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Agriculture

USDA invests $80 million to expand timber markets, protect forests

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins recently announced the U.S. Forest Service is awarding $80 million in Wood Innovation Grants to spur wood products manufacturing, expand active forest management, and accelerate energy innovation across America’s timber-producing communities. “The United States is blessed with a bounty of natural resources that we must properly manage to sustain our future economy and boost rural communities. Proper forest use and management lowers our reliance on foreign products and is inherently aligned with President Trump’s America ...

Urban Agriculture Tour continues in Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding and Labor and Industry Secretary Nancy A. Walker continued the Shapiro Administration’s 2025 Urban Agriculture Tour in Philadelphia in July. The tour stopped at Sankofa Farm at Bartram’s Garden, where investments under Governor Josh Shapiro’s leadership are feeding the future of Philadelphia neighborhoods through career training for young adults. “Young people across Pennsylvania are receiving priceless life skills, confidence, and in some cases, starting their careers debt-free, with stellar credentials and ...

Penn State Extension to offer arborist workshop in September

UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State Extension will offer a four-day workshop designed to increase working tree knowledge and prepare participants for the International Society of Arboriculture certified arborist exam. The “Arborist Short Course” workshop is an in-person course aimed at arborists and other tree workers, landscape contractors, municipal workers, landscape architects, and park and grounds maintenance staff, but is open to all who wish to attend. Organizers point out that while the course provides good preparation for the arborist certification exam, the exam is not ...

Rollins defends farm security

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins recently announced continued actions to protect American agriculture. This follows Tuesday’s announcement of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Farm Security Action Plan. As part of this latest suite of actions, Secretary Rollins released a Foreign Farm Land Purchases map that is searchable by country, launched a new web portal to report violations of the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA), signed a Memorandum of Understanding related to the implementation of the Committee on ...

Urban Agriculture Tour highlights state’s investments in innovation

PITTSBURGH — Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding, Education Secretary Dr. Carrie Rowe and Community and Economic Development Secretary Rick Siger kicked off the Shapiro Administration’s 2025 Urban Agriculture Tour at Bidwell Training Center in Pittsburgh on July 14, where a high-tech greenhouse expansion funded through a historic Agricultural Innovation Grant is underway, and urban students are training for in-demand culinary and horticulture careers. “Feeding opportunities for growth and economic prosperity in urban neighborhoods feeds all of our futures,” Secretary Redding ...

Voluntary removal of artificial dyes from ice cream applauded

WASHINGTON — While scooping ice cream on the steps of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Headquarters, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins congratulated the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) announcement on the dairy industry’s commitment to eliminate artificial food dyes from their ice creams. This is a voluntary, proactive pledge to eliminate the use of Red 3, Red 40, Green 3, Blue 1, Blue 2, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6 from ice cream and other frozen dairy desserts by 2028. “I appreciate IDFA members for spearheading this new initiative and finding ways to ...