Author: Site Owner

Signed by President Lyndon Johnson fifty years ago, the National Historic Preservation Act marked a fundamental shift in how Americans and the federal government regarded the role of historic preservation in modern life.

The U.S. Forest Service has a long history of protecting significant heritage resources, to share their values with the American people, and contribute relevant information and perspectives to natural resource management. Protecting these resources ensures that future generations have an opportunity to discover the human story etched on the landscapes of our national forests, grasslands and prairie.

A project that exemplifies this is an archaeological dig at a rare 400 year-old American Indian homestead site in Georgia. With each gentle scrape of the trowel, the underside of a large broken pottery vessel emerged from the dirt in a river valley on the Chattahoochee National Forest. Artful coils and swirls are stamped on the fired clay and a few feet to the left, the remains of a clay wall and burned wood help paint the story of what might have happened at this family farmstead 400 years ago.

The extended family that occupied this site were likely forerunners of the tribe we know today as the Cherokee. Each pottery piece helps us determine how these people lived in the early 1600s and why they were here.

Why they were here is an important question. As diseases, for which the native population had no resistance to, and warfare tactics, introduced by Spanish explorers, tore apart the region in the 1540s, native people coped however they could.

By approximately 1550, Native American mound building across the southeast had all but ceased, and it would not be until approximately 1670 that English explorers arrived and documented the Cherokee in northern Georgia. Now in the third year of excavations, more details from this site — radio-carbon dated to 1600-1615 — are being revealed.

“This year, we are able to confirm a square house roughly 600 square feet in size with a well-developed center hearth,” said Dean Wood, principal investigator from the firm Southern Research. “But questions still remain. Were they farmers? Refugees from regional warfare? What brought them to this valley?”

Working in small groups, local volunteers with the Passport in Time program are helping answer these questions. This spring, they helped recover more than 1,000 pottery sherds using large wooden shakers to separate the dirt from the artifacts. Several test pits were also excavated looking for pottery, stone tools and additional outbuildings used by the family.

By Lindsay Seventko, Communications Intern

Parents and educators often struggle to get kids to engage in, let alone enjoy, school work. Concerns are often raised that today’s youngest generation will be more out of touch with the natural world than any generation before them, with an unprecedented amount of time being spent indoors and staring at screens. Now more than ever, it’s important for kids to play in, and learn about, our forests and the great outdoors. Here are some tips for getting your kids excited to learn about science and nature, and raising the next generation of scientists, philosophers and entrepreneurs who are excited about understanding and protecting forests.

Answer Their Questions

Kids want to learn; they’re naturally curious and questioning. Just ask any parent who is barraged by questions day in and day out. Oftentimes, this doesn’t translate into classroom engagement and participation, where the ideas being taught can seem so far removed from their actual lives and experiences. To encourage passionate learning in and out of the classroom, start indulging all those hard questions about why things are the way they are and where things come from. Tell them what you know and encourage them research it more on kid-friendly educational websites or at the local library.

Use What’s Right around You

Everything you experience throughout the day is an opportunity to encourage learning. Does your child love jumping in a pile of leaves in the fall? Use it as a way to talk about seasons, photosynthesis, decomposition and soils. Do you collect pretty pinecones on your walks? You can talk about how cool the Fibonacci sequence is. Do you stare at the clouds and look for interesting shapes? You can also identify the different types of clouds, talk about the different layers of the atmosphere.

Turning everyday experiences in nature into learning opportunities in this way doesn’t mean losing the fun. Keep your informative tidbits interesting and relevant, and let your child’s natural curiosity encourage them to learn more. If you’re stargazing, mention how the universe is constantly expanding, and how they could be the first person to explore Mars or some other planet we haven’t even thought about yet. Or, if they find a cool bug on the playground, you can mention that there are still new insects being discovered every day around the world, and they can grow up to have a job focused on finding cool new bugs.

