People’s Garden committee member Rhonda Tyndall (left) shows DSU nutritionists Donna Brown and Carol Giesecke exactly which veggies and herbs will be ready for use in their upcoming cooking demonstration.

Providing healthy produce to needy families is one of many goals of USDA’s People’s Garden Initiative. But ensuring that those who receive the food know delicious ways to enjoy it is also important. Read more »

Entire group of participants weeds and removes leaves from the adjacent rain garden.

Vegetables aren’t the only thing you’ll see growing at the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) People’s Garden in Delaware – partnerships are growing too. To commemorate Earth Day, students from Minorities in Agriculture and Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) at Delaware State University (DSU), and a representative from the Partnership for Delaware Estuary joined NRCS employees in a clean-up and planting day aimed at restoring this NRCS People’s Garden for the upcoming 2011 growing season. Read more »

Last week, I got the chance to address students at Delaware State University’s first-ever Graduate Research Symposium. Delaware State is part of the land-grant university system that is called an “1890 institution,” because it was founded through the second Morrill Act, passed in that year to extend the education system of the land-grants to African-Americans.

I’m a former dean of an agriculture school (at Iowa State University), so talking to students is one of my favorite parts of my job as USDA’s Chief Scientist and Under Secretary of Research, Education and Economics. I had to agree with Provost Alton Thompson who said, in my introduction, “It’s a great day to be at Del State!” Read more »