to rebuilding the U.S. economy,” said Jerry Lorenzen, President of World Food Processing, in his opening remarks at a public event at his company’s headquarters in Oskaloosa, Iowa, last week. Read more »

Holly Pashnik of Cumberland, RI., and her brother, Ryan, delivered 100 pounds of food to the USDA Service Center.

The Warwick USDA Service Center is 100 pound closer to their goal of donating 250 pounds of food to local food banks this summer thanks to a generous donation by Holly Pashnik of Cumberland, RI.  In celebration of her ninth birthday, Holly asked her guests to bring non-perishable food items to help hungry families instead of gifts to her party.  This week, Holly and her brother Ryan delivered 100 pounds of food to the USDA Service Center as part of the Feds, Farmers, and Friends Feed Families Program.  “I wanted to help children who don’t have enough food in the summer because they are missing the hot lunch and breakfast they get at school,” said Holly. “My aunt told me about Feds, Farmers, and Friends Feed Families Program and I took the food my friends donated and bought some more food so that we could bring 100 pounds to donate.” Donations are being collected at USDA offices across the country through August 31^st and are given to local area food banks.

The busiest plant inspection station in the country is about to become busier in this brand new, state-of-the-art plant inspection station open today in Miami, Florida.

A trip to your local plant nursery or florist is a lot like taking a trip around the world. You can find anything from boxwood from England, to roses from Colombia, to tulip bulbs from the Netherlands—the list goes on and on!  

Just as a myriad of plants, seeds and cut flowers come to us from around the world, so can plant pests and diseases. Non-native pests and diseases can hitchhike into the United States on shipments of plants and escape into the natural environment.  If these pests are introduced here, they can devastate home gardens and landscapes, nurseries, farms, and natural areas. Read more »