Ask Questions Yourself

If you feel overwhelmed by your child’s questions, don’t worry. It’s okay if you don’t know all the answers! Even if you do know the answer, ask some open-ended questions to guide them in using their observations and knowledge and come to their own conclusions, or help them find books about the topic and learn about it together! In the end, you don’t need to be a teacher 24/7, just allow and encourage your child’s curiosity to flourish. In this way, you’ll inspire the next generation to understand, appreciate and question what we know about nature, and to find solutions beyond what we can currently think of.

The Florida citrus industry is under siege and the invader is a tiny bug called the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP).  The ACP spreads a disease known as Huanglongbing (HLB) or citrus greening, and together they are destroying groves that have been cultivated by families for generations.

But all is not lost.  USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is working closely with State and Federal partners such as the Agricultural Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture, as well as State departments of agriculture and the citrus industry in Florida, California, Arizona and Texas to develop short-term solutions to help protect groves while researchers focus on longer-term projects that may one day put an end to this devastating pest and disease combo.

Together, this group forms a Multi-Agency Coordination Group, or MAC, group.  The MAC was initiated by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack who heard the call for short-term solutions to HLB in 2013 and established a new, unified emergency response framework to better position the Department to respond in a more agile, concerted, and direct way to both the immediate and long-term needs of the citrus industry.

As part of the MAC initiative, APHIS has received more than $25 million over the past three years to fund more than 30 shovel-ready projects carried out by State cooperators, universities, and private companies to produce tangible results and practical tools in the fight against the ACP and citrus greening.

I recently spent two days in Florida to see firsthand how our collaborative efforts are helping producers.  We saw demonstrations by canine detector dogs that can sniff out citrus greening before symptoms are physically present enabling producers to make decisions about how to best manage their groves.  We saw how treating trees with heat, known as thermotherapy, can suppress citrus greening and help diseased trees return to productivity.  MAC funding helped build the first thermotherapy truck and now several producers and a private company have started investing in their own thermotherapy machines.

We also toured the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) Biological Control Laboratory in Dundee where last year, with support from the MAC, they reared more than 2.3 million Tamarixia radiata—beneficial, miniature wasps that are released to attack and reduce ACP populations in areas where agricultural and residential environments overlap.

These are just a few of the promising innovations we had the opportunity to see, but driving past countless abandoned groves served as a sobering reminder of what the industry is up against.  Abandoned groves harbor disease and threaten nearby productive groves.  With support from the MAC, FDACS is working to remove these reservoirs of disease thereby protecting the livelihoods of neighboring producers.

The innovations underway in Florida may one day help citrus producers in California, Arizona and Texas.  All three States are dealing with the ACP, and Texas also has citrus greening in its groves, but so far producers have not seen lower yields.  Still, they know all too well what’s at stake.  A decade ago, Florida harvested 250 million boxes of citrus a year, but in 2016 the industry is only expecting to harvest about 68 million boxes.  With support from the MAC and our continued commitment to collaboration and innovation, my hope is that we will reverse this trend and Florida citrus production will rise.

Removing invading conifer trees improves the health of sagebrush ecosystems, providing better habitat for wildlife and better forage for livestock. And now, new science shows these efforts may also help improve late-season water availability, which is crucial for ecosystems in the arid West.

According to the Sage Grouse Initiative (SGI)’s newest Science to Solutions report – which summarized research from USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) – a sagebrush-dominated watershed holds water in snow drifts an average of nine days longer than one dominated by juniper trees.

Why is holding snow important for rangelands?

In the West, most precipitation comes in the form of snow. Having snow on the landscape longer gives water more time to slowly seep into the ground, providing more water in the soil at critical times for plants, sustaining wet meadow areas, and increasing late-season streamflow.

ARS researchers compared snow and streamflow data from sagebrush- versus juniper-dominated watersheds over the span of six years in the Owyhee Mountains of southwestern Idaho. Their goal was to better understand how juniper affects water availability. Working with physical data from four weather stations in the mountains, the researchers used iSnoball to model and estimate the amount of snow accumulated and how fast it melted in both juniper and sagebrush landscapes.

