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USDA Summer Road Trip
ICYMI, here's what happened last week at USDA:
USDA is in the solutions business. And now more than ever, we’re committed to working beside farmers, ranchers, rural businesses and partners to find innovative and collaborative solutions that meet the ever-evolving interests of the American people.
Last week, as part of our USDA summer road trip, we took you through a few of our signature advancements from recent years that help us to better serve your needs, including a series of mobile and web based applications that allow you to interact with USDA programs and services your way.
A brand new collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is working to address the individualized health requirements of the American people by empowering them to tailor their healthy diet to their own dietary needs. Starting last week, NIH’s free Body Weight Planner is now offered to the USDA's SuperTracker’s 5.5 million registered users and can help you make a plan to reach your goal weight and then maintain it afterward. Read more about the announcement, and then start your planning today.
In partnership with Microsoft, we were also pleased to launch an “Innovation Challenge,” asking developers around the world to come up with creative applications and tools to address food resiliency using newly released datasets from USDA. The challenge offers $60,000 in prizes, including a top prize of $25,000, for applications that harness the USDA data and provide actionable insights to farmers, agriculture businesses, scientists or consumers. Read the full details of the challenge here http://usdaapps.challengepost.com, and get started on your app today!
Stay tuned to #USDARoadTrip next week to see how USDA is working in all corners of our nation to build a stronger, more sustainable America through partnership, progress and promise.
The Week in Pictures
NIH Body Weight Planner was added to USDA SuperTracker Food and Activity Tool
All images available in Flickr.
On the USDA Blog
#USDARoadTrip: USDA Innovates to Meet Your Needs
USDA is in the solutions business. And now more than ever, we’re committed to working beside farmers, ranchers, rural businesses and partners to find innovative and collaborative solutions that meet the ever-evolving interests of the American people. This week, as part of our USDA summer road trip, we’ll take you through a few of our signature advancements from recent years that help us to better serve your needs, including a series of mobile and web based applications that allow you to interact with USDA programs and services your way.
Reach Your Goal Weight Your Way with the NIH Body Weight Planner and USDA’s SuperTracker
Many people want to do a better job managing their weight but aren’t sure how. Whether you’re trying to maintain your weight, lose weight, or gain weight it can be challenging to figure out how to get started. USDA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) teamed up to bring you a simple new tool that can help you set, reach, and maintain your goal. Using science-based technology, the NIH Body Weight Planner calculates how many calories you need to eat and how much exercise you need to achieve a goal weight within a specific time period. You set the goal and decide what timeframe makes sense for you.
Farmers Do a Lot More than Just Drive Tractors
This summer we were given the opportunity to intern with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and throughout our experiences we have learned a lot about the agricultural industry and rural America. Today, agriculture plays a huge role in driving the rural economy and the American economy at large, but we realized it is also important to know how far we have come and what it took for us to get here. To get a better understanding, we took a field trip across the National Mall to Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History American Enterprise exhibit, which launched on July 1st.
Technology Enables Vermont Dairy Farmer to Measure Positive Impacts of Conservation
Stewardship and cutting-edge technology are nothing new to the North Williston Cattle Company, a Vermont dairy farm that uses solar energy and robotic milking machines. The latest advancement on the 800-acre, 224-head operation are edge-of-field water quality monitoring stations, which measure water quality and the benefits of using conservation practices on the dairy farm.
G20 Countries Join Together to Reduce Food Waste
This May, agricultural ministers from twenty of the world’s largest economies (G20) gathered in Istanbul, Turkey, to issue an Agricultural Communiqué outlining key actions to advance global food security and sustainable food systems. What topped the list of their priorities? Reducing food loss and waste worldwide.
The Climate Hubs Tool Shed – An Inventory of Relevant Tools to Help Land Managers Respond to Climate Variability
Producers want tools that can help implement adaptation strategies to reduce climate-related pressures and ensure the quality of production. They also need information about the effects of climate change on production systems. These range from management of labor resources in specialty crop production, to market demand for nursery crops, to marketing of locally grown produce. The Climate Hubs Tool Shed can be used to develop innovative management systems that increase profitability and product quality across all systems.
