Latest News


Info & Nutrition

Producers Can Now go "Whole Hog" on New Heat Stress App for Pigs

News Release: HotHog, a new smartphone application ("app") that predicts heat stress in pigs, is now available for download and use, a team of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and university scientists announced today.


Info & Nutrition

USDA Applauds Washingtons Tribal Eligibility Demonstration Project Expansion

Release: San Francisco, June 15, 2023 USDAs Food and Nutrition Service has approved Washington Department of Social and Health Services request to expand their Tribal Eligibility Demonstration Project to five additional tribal nations. Stacy Dean, deputy under secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, shared the news at an event yesterday on Port Gamble SKlallam tribal lands.


Info & Nutrition

Public press releases or notices: U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service publishes nine in May

There were nine press releases or notices published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service in May.


Info & Nutrition

USDA Celebrates SNAP Online Purchasing Now Available in All 50 States

Release: WASHINGTON, June 9, 2023 The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced today that, in partnership with states, territories and retailers across the country, online purchasing using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits is now available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.


Info & Nutrition

NIFA Invests $9.5 Million to Promote Innovation in Animal Reproduction (A1211)

The Animal Reproduction program area priority within the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative funds projects that focus on enhancing gonadal function, evaluating transcriptomics in sperm, preventing pregnancy loss, and improving estrus response to enhance fertility in livestock and aquacultured food animals.


Info & Nutrition

NIFA Invests $6.7 Million to Advance the Sustainable Bioeconomy through Biobased Products (A1414)

This program area priority within the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative supports integrated projects to advance biobased products, biomass systems or biomass-generated power to enable the bioeconomy in a manner which reduces adverse impacts to the environment.


Info & Nutrition

NIFA Invests $16.2 Million in Innovative Plant Breeding Research (AFRI A1141)

Agriculture of the future will be enabled by genome design, innovative breeding methods, data analysis and knowledge of molecular and biological processes.


Info & Nutrition

Study Unravels the Impact of Rockweed Harvest at the Bed-Scale

This story was originally published by the University of Maine and is reprinted here with permission.


Info & Nutrition

State of Success: National Oklahoma Day

The Hatch Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in March 1887, set up a national network of agricultural experiment stations with a mission to conduct research that would make America's farms more productive.


Info & Nutrition

Celebrate National Higher Education Day

NIFA’s education programs are designed to enhance the food and agriculture workforce pipeline, including disciplines supportive of the food and agriculture sector, through programs that support workforce development, increase agricultural literacy, strengthen student recruitment and retention and build educational capacity.


Info & Nutrition

USDA’s Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) Creates $85m Economic Impact, Increases Fruit and Vegetable Intake, and Decreases Food Insecurity in Year 3

The Nutrition Incentive Program Training, Technical Assistance, Evaluation, and Information Center (NTAE) has released Year 3 (2021-2022) evaluation impact findings for the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP).


Info & Nutrition

#BeatPlasticPollution this World Environment Day

Hosted this year by Côte d'Ivoire in partnership with the Netherlands, the day is focusing on solutions to plastic pollution.


Info & Nutrition

The Prevalence of the “Natural” Claim on Food Product Packaging

U.S. food suppliers make claims about their production processes on food packaging that highlight attributes some consumers want while charging a higher price than for unlabeled products.


Info & Nutrition

USDA Researching New England's Ability to be Self-Reliant in Food Production

Rarely do we ever know how much food is actually grown, produced, and then circulated from within a sub-national region.


Info & Nutrition

BRIDGEcereal: Self-Teaching Web App Improves Speed, Accuracy of Classifying DNA Variations Among Cereal Varieties

Agricultural Research Service and Washington State University scientists have developed an innovative web app called BRIDGEcereal that can quickly and accurately analyze the vast amount of genomic data now available for cereal crops and organize the material into intuitive charts that identify patterns locating genes of interest.


Info & Nutrition

Connecting Local Producers to Montana Schools

Bringing together local producers and schools was the objective of the “Bringing the Farm to School” producer training in Hardin, Montana.


Info & Nutrition

USDA Researching New England's Ability to be Self-Reliant in Food Production

News Release: Rarely do we ever know how much food is actually grown, produced, and then circulated from within a sub-national region. But researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) recently participated in a cross-institutional study involving 16 researchers to determine what it would take for New England states to increase its regional self-reliance to 30 percent by 2030.


Info & Nutrition

BRIDGEcereal: Self-Teaching Web App Improves Speed, Accuracy of Classifying DNA Variations Among Cereal Varieties

News Release: PULLMAN, WA, June 5, 2023-Agricultural Research Service and Washington State University scientists have developed an innovative web app called BRIDGEcereal that can quickly and accurately analyze the vast amount of genomic data now available for cereal crops and organize the material into intuitive charts that identify patterns locating genes of interest.


Info & Nutrition

State of Success: National Utah Day

The Utah Agricultural Experiment Station (UAES) was established in 1888 and is the historic foundation of research, teaching and Extension at Utah State University.


Info & Nutrition

USDA NIFA to Invest $12.7M in Sustainable Agroecosystems (A1451)

The Sustainable Agroecosystems (A1451) program area priority within the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative funds research projects that focus on the improvement of ecosystem health and output of ecosystem services in managed production systems — like croplands, forests and rangelands — that are currently under stress or at risk from climate change, pests, pathogens, invasive plants and increased environmental pressures.