Why does snow melt slower in sagebrush?

A wide-open sagebrush landscape has higher wind speeds, causing snow to pile up deeper in different areas. This uneven distribution causes snow to melt at different rates and, in some areas, hold water for longer periods of time.

What are the benefits of snow in sagebrush?

Since parts of the sagebrush landscape hold water longer, the soil has more water available later in the season to grow “green groceries” – succulent grasses and wildflowers that make for high quality habitat and grazing lands. This ARS research also shows that snow-covered, sagebrush-dominated watersheds are better at turning limited precipitation into streamflow. Timing of snowmelt influences riparian and wet meadow areas that are critical for many species, including sage grouse, as the arid sagebrush ecosystem dries up during the summer.

What are we doing to help?

Over the last 150 years, the amount of conifers in the sagebrush sea has increased by up to 625 percent because of a combination of factors. This encroachment by junipers and other species has been detrimental to the ecosystem.

Through SGI, a partnership led by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), ranchers and conservation partners are expanding sagebrush habitat by strategically removing conifers to preserve native grasses, wildflowers, and shrubs. This keeps the sagebrush sea intact and viable for wildlife and ranching operations. Research now confirms conifer removal benefits sage grouse and other sagebrush-dependent species. Plus, it makes rangelands more resilient to wildfire and more resistant to invasive weeds.

Conifer expansion is one of the five primary threats targeted by the agency’s Sage Grouse Initiative 2.0 investment strategy, which strategically directs conservation efforts where the returns on investment are highest.

Want to learn more?

Learn more about these findings by downloading this new report. This report is part of the Science to Solutions series offered through NRCS, SGI and the Lesser Prairie-Chicken Initiative.

Lone Star state growers are responsible for 56 percent of the U.S. acres planted to cotton and about 45 percent of the total cotton production. But how do we measure this crop accurately enough to make dependable forecasts for cotton yield and production? That’s where our measurement process, known as the objective yield kicks in.

All of the objective yield measurements are done by a well-prepared team of National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) enumerators. For this growing season, we spent the week of July 12-14 training 43 enumerators with a combination of classroom and hands-on field practice. Since approximately 63 percent of the Texas crop, which represents 30 percent of the U.S. total cotton crop, comes from the High Plains of Texas, this group has the bulk of the samples in Texas.

Once we begin collecting data, these agency representatives lay out approximately 525 plots in cotton fields. Each objective yield sample will consist of two units per field, which, when combined, cover about 83 square feet of land. While this may seem like a small area, when combined across all of the plots in the state, this scientific process is quite accurate. We expect each one of these samples to represent nearly 10,500 acres of cotton grown in Texas.

Of course it takes more than one measurement to get an accurate yield and production estimate. Our enumerators return to the plots each month to collect updated data. During their visits, the enumerators count plants and fruit in a 10-foot area and pick cotton samples once bolls open. The cotton samples are weighed and sent to our National Operations Division in St. Louis, Missouri for further analysis. We also count squares, blooms, and large and small bolls from a separate 3-foot count area.

The data we collect from these plots, combined with the information growers provide in our monthly Agricultural Yield surveys, become the key source for Texas production forecasts throughout the growing season. The resulting cotton production data inform decisions made by traders, agri-marketers, legislators, and of course the farmers themselves. Key decisions impacting the cotton sector are usually rooted in these numbers.

This year, we will publish the first monthly Crop Production report for cotton production on August 12. After that we will continue publishing updated information each month through December. Final 2016 Texas and national cotton estimates will be available in early May 2017. You can find these and many other reports linked from the NASS Homepage.

Audrey Rowe serves as the Administrator for the Food and Nutrition Service.  Rowe oversees the nation’s 15 federal nutrition assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, and National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs.

