Us Department Of Forestry

Federal Grant Money Available to Create Farmers Markets

Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain, D.V.M., said the United States Department of Agriculture and Forestry has approximately $10 million in funding for the Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) to help create farmers markets in under-served rural, urban and tribal areas as a way to increase availability of local agricultural products in communities throughout the country.

"The money can help rural, tribal and urban economies create direct marketing opportunities, like farmers markets, for our Louisiana farmers," Strain said. "It's an opportunity for our smaller towns and inner city urban areas to obtain greater access to healthy, fresh food and minimize the impact of food deserts."

Completed applications must be received - not just postmarked - by the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service no later than close of business on July 1, 2011. Applications received after the deadline - and incomplete applications - will not be considered.

Applicants should visit the FMPP website for assistance in applying and for full details about food deserts. The "FMPP Pre-Application Guide" helps applicants assess their readiness for implementing a federally-funded grant project, and the "How to Apply for an FMPP Grant" tutorial will guide them through completion of the application. These and other tools can be found at http://www.ams.usda.gov/FMPP. Priority status will be granted to those projects that expand healthy food choices in food deserts. Groups eligible to apply for the funding include agricultural cooperatives, producer networks and associations, local government entities, nonprofit corporations, public benefit corporations, economic development corporations, regional farmers market authorities and tribal governments.

The process also includes creating opportunities to build electronic benefits transfer infrastructure at farmers markets.

Earlier this year, USDA's Economic Research Service released a Food Desert Locator tool online. The Food Desert Locator is an Internet-based mapping tool that pinpoints the location of food deserts around the country and provides data on population characteristics of census tracts where residents have limited access to affordable and nutritious foods. To use the Locator, visit http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/fooddesert.

Since 1994, USDA has tracked the number of operational U.S. farmers markets. Since that time, the number of farmers markets listed in the USDA National Farmers Market Directory has skyrocketed from 1,755 to 6,132. The directory captures information about where and when farmers markets operate, if they participate in federal nutrition benefit programs, and detailed information about their seasonality and location.

Wildfire - Oregon Dept of Forestry: Prescribed Burn Thursday near ...

Fuels specialists from the Deschutes National Forest will ignite a small 2 to 5 acre prescribed burn Thursday as part of the Guard School training program for new wildland firefighters. Forty men and women from the US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Oregon Department of Forestry have been in a rigorous training program this week, and the live fire exercise will provide an opportunity to apply and refine their newly acquired skills on a “wildfire.” A Public Information Officer will be on scene to escort news media representatives during the active fire portion of the exercise. Field gear, including fire shelter, hard hat, Nomex clothing, and 8-inch protective leather work boots with Vibram soles will be required to visit the fire line. A limited amount of protective clothing may be provided by request; however, all media representatives must provide their own boots. Ask a wildfire manager the outlook for Fire Season 2011, and the answer you'll get is likely to be in Spanish: La Nina. "The Little Girl" weather event, characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific, has produced cooler than normal temperatures in the Pacific Northwest this spring, accompanied by above-average precipitation. Based on a similar La Nina even in 1989, Northwest Interagency Coordination Center forecasters predict a late start to this year's fire season. While lightning often ignites the largest wildfires, human carelessness accounts for 69 percent of all fire starts on the 16 million acres of forestland protected by the Oregon Department of Forestry. Backyard debris burning, equipment use and campfires left unattended appear near the top of the list of wildfire causes every year. Increased wildfire prevention awareness can bring down the incidence of these "people fires" and free up resources to battle Nature-spawned fires. The Oregon Dept. of Forestry protects 16 million acres of private and public forestlands from wildfire. This includes all private forestlands in Oregon as well as state- and local government-owned forests, along with 2.8 million acres of federal Bureau of Land Management lands in the western part of the state. There are about 30.4 million total acres of forest in Oregon.

Forestry quarterly

Report upon the forestry investigations of the U.S. Department of agriculture. 1877-1898

List of publications of the U.S. Department of agriculture from 1841 to June 30, 1895, inclusive

Forestry & irrigation

Bulletin of the U.S. Department of Agriculture