It’s February and, as tends to happen every year, I’m starting to run low on frozen berries. It seems the hours upon hours I spent this summer freezing the season’s bounty weren’t enough to satisfy my family’s endless demand for berry smoothies. Every year I vow to put more berries away for use in the [...]
Demand for local and regional foods is strong and growing, as consumers across the country are looking for healthy food options grown and raised in their own communities. USDA has long supported this effort along with the procurement of regional foods by schools and helping them increase food literacy among the nation’s children. These efforts [...]
USDA programs have targeted assistance to beginning farmers and ranchers since the 1992 Agricultural Credit Improvement Act. Farms or ranches are considered “beginning” if the operators have managed them for 10 years or less. The Economic Research Service has looked at the trend in numbers of beginning farmers and ranchers in recent decades and examined [...]
“We think that fresh air and sunshine are the best health guarantee.” That’s the quote you’ll see after opening a brochure from Pastures A Plenty Farm. Spend an hour with the VanDerPol family and you quickly understand that those words are much more than just a marketing slogan. It’s the family’s philosophy. Pastures A Plenty’s [...]
If your picture of New York City is skyscrapers and neon, consider expanding that image to include vegetable crops – a lot of vegetable crops – growing everywhere from ground level to rooftops. The Big Apple boasts the largest community gardening program in the United States, bringing more local food into the city’s food system. [...]
