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It’s that time again…back-to-school season is upon us. It’s an exciting time of year for kids, offering a new beginning with the promise of new friends and new experiences. It’s also a great time for families to establish a new routine and work together toward a healthier lifestyle. ChooseMyPlate.gov and Team Nutrition just launched new resources to help your family eat better together, including printable activity sheets, tips for making mealtimes fun and stress-free, and videos featuring real families who share healthy eating solutions that work for them.

For example, meet Lilac and PJ. See how this family of five (and grandma too) makes healthy eating work, while incorporating their Laotian heritage and adjusting to the addition of a new baby.

Every family is unique. When it comes to healthy eating, choose a starting place that works for your family, whether it’s going to a farmers market together or letting kids plan your next healthy dinner menu. Visit ChooseMyPlate.gov/Families for more ideas to get kids of all ages involved in planning healthy family meals:

• For younger children, try our MyPlate Grocery Store Bingo game during your next shopping trip. Kids can learn about the food groups while you shop.
• If your kids are picky eaters, try the MyPlate Food Critic activity to expose them to new flavors. In this activity, kids are empowered to pick out and rate a new food.
• For tweens and teens, the Kid’s Restaurant activity lets kids be the chef by planning and preparing a meal for their parents.

And when it comes to healthy eating at school, the USDA’s Team Nutrition initiative has a number of free Back-to-School resources, including:

• MyPlate Guide to School Lunch and MyPlate Guide to School Breakfast
  These one-page handouts discuss how school meals help kids meet their nutritional needs and support learning.

• Welcome to School Lunch!
  This handout for kindergarten parents introduces kids to school lunch and provides an activity for children to sort lunch foods into the five food groups. It also includes a “Color Adventure” challenge where families taste-test new fruits and vegetables of different colors.

• What You Can Do To Help Prevent Wasted Food
  This booklet discusses ways to reduce, recover, and recycle food before it goes to waste. Get ideas for your school by reading tips for school nutrition professionals, teachers, parents, students, and school administrators.

• A Guide To Smart Snacks in Schools
  This colorful booklet provides an overview of Smart Snacks Standards and how to tell if a food and beverage meets the requirements. This is a ready-to-go resource for anyone that oversees the sale of foods/beverages to students on the school campus during the school day.

For more healthy eating tips and resources, sign up for MyPlate email updates and the Team Nutrition E-Newsletter.

Over the course of the Administration, recruiting the next generation of agricultural leaders has been a key priority for USDA. Last week, I had the opportunity to meet some impressive young people who will lead this field in the 21st century.

In partnership with the World Food Prize, USDA created the Wallace-Carver Fellowship in 2011 to inspire the next generation of American scientific and humanitarian leaders. Named for Henry A. Wallace and George Washington Carver, two of the great American leaders in agricultural science and policy who made significant strides toward ending hunger, the Wallace-Carver Fellowship seeks to educate, inspire and train the next generation of agricultural leaders.

This year, 37 exceptional students were selected for the 2016 program. These students are stationed at USDA research centers and field offices across the country where they are analyzing policy, conducting groundbreaking research, and assisting in the management of USDA’s food, nutrition and rural development programs. Through their experiences in USDA offices, they are gaining critical skills that will help them become the most effective leaders of tomorrow.

As we look to the future, there are certainly a number of challenges that the next generation of agricultural leaders will face. Today in America, the average farmer is 58 years old. By 2050, the world needs to increase food production by 70% in order to meet the needs of our growing global population.

To meet the evolving needs of the future, there is an unprecedented demand for young talent in agriculture – on and off the farm. While farmers and ranchers are the foundation of agriculture, there’s also a critical need for specialized experts to develop new technology and the most sustainable management techniques. Every year, there are nearly 60,000 jobs available in food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, and environmental fields – but only about 35,000 students are expected to graduate with degrees in these fields each year. Almost half of the job opportunities will be in management and business, and more than a quarter will be in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

The USDA Wallace-Carver Fellows are stepping up to the plate to serve as the next generation of scientists, policymakers, engineers, and more. These students are eager to enter the field and will work to ensure agricultural sustainability and global food security through innovation and hard work. After having the opportunity to meet with them, I am confident that the future of agriculture is in good hands.

Meet the 2016 USDA Wallace-Carver Fellows here.

