The United States Department of Agriculture (informally the Agriculture Department or USDA) is the United States federal executive department responsible for developing and executing U.S. federal government policy on farming, agriculture, and food. It aims to meet the needs of farmers and ranchers, promote agricultural trade and production, work to assure food safety, protect natural resources, foster rural communities and end hunger in the United States and abroad. The head of the department is the Secretary of Agriculture, who is a member of the Cabinet. The current Secretary is Tom Vilsack. Early in its history, the economy of the United States was largely agrarian. Officials in the federal government had long sought new and improved varieties of seeds, plants and animals for importation to the United States. In 1837 Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, a Yale-educated attorney interested in improving agriculture, became Commissioner of Patents, a position within the Department of State. He soon began collecting and distributing new varieties of seeds and plants through members of the Congress and agricultural societies.
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Scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have shown that seed meal from plants in the mustard family can kill mosquito larvae, which start their lives in stagnant water before emerging into winged adults that ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 5, 2023
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Scientists at the Children's Nutrition Research Center of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) helped develop healthier sorghum varieties containing significant concentrations of provitamin A carotenoids while also ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 31, 2023
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43
Honey bees are more faithful to their flower patches than bumble bees when it comes to returning to collect more pollen and nectar, according to a study by U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service scientists.
Plants & Animals
Jun 29, 2023
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205
A detailed, high-resolution map of the rusty patched bumble bee's genome has been released by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) scientists, ...
Ecology
Jun 19, 2023
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122
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 ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jun 5, 2023
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Scientists from the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and North Dakota State University (NDSU) recently found that when cattle were fed with the industrial hemp byproduct, hempseed cake, very low levels of Cannabis ...
Agriculture
Apr 12, 2023
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Most antimicrobial wipes, which are predominantly made of synthetic fibers like polyester and polypropylene, are discarded after a single use and end up in landfills where they can stay for hundreds of years and become a ...
Materials Science
Apr 11, 2023
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71
Venom is associated with being harmful, but red imported fire ants are using their venom for its medicinal benefits by sharing the toxic substance with their nestmates, according to a study published in the Journal of Insect ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 7, 2022
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68
A protein that allows the fungus which causes white mold stem rot in more than 600 plant species to overcome plant defenses has been identified by a team of U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service and ...
Biotechnology
Apr 25, 2022
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Disease-causing bacteria like Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enterica could survive sanitization in beef processing facilities. Scientists and collaborators in the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA), ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 3, 2021
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