Agriculture

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Announces Next Steps, Funding to Address Substance Abuse in Rural Communities

AICC Agriculture, Food, Medicine

ATLANTA, March 28, 2016 
At the Operation UNITE Summit in Atlanta today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a series of upcoming rural town halls as well as funding rural communities can use to conduct health and safety outreach around prescription painkiller and heroin abuse. Opioids, including prescription painkillers and heroin, accounted for 28,648 deaths in 2014, and rural communities are affected at higher rates than urban communities. This is in part due to a lack of outreach and treatment resources available in rural communities, and this year USDA is expanding its Rural Health and Safety Education (RHSE) competitive grants program to give rural communities the opportunity to use funds for programs that will address the opioid epidemic.

In January, President Obama tapped Secretary Vilsack to lead an interagency task force focused on this specific challenge. Recent efforts have helped identify effective tools to reduce drug use and overdose, including evidence-based prevention programs, prescription drug monitoring, medication-assisted treatment and the overdose reversal drug naloxone.

“The opioid epidemic is a fast-growing problem all across America, and we know that rural communities are facing an even higher burden than those in urban areas,” said Vilsack. “We’ve identified ways to use existing resources to help rural towns and organizations address this challenge head-on and potentially save lives, and I look forward to meeting with community leaders to better understand how we can further support their efforts to create healthier, safer futures for families and individuals who may be struggling.”

Over the next several months, Vilsack will travel to New Hampshire, Missouri, Nevada, Mississippi and Appalachia to participate in town halls that will bring together local and state government partners, the health community, and other stakeholders to raise awareness of the issue and discuss possible solutions. Vilsack will encourage public and private organizations to commit to plans of action for their communities.

Additionally, USDA is making available $1.4 million through its Rural Health and Safety Education (RHSE) competitive grants program. Administered through USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA), the program’s goal is to enhance the quality of life in rural areas through improved health and safety education efforts, including expanding the focus to address the critical challenges of substance abuse in rural communities across the nation. For the first time, USDA is encouraging applicants to develop projects that specifically work to educate the public about opioid abuse and overdose. USDA will also consider projects that target other health outcomes.

Since 2009, NIFA has awarded $10.6 million to the RHSE program for projects that support the health and safety needs of rural America. Fiscal year 2016 applications to the RHSE program should focus on supporting projects proposing to scale-up existing, outcome-based extension programs in the area of individual and family health education to rural communities, state-wide or regionally across state lines. Programs that apply for RHSE funding in fiscal year 2016 can focus on extension work in the realm of substance abuse, as well as nutrition and physical activity, healthy and safe homes, aging in place, as well as other behavioral health and human social topics.

Applications are due June 1, 2016. More information is available in the online Request for Applications.

Past projects funded through the RHSE program include an Oklahoma State University project that aims to improve health literacy among family and consumer sciences educators, rural hospital discharge planners, and family caregivers. A project from the University of Wisconsin seeks to increase cancer treatment education and access to services for rural residents, while also forming coalitions to address rural health disparities.

Since 2009, NIFA has invested in and advanced innovative and transformative initiatives to solve societal challenges and ensure the long-term viability of agriculture. NIFA’s integrated research, education, and extension programs, supporting the best and brightest scientists and extension personnel, have resulted in user-inspired, groundbreaking discoveries that are combating childhood obesity, improving and sustaining rural economic growth, addressing water availability issues, increasing food production, finding new sources of energy, mitigating climate variability, and ensuring food safety. 

(USDA）

Farm Progress Show 2016

AICC Agriculture, Business, Event, Export, Home, Information, Trade

Farm Progress Show 2016 — Agricultural Chemicals, Agricultural Machinery & Eq., Agricultural Products, Agricultural Services

Location/Date:
Boone, IA, United States
Aug 31 – Sept 01, 2016

Event Summary:
The 63th Farm Progress Show, the largest outdoor farm equipment show in the United States, will be held August 31-September 1, 2016, in Boone, Iowa. The mission of the Farm Progress Show is to provide an interactive venue for North American and International farmers, agribusiness officials and agriculture companies to network, gain cutting-edge information, and conduct business. The show hosts around 600 exhibitors and over 100,000 attendees during the three-day event.

New farm equipment and technologies featured include: tractors, combines and farm implements; seed and crop protection products and equipment; introductions of new seed varieties, agriculture chemical products, livestock equipment and technologies, and many additional farm supplies and services.

Daily field demonstrations are one of the major highlights of the show, featuring side-by-side tillage techniques, Global Positioning Systems and other precision equipment and products, as well as, tractor and combine performance comparisons on hundreds of corn acres. Live cattle-handling demonstrations include the newest cattle chutes, equipment, animal health products and work techniques.

Attendees are able to obtain critical information to make well-informed purchasing decisions, see the latest agriculture products and technologies, and interact with exhibitors and other expert agriculture officials, that can provide solutions to farming issues and challenges they are experiencing on farms in the U.S. and in their own countries.

The International Buyer Program will support a full service International Business Center offering export counseling, a Showtime program, and access to industry and country specific market analysis. In addition, U.S. Commercial Service staff will provide matchmaking and export counseling.

Business in America

AICC Agriculture, Business, Culture, Economic, Energy, Entertainment, Financial, Food, Home, Information, Investment, IT, Logistics, Manufacture, Programs, Services, Technology, Trade, Transportation

Innovation

America’s economic growth and international competitiveness depend on our ability to innovate. President Obama believes that we will create the jobs and industries of the future and restore middle class security by doing what America does best – investing in the creativity and imagination of our people. We must out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world to ensure that our nation achieves rapid, sustained and broad-based economic growth.

Small Business

President Obama is committed to helping America’s small businesses grow and prosper. Small businesses are the engines of job creation and essential to strengthening our national economy. That’s why he has cut taxes for small businesses and helped them get access to the capital they need to expand and create the jobs we need now and for decades to come. And that’s why the American Jobs Act provides tax relief for every small business, rewards for those that hire and invest and includes new measures to cut red tape and ease access to capital.

Competing Globally

President Obama set a goal of doubling America’s exports within five years and his Administration is taking steps to do just that: getting Congress to pass three critical trade agreements, expanding loans to exporters, preserving the free flow of information on the Internet and promoting American manufacturing. And he is working to make America the best place for people to do business, by reforming our patent system, improving our infrastructure, and investing in our workers.

To restore security to the middle class and create an economy built to last – that creates the jobs of the future and makes things the rest of the world buys -we have to out-innovate the competition. But to win that competition, American companies must be able to take their ideas to market quickly without the constraints of undue regulation and costs. That’s why President Obama has directed his Administration to reduce barriers to American business success, including reforming our patent system, reviewing federal regulations, and promoting trade.

Entrepreneurs

President Obama knows that today’s entrepreneurs are tomorrow’s Fortune 500 companies and exemplify America’s competitive edge in ingenuity and innovation. That is why the President has tasked his administration with crafting policies that eliminate barriers to startup formation, drive investment to the best ideas, and accelerate the growth of young companies in the marketplace.

( White House)