Graduating from high school in the small town of Blakely, Georgia, Tracy Robinson was required to take an armed forces aptitude test. When asked what he wanted to do with his life, Robinson said he wanted to farm. The Marine recruiter told him he would be a great field artilleryman.

“I heard the word field and thought it had something to do with farming,” said Robinson. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and after finding out field artillery had nothing to do with farming he stayed and fought for his country for 24 years, serving in Desert Shield, Afghanistan and Iraq.

He achieved the highest enlisted rank of E9 and traveled to 30 different countries before retiring in 2010 and returning to Georgia to do what he loves – farm.

Today, Robinson farms 300 acres of peanuts, cotton, soybeans and wheat, and he does it without owning or leasing any equipment. But to get to that point was a struggle and required a lot of support that many military veterans or underserved farmers once did not have.

Over the past eight years, however, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been turning that around, expanding the availability of its programs to more diverse farming communities, including veteran and women farmers. By forming partnerships and developing outreach efforts to restore trust and improve relationships, USDA has seen a 12 percent increase in black farmers and a 21 percent increase in Hispanic farmers.

The same efforts have been put into helping soldiers returning home who want to farm. Since 2009, USDA has provided $443 million in farm loans to help more than 6,505 veterans purchase farmland, buy equipment and make repairs and upgrades to farm businesses.

Robinson was one of those veterans who obtained a microloan in 2013 when, at the time, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) had just launched the $35,000 loan and shorter application process to help small and beginning farmers get started.

“Once I returned home from the military, I was able to rent the same land that my family rented farmed when I was a child,” said Robinson. “When I approached FSA in 2011 about a loan, they said I didn’t qualify because I had no farming experience.” He later ran into a high school friend who allowed him to volunteer and work on his farm to get the experience.  “When the microloan came out, the criteria changed and my military experience counted toward my farming experience and I was approved.”

But the friendship and volunteering never stopped. Robinson still helps his friend while farming his own land; however, he enjoys the benefits because his friend allows him to use the farming equipment in return for Robinson’s help.

“Mr. Robinson is very successful primarily due to his discipline and attention to detail that can be attributed to his military experience. Also, his record keeping is unlike any other farmer that we work with,” said Rodney Brooks, former Farm Loan Officer with the Georgia FSA who helped Robinson at that time. “Without the microloan he would have had to struggle to fund his operation. Yet, Robinson insists that his situation is different from other veterans and underserved farmers.

“I do this because I enjoy farming and it is great mental and physical therapy for me,” said Robinson. “I had a lot of help. But a lot of military veterans return home to families and they don’t have the financial capital or access to get into farming.”

Robinson hopes to someday develop a program for veterans and young people, to not only teach them to farm, but teach leadership and life skills.

To learn more about how USDA is helping military veterans enter farming as a profession, visit www.usda.gov/veterans and www.usda.gov/newfarmers.  To learn more about FSA microloans, visit www.fsa.usda.gov/microloans or contact your local FSA county office.  You can find your nearest FSA office by visiting http://offices.usda.gov.

Have you ever seen a cool bird in your backyard and wondered if there was some way to share what you saw with others? Better yet, have you thought about sharing your observations and having them used to help study and conserve those birds? These thoughts are an indicator that you might have the makings of a great citizen scientist!

The Forest Service is engaged in a wide variety of citizen science projects that encourage public involvement in natural and cultural resource science and conservation. Volunteers can contribute by forming research questions, collecting and analyzing data, or interpreting results. If you have a sense of wonder and discovery, citizen science may be for you.

Citizen science can help in conservation and protecting natural resources in two ways: increasing scientific knowledge just like conventional research; and creating a conversation about scientific information and policy and to encourage public input and action.

Many scientific projects would be difficult to research without the help of volunteers because of their size, complexity, or cost. Volunteers can contribute in many ways including helping to track patterns in space and time of one or more parts of the ecosystem, or in the discovery of species or important cultural resources. At the same time, getting local communities engaged in projects can increase the relevancy of scientific research locally and can foster environmental stewardship. It can also build a better understanding between the community, scientists and decision makers about social aspects in environmental issues.

Many organizations rely on the so-called best available science in order to make management decisions. However, the best scientific information does not necessarily come from peer-reviewed scientific publications, rather it is the best scientific information available to answer the questions raised.

Data integrity is achieved in the same way that it is in any research project, through standardized sampling procedures. Similar quality assurance and controls are used for both citizen science and conventional science and include training, collection of duplicate samples, and post-data collection analyses.