“I started my career as an elementary school teacher… and I didn’t last very long because I saw such challenges with learning and health. I saw that school policies treated kids differently based on where their community was located, so I became an advocate for low-income children and families because they often don’t have a strong voice.” – Audrey Rowe

1. How has the Food and Nutrition Service been improving child nutrition within the last few years?

The cornerstone of our efforts has been the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA). It has provided a framework for improving the nutritional quality of all foods served inside schools, with the meal and snack standards a reflection of recommendations from the National Academy of Medicine.  Creating the updated standards required collaboration with nutritionists, partners, food service directors, and school cafeteria staff.  In order to have their meals be reimbursable school must plan menus and identify foods that our requirements. The HHFKA laid the foundation for the work we’ve been able to do. For example, we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of schools that are purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables, and therefore the number of kids who have access to those foods.

2. Why is it important to students and their communities that school meals remain accessible?

Our children need a strong and robust academic environment, including physical activity and nutritious foods that allow them to learn, focus, and remain healthy. Research is showing that schools can encourage prolonged healthy eating, positive body image, and intervene on obesity. And we’re not just providing meals: as we improve the school environment, the benefits ripple throughout the community. Part of our job is to show parents how to provide and prepare nutritious meals, teaching them not only what their children should be eating but also why. Still, for many children, healthy foods are only accessible through school meals. We recognize that ensuring all children have access to healthy choices is crucial to the future of our country; nurturing an ability to learn and taking away the worry of a rumbling stomach directly supports a child’s future.

3. Some of the exciting aspects of school meals are the farm to school and gardening programs. As students are exposed to school gardens, do they become more curious about new foods and diets?

As a result of school gardens and urban agriculture, kids are becoming more interested in fruits and vegetables. They’re actually disappointed to leave school for the summer because that’s when most garden growth happens! So more children will actually participate in summer meals programs so that they can continue to work in school gardens.

4. Do children understand the importance of healthier lifestyles and the decision to eat nutritious foods?

Children at all grade levels have become more conscious of their diets and what they feel is important to eat. Perceptions change with age, but very young students are certainly aware of the importance of the healthier foods they’re experiencing at school. When I ask classrooms why it’s important to eat fruits, vegetables and whole grains, hands shoot up in the air; they all say these foods help kids to become healthy and strong, and avoid getting sick. I’ve also asked students if they have family members experiencing hypertension, diabetes, or other diet-related diseases, and again, all hands shoot up. I’ll ask, “What would help you and your family to avoid these illnesses?” They all know that a healthy diet is crucial here. Some people feel our rules are dictating what people should do – this isn’t true. We’re creating an environment where information about healthy lifestyles is available where it might not have been otherwise. It’s a choice, and we’re providing students with the ability to choose.

5. How can communities get involved in feeding students as they move into the fall and a new school year?

There needs to be a real emphasis on school meals – breakfast, lunch, and supper programs are all important in a student’s life. As the summer ends, many students will have access to school breakfast and lunch, but they might not have access to meals after school. Whether through our Child and Adult Care Food Program or one of our other initiatives, communities can participate in our afterschool feeding programs or supper programs. All afterschool programs should be providing healthy snacks or meals in the afternoon, because kids likely won’t arrive home until after 5 p.m. Additionally, schoolchildren are able to receive healthy meals five days a week but there are two days where access is limited. Ensuring that children have access to nutritious foods throughout their lives can be a community responsibility, and this promise can be delivered in both small and large ways. Once a community realizes there is an internal problem, it is able to stand up and help a child whose parents can’t be home during meal times. Kids are going hungry, but this doesn’t have to be the case. We need to talk about these problems more, recognize that they exist, and work together to find sustainable answers.