USDA/Microsoft “Innovation Challenge” Offers $60K in Prizes to Software Developers
Farmers have long looked to the clouds for signs of relief, but a new competition launched by USDA and Microsoft will tap the Internet cloud to help farmers and our food systems to adapt to climate change. The “Innovation Challenge” is asking software developers to create applications that will use more than 100 years of USDA data to explore how our food system can achieve better food resiliency.
USDA TV
USDA Week in Review Video - July 24, 2015
USDA and Microsoft Innovation Challenge for food resilience
Read about us in the News
How%20Microsoft%20and%20the%20USDA%20are%20trying%20to%20solve%20the%20sustainable%20food%20problem (Fortune)
The Microsoft-backed USDA Innovation Challenge aims to give researchers the data and cloud computing resources needed to ask—and maybe answer— hard questions. It’s clear by now that, given the demand for sustainable food sources, agriculture is becoming a high-tech enterprise. The sophisticated use of sensors, wireless networks, and lots of data could help farmers wring the most out of the resources they have. In that vein, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Microsoft MSFT on Friday launched the USDA Innovation Challenge, a contest designed to help researchers look into how climate change will affect the food system in this country.
Find Out How Many Calories to Cut For Weight Loss (TIME)
A new NIH calculator gives you a personalized plan in minutes. Forget the number 2,000—a new government calculator uses the latest research to spit out an exact calorie count and exercise regimen you’ll need to hit your weight loss goals. The calculator, called the Body Weight Planner, is now available online for public use, but the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has used it in research since 2011. “We originally intended the Body Weight Planner as a research tool, but so many people wanted to use it for their own weight management that we knew we needed to adapt it with more information about how to achieve a healthy lifestyle,” said Kevin Hall, PhD, one of the creators of the tool and a senior investigator at the NIH, in a press release.
The Partnership Between The USDA and NASA Could Benefit Utah Farmers (Utah Public Radio)
A partnership involving the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NASA could benefit farmers in Utah and elsewhere as the nation adjusts to the impact of climate change. Krysta Harden is the deputy secretary for the USDA and said the agreement will expand cooperation on space-borne remote sensing efforts to gather data to develop soil moisture maps that can help farmers in the drought-ravaged Southwest.
Why the Agriculture Department is giving out tens of millions of dollars for Internet access (Washington Post)
You've probably never heard of La Valle. It's a town of about 1,300 people in southwest Wisconsin that's a two-hour drive from Milwaukee. But it may as well be on the other side of the world when it comes to phone and Internet access. La Valle, like many rural communities in America, have been passed over by the country's major communications providers, leaving the small town to fend for itself. And it has done so tremendously: Residents can buy fiber-optic Internet from the customer-owned LaValle Telephone Cooperative at speeds of up to 60 megabits per second — fast enough to rival the connections many Americans enjoy elsewhere.
USDA loans will improve rural electric lines (Brownfield)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is lending about $349 million for more than 1,844 miles of transmission lines for rural electric cooperatives and utilities in 13 states. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack says the loans are important to insure that rural homes have reliable and affordable electricity. “But it also helps to promote business opportunities, expanded opportunities in rural small towns, provides assistance and help to the farming community that relies on electricity for drying grain, for example,” said Vilsack, during a conference call with reporters Tuesday. Secretary Vilsack says some of the improvements will be the next generation of power transmission – smart grid technology – allowing companies to respond more quickly to outages.
$349 Million Going to Rural Electric Infrastructure Projects (USAgNet)
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Tuesday announced $349 million in funding for 15 rural electric infrastructure projects to build or improve more than 1,844 miles of transmission and distribution lines for rural electric cooperatives and utilities in 13 states. The funding is being provided through USDA Rural Development's Electric Program, which makes insured loans and loan guarantees to non-profit and cooperative associations, public bodies and other utilities. The loans primarily finance the construction of electric distribution facilities in rural areas.
