USDA Forest Service research is transforming exhausted farmland in Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee into thousands of acres of hardwood forests that will provide revenue to landowners, remove carbon from the air and serve as habitats for wildlife.

In 1998, scientists with the Forest Service’s Center for Bottomland Hardwoods Research, in Stoneville, Miss., began testing methods of afforestation – growing trees on barren farmland. The result was a tree-planting technique that mixed cottonwoods trees (poplars) with hardwood yearlings to produce strong, straight-stemmed hardwood trees.

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A screenshot of the Cattle Dashboard. The livestock dashboards allow you to see weekly volume and price information presented in graphs and tables that can be customized for viewing and downloaded for use in reports and presentations.

USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service is expanding upon its traditional Market News reports to create interactive dashboards.  The dashboards, first launched in the summer of 2010, provide quick, easy access to volume and price information for cattle, hogs, and sheep.   Read more »

Prairie Grove dam helps reduce flooding of Muddy Fork Creek along the western edge of Prairie Grove.

The flooding from this year’s spring rain storms caused millions of dollars worth of damage to homes, businesses and crops in Arkansas.

But some flooding was reduced or minimized, thanks to 207 small and medium-sized dams built by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), in partnership with local watershed districts. Read more »

Bruce Ward, Choose Outdoors, Pine, Colorado

Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website:

Bruce formed the nonprofit organization Choose Outdoors in 2008 to bring together the diverse outdoor recreation interests that enjoy the National Forests and Grasslands. Read more »

Linda Roberson, Rural Town Manager and Finance Director, Florida

Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website:

Linda Roberson is the Town Manager and Finance Director of Zolfo Springs, Florida. Read more »

Ross Racine, Executive Director of the Intertribal Agriculture Council, Montana

Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website:

Ross Racine is the Executive Director of Intertribal Agriculture Council. He assumed those duties in January 2001. He served as the IAC Natural Resources Director beginning in 1991, and as the IAC Director of Programs since 1999. Read more »