Your involvement matters.

The Forest Service very much wants to engage communities in caring for their land and natural resources. Every year, tens of thousands of volunteers take to the forests, grasslands, wetlands, coasts–and their own backyards–to contribute high quality data for science.

When the public is involved in land and resource management through citizen science, it can foster the connection between scientific discovery and public interest. So, how will you contribute to the places you love?

Find out the latest in forest news in this week’s Forest Digest!

• Homeowners value property value boost brought about by city trees — Science Daily
  The planting of public trees near residential areas will likely result in increased property value, but a new study now quantifies that residents are willing to pay $7 on average more per month for property taxes for those trees to be planted.
• New study shows logging, not fire, is degrading our national forests — Phys.org
  A recent study analyzing the impacts of habitat degradation on spotted owls reveals that logging, as opposed to severe megafires is causing severe negative effects on spotted owl populations.
• Researchers Aim To Find Out How Much Stress Urban Trees Can Handle — wbur.org
  While trees help humans reduce stress and, ultimately, are estimated to save about eight lives per year, this audio clip dives into discovering how much stress trees within our cities can actually handle.
• How farms can heal forests — or even make them — Grist.org
  This article looks at how agroforestry – or producing food or crops in forests while maintain the health of the forest – could actually help our declining forests rebound.

By Lindsay Seventko, Communications Intern

The Skagit Wild and Scenic River winds through dense hemlock, massive spruce and stately red cedar forests, feeding lush farmland and providing rich marshland habitat all the way from the North Cascade Mountains to the Puget Sound. All five native species of Pacific salmon push up the clear waters to spawn. Wild elk roam the more remote banks while black bears, mountain goats and cougars traverse their wilderness territory. The watershed is home to the largest population of over-wintering bald eagles which perch their nests high up in the firs, as well as trumpeter swans which float in the flat water and black swifts, one of the most elusive birds in the world, which hide behind waterfalls and in the crevices of riverside cliffs.

Deforestation and Habitat Loss

While the Skagit River Basin may sound like a marvel of plentiful wildlife and beautiful forests, this incredible area is at a dangerous time of uncertainty. Agriculture cleared much of the river’s banks, industrial forestry leveled important habitat and damming disrupted the natural flow of the river. As a result, there is less habitat to support the rare wildlife, and invasive species are creeping in. Salmon populations, which Native Americans in the region historically relied on as a primary food source, are dwindling to alarming lows, and less than two dozen grizzly bears roam the North Cascades region of the watershed.

ReLeaf Planting

Realizing how important the incredible Skagit River area is, American Forests set out this spring to restore this essential riparian habitat through our American ReLeaf program by partnering with government agencies and local conservation organizations — the U.S. Forest Service, the Skagit River System Cooperative and Washington State’s Salmon Recovery Funding Board. Together with these partners, we planted 13,000 saplings from locally collected seeds of western red cedar, Douglas-fir, Sitka spruce and cottonwood, which are all native species. Volunteers from the Skagit River System Cooperative gathered to put the trees in the ground across 24 acres of U.S. Forest Service land, strategically planting the small seedlings within protective tubes and braced by bamboo stakes.

Habitat Recovery

Over the coming decades, these sections of gangly saplings will transform from cleared pasture overrun with invasive grasses into forested riparian habitat filled with native tree species that shelter some of the most extraordinary wildlife on earth. As the newly planted trees mature, their debris will provide shade and shelter along the banks of the river, enhancing salmon habitat in eddies and backwater marshes. As the salmon populations replenish, so will the black bear, bald eagles and all the wildlife that rely on the salmon’s proliferation.

When Amanda Barker arrived in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 2009 to start graduate school at Clark University she knew that she wanted to grow food and build community. “My hope was to figure out a way to connect people with food, get people talking to each other,” said Barker.

Seven years later, she is one of the nation’s urban agriculture pioneers who raises crops on tiny patches of land wedged between city buildings, used car lots, highways and railroad tracks, and even on rooftops.

As director and farm manager of Nuestro Huerto (Spanish for “Our Garden”) Community Farm, Barker and her corps of volunteers are raising vegetables, fruit, herbs, and greens on a third-of-an-acre behind a church in Worcester’s south end.