Online grocery shopping has been an option for many busy American families for years. But for the 44 million Americans who use benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to supplement their food budget, this option has not been available…yet.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is in the process of bringing online purchasing to those who use SNAP benefits. Online purchasing could improve access to healthy food for those living in food deserts—areas with sparse options to buy healthy groceries—or for those who are unable to physically shop on their own due to a disability or transportation barrier.

The Agricultural Act of 2014, also known as the Farm Bill, took steps to pave the way for SNAP participants to be able to use their benefits online.  As a first step, the law required USDA to conduct demonstration projects to test the feasibility of online transactions and, based on the results, make a decision as to whether or not to allow online purchases nationwide.  Since the passage of the Farm Bill, FNS has been laying the groundwork to put together the complex technical infrastructure required for these demonstrations.

Because USDA is committed to maintaining the security of SNAP benefits for both the protection of SNAP participant accounts and to prevent and detect trafficking, SNAP online purchases must have a higher level of security than most other online purchases. For example, unlike other online electronic financial transactions, SNAP debit transactions require a secure customer-entered PIN. While more companies in the marketplace are developing this technology, there is currently only one company that provides an industry-tested and -approved secure encrypted-PIN solution necessary for online SNAP purchasing.  USDA is working with that company to bring online transactions to SNAP.

Another challenge to establishing SNAP online purchases is that any online purchase system must be able to work with the individual state systems for processing SNAP EBT payment transactions. For EBT online transactions to occur, the processor for the state where the transaction takes place needs to make specific adjustments to their system, which takes time and resources to facilitate. Currently several states are in the process of re-competing their EBT contracts for these systems as a result of the departure of one of the primary processors from the market. Ensuring successful transitions from one processor to another so that all SNAP households have basic access to their benefits is critical and will take time, presenting an additional challenge to establishing online SNAP EBT purchases. Even so, USDA is encouraging the processors to make online purchasing upgrades a priority and is providing support to make these transitions.

USDA is moving forward with all the relevant parties to overcome these challenges and bring online transactions to SNAP. This fall, USDA plans to release a request for volunteer retailers who are interested in participating in the online purchasing demonstration projects. Our goal is to select a small number of retailers before the end of this calendar year. Once selected, these retailers will begin their own system development to handle a number of SNAP specific tasks in the online world.  These include separating SNAP eligible and ineligible items, allowing transactions that use both cash and SNAP as a form of payment, not charging sales tax on SNAP items, properly charging (or not charging) bottle deposits, coupons and delivery fees, among other issues.

Online purchasing is only one of many changes we have made to SNAP in the last several years to strengthen the program and increase access to healthful foods for our clients, including providing funding to incentivize participants in SNAP to purchase more healthy fruits and vegetables through the Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive Program, increasing farmers’ market participation in SNAP to improve access to fresh and nutritious food, and proposing updated SNAP retailers standards to include different varieties of healthy qualifying foods. We’re also working to help SNAP participants gain the skills they need to improve their employment situation and move off the program the right way through SNAP Employment and Training (E&T) programs that connect low-income job-seekers to jobs that are available in their local economy.

We look forward to continuing to work with our state and EBT processing partners to launch the online purchasing pilot and learn how best to bring this option to SNAP households in an efficient and secure manner.

Throughout the month of August, we are reflecting on changes we’ve made over the past eight years to create a culture of inclusivity among USDA employees and the diverse communities we serve. For a broader look at our progress, check out our Results project here:

As a kid during the first years of desegregation in Austin, Texas’ public schools, many of my early experiences were shaped by race, and I quickly became familiar with the life-changing impacts discrimination can have on individuals both young and old. While a lot for any kid to experience, these circumstances taught me the power of inclusion, and from them, I became aware of the ways diversity and fairness can help repair troubled histories and heal the wounds of the past. These lessons have shaped my life’s work.

When Secretary Vilsack and I arrived nearly eight years ago, we were aware of USDA’s imperfect history marked by denial of equal service – too often based on race. It was admittedly a terrible situation by any accord. We had our work cut out for us, and got started quickly by examining our history deeply and thoroughly, bringing to light the most challenging aspects of the Department’s past.