USDA funds rural broadband, smart grid projects (Federal Times 7/22)
The Agriculture Department is providing millions of dollars to local communities to increase access to broadband, improve electric infrastructure and expand smart grid technology. USDA might seem like an unlikely source of technological improvements, especially when they aren’t directly tied to agriculture, but Secretary Tom Vilsack sees the grants and loans as a key aspect of the agency’s mission. "The investments USDA is making today will deliver broadband to rural communities that are currently without high-speed internet service, or whose infrastructure needs to be upgraded.
Listen
USDA ABOUT TO GATHER NATIONWIDE CONSERVATION DATA
Broadcast Date: Thu, July 23, 2015
What are farmers doing to conserve and preserve soil and water and how well is it working? USDA is about to launch a two year project to find out. (Gary Crawford and Torey Lawrence)
USDA INVESTS $85 MILLION IN RURAL BROADBAND PROJECTS
Broadcast Date: Thu, July 23, 2015
New USDA rural broadband projects aim to increase access for rural Americans in seven states. (Susan Carter and Lisa Mensah, Rural Development Under Secretary)
ACTUALITY: PERCENTAGE OF RURAL AREAS NEEDING HIGH-SPEED INTERNET
Broadcast Date: Thu, July 23, 2015
Lisa Mensah, Rural Development Under Secretary, talks about the real need for broadband Internet connection in rural areas.
ACTUALITY: A BROADBAND INTERNET CONNECTION
Broadcast Date: Thu, July 23, 2015
Lisa Mensah, Rural Development Under Secretary shares her experience of being there when a broadband Internet connection was made.
USDA TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION CONTINUES, DESPITE SETBACKS
Broadcast Date: Wed, July 22, 2015
The push to modernize the Farm Service Agency's information technology system is continuing, even though problems have forced changes to the original vision for the project. (Gary Crawford and Secy' Tom Vilsack)
NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES
Broadcast Date: Wed, July 22, 2015
A host of new technology is displayed at the Department of Agriculture. (Susan Carter, Paul Lloyd, USDA TARGET Center and Aquia Davis USDA Rural Development)
MORE FUNDING FOR MORE RURAL ELECTRIC PROJECTS
Broadcast Date: Tue, July 21, 2015
Farmers and other residents of rural areas in 13 states could see better and more reliable electric service because of new projects supported by U.S. Department of Agriculture loans. (Gary Crawford. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sec'y Tom Vilsack)
Share
ICYMI: A new @NIH & #SuperTracker tool helps YOU reach & maintain a goal weight http://t.co/CROPl14yop #USDARoadTrip pic.twitter.com/patHSbenhk
— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) July 21, 2015
Excited to see @NIH & @USDA team up to help people set the right weight/fitness goals and find their #HealthySelf → http://t.co/iJz7xAyEzE
— Sylvia Burwell (@SecBurwell) July 22, 2015
#TBT to that time D/S Harden and @DavaExplorer inspired the next gen to pursue careers in STE(A)M! #EarthRightNow pic.twitter.com/9F4DkHchgl
— USDA Press Team (@USDAPress) July 23, 2015
Planning a #USDARoadTrip? Keep safe cooking & storage info with you at all times the @USDAFoodSafety #FoodKeeper app! http://t.co/fPaXcaaUHC
— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) July 23, 2015
Take a #USDARoadTrip thru USDA’s energy investments coast-to-coast in bio, solar, efficiency & more. Find your state→ http://t.co/iZnlTqmKzU
— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) July 22, 2015
All smiles on U/S Concannon's #USDARoadTrip to Alabama Farmers Market. Find one near you! http://t.co/iKpLhbm9FH pic.twitter.com/RB4OLaG4Bp
— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) July 21, 2015
DYK? We have new USDA science & tech stories on our blog each #ScienceTuesday → http://t.co/5Kulm4R4h3 #USDARoadTrip pic.twitter.com/PweqyZrxTm
— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) July 21, 2015
