Trade progress, food assistance among goals achieved.
A new USDA call center under the auspices of the Farm Service Agency took 25,000 calls in 2020 beginning with its inception in May. Producers phoned the center and were led through their applications to the coronavirus food assistance program and the Seafood Trade Relief Program.
Meanwhile, the Farm Production and Conservation Business Center developed and deployed over a fortnight an online tool to guide producers through commodity eligibility and applications. The Conservation Concerns Tool was built to teach growers and ranchers about conservation issues that might impact productivity or natural resources on farm, ranch, or forest land and allow them to compile concerns for discussion with USDA conservation specialists. Farmers can them manage their conservation efforts via a farmers.gov account.
The USDA’s Agricultural Research Service had a busy year as they identified a promising vaccine against the circulating strain of African swine fever affecting the pork industry in Europe and Asia. Scientists also produced the entire genome of the Asian giant hornet, a new invasive insect threatening honey bee colonies and designed the scent lure for traps that led to the detection and destruction of the first nest of these invasive insects in the United States. After emergency response research, AMS informed livestock and poultry producers that those species are not a source of infection for COVID-19 and insects are not a risk factor for the transmission of the virus to humans.
Jun
2024
Spring has sprung—with new sandwiches.
Category innovation is focusing on health, occasions and functional ingredients.