Right away, Secretary Vilsack made an unprecedented proclamation calling for a new era for civil rights at USDA and since then, we’ve created new policies, corrected past mistakes and charted a stronger, more inclusive path for the Department and the people we serve. Today, while there’s still much to accomplish to repair the imperfect legacy we inherited, we’ve made significant progress that cannot be overlooked.

When we arrived in January 2009, we were met with more than 14,000 administrative claims of discrimination that had languished for decades at USDA – unresolved – with no formal processes to provide pathways to justice. Thousands more claims waited in the federal district courts, neglected and unresolved. We didn’t waste a moment, acting swiftly and aggressively to uproot inequality and correct past mistakes, beginning with the claims.

We settled large-scale class-action lawsuits in the federal district courts with Native American and African-American farmers and ranchers and established a unified claims process for women and Hispanic farmers and ranchers, which have provided more than $2.5 billion in combined payments to claimants, more than $118 million in debt relief and millions of additional dollars to nonprofit and educational institutions. We also reduced the inventory of pending civil rights complaints to its lowest level in five years and, during that time, we recorded the fewest customer complaints on record at the Farm Service Agency—the agency that deals most directly with farmers and ranchers.

Recognizing the economic setbacks caused by decades of discrimination, we established the Office of Advocacy and Outreach in 2010 to improve access to our programs and launched a new microloan program in 2013 to level the economic playing field for Americans interested in farming and ranching. Since its launch, we’ve provided more than 21,000 microloans across all 50 states, of which 7,147 went to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. In 2015, we expanded the program to provide flexible access to credit and increased lending limits to make it easier for producers of all backgrounds to get the tools they need to thrive. Additionally, farm loan assistance provided by the Farm Service Agency has helped nearly 10,000 farmers in 2015 alone, of which 72 percent are considered socially disadvantaged or beginning—a record number compared to prior years. Since 2008, USDA’s annual lending to underserved producers has more than doubled from $380 million in 2008 to almost $830 million in 2015.

We know representation is critical, too, so before we could promote diversity outside the Department, we had to start from within. That’s why we worked diligently to diversify USDA’s Senior Executive Service Corps (SES) members and, today, our SES Corps is the most diverse across the U.S. government. In addition, we partnered with the Office of Personnel Management to develop a model intern-to-career program and by participating in innovative hiring events with an emphasis on historically underserved communities, we’ve seen a 140 percent increase in the number of minority students hired just over the past 5 years. Across the Department today, our staff looks more like the communities we serve, with 27 percent of our workforce comprised of minority employees.

We also made meaningful changes to the Farm Service Agency’s county committee structure by annually reviewing local administrative boundaries to ensure minority and women producers are fairly represented in regional jurisdictions. Around 7,500 elected members serve on county committees that meet in 2,124 USDA Service Centers nationwide. When statistical analysis demonstrated persistent lack of diversity in some county committees, Secretary Vilsack was the first to use his authority under the 2002 Farm Bill to appoint voting members representing socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers to 385 county committees.

We inherited a fractured Department marred by decades of systemic inequality, but over the past eight years, the Obama Administration and Secretary Vilsack have taken big, bold steps to rectify past wrongs and ensure all Americans are met with dignity and respect. Across all 29 agencies and offices and all 4,500 locations, USDA employees have embraced diversity and inclusion to help USDA become a modern workplace, and because of their dedication, we are on the right side of history today.

We’ve made some real progress, but we also recognize eight years is simply not enough time to address all the challenges caused by generations of inequality. That’s why our work these past eight years brings me so much hope. As this Administration draws to a close, Secretary Vilsack and I are hopeful that the foundation we’ve laid—in cooperation with thousands of USDA employees and committed partner organizations—will be rock solid for the future, making sure all Americans have equal access to opportunity and the support they need to succeed.