The City of Worcester, the second largest city in New England, is located about 30 to 40 miles west of Boston and about halfway between the New Hampshire and Rhode Island borders. It has an industrial history. The land was previously used as a storage ground for an iron foundry; the soil was tested and found to be free of contaminants.

“We were able to start growing here with the help of soil brought in,” said Barker. “It’s not really tillable land. It’s got a lot of rocks in it, so we’ve been putting compost on top and are growing in that,” explained Barker.

The City of Worcester makes compost from leaf and yard waste and makes it available to city residents and community gardens. “If we didn’t have it we wouldn’t have a farm,” said Barker.

In addition to the usual challenges that go with farming: weather, labor and pests, urban farming brings its own unique concerns, such as security. A car wreck recently damaged a fence and nearly took out crops at Nuestro Huerto.

Barker’s biggest hurdle was inadequate irrigation. The drip irrigation system that she connected to the church’s water supply wasn’t getting enough water to the crops.

At an urban agriculture conference, she learned that USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service helps growers with irrigation efficiency, so she reached out to NRCS District Conservationist Dan Lenthall for help.

“Dan came out here to check it out and we had conversations about the soil, as well, which is always something I’m interested in improving,” said Barker.

Lenthall quickly figured out that pressure loss due to the distance from the building to the beds limited the amount of water that was getting to the individual drip lines and proposed a solution.

“I think a unique aspect to urban agriculture is the scale, trying to bring in enough income to sustain the amount of labor that it takes. It’s all done by hand,” said Barker. “Even though it’s volunteer-run, you still need money to operate.”

“This is not a typical farm, but it is more and more typical of small urban farms. Most urban farms are less than an acre. They have different concerns, they’re very detail oriented. There’s a few feet of this crop, followed by a few feet of another crop,” said Lenthall.

Nuestro Huerto sells its produce through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership program. They also donate produce to a local residential recovery program facility.

“It’s a community, it’s a family. I think that, long term, it’s healthier for everybody to have these connections. It creates a more resilient community and society,” said Barker.

The following guest blog from University of Alaska Fairbanks highlights the professionalism and dedication of educators in the Cooperative Extension System.

By Debbie Carter, University of Alaska Cooperative Extension

Heidi Rader planned to become a farmer when she graduated from college.

During high school and college, she worked a succession of jobs at greenhouses and farms that seemed to be leading to an agricultural career.  For her master’s degree, she grew snap beans and lettuce, and studied high-tunnel production at University of Alaska Fairbanks’ School of Natural Resources and Extension Fairbanks Experiment Farm.

A few months after she graduated, however, Rader learned about a job with the Alaska Cooperative Extension Service and the Tanana Chiefs Conference that sounded appealing. The job, a Tribal Extension Educator, was to help people with gardening, farming and food preservation.  She liked the idea of applying and sharing research with the public because it’s practical science.

Heidi has experimented with different delivery methods with the Alaska Growers School. An agricultural training she developed in 2011 that consists of a series of weekly webinars and teleconferences geared to Alaska Natives who want to begin farming and ranching. The school’s focus and delivery methods have shifted with various USDA funding sources, including the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), which provides funding and national program leadership to the nation’s Cooperative Extension System.

Since 2007, Rader has delivered workshops in nearly 30 villages and communities in rural Alaska. She teaches whatever a community requests from a list of workshops she has developed, including making jam, cooking fresh foods from the garden, canning salmon, seed starting, extending the growing season, and even applying for grants.

Heidi is currently developing a mobile app called Grow & Tell, which will allow people in Alaska and other parts of North America to note where they are growing a particular variety of vegetable and see what varieties others are growing as well as how they have done.  Essentially, Grow & Tell is a way for citizen scientists to conduct agricultural variety trials, compiling and sharing data of use to themselves and others.  The app is currently in the beta test phase and is expected to go live later this summer.  Rader received the 2016 Invent Alaska Award from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in May for her work on the app.

Alaska Extension Director Fred Schlutt said Rader is always focused on her stakeholders and looking for better ways to help the Alaska Native community and master gardeners.  Her efforts in this area include establishing a blog for master gardeners and a publication with an accompanying YouTube video on how to grow garlic in Alaska.  She is also in the final stages of updating Alaska Cooperative Extension’s “Alaska’s Sustainable Gardening Handbook.”

NIFA invests in and advances agricultural research, education and extension and seeks to make transformative discoveries that solve societal challenges.