One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
USDA To Go All Local? That's Loco!
Kathleen Merrigan meets with local producers at a farmers' market this month (Photo via USDA)
In Washington DC the USDA's Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and locavore darling Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan take to the internets today at 11 a.m. local time to launch the USDA's new Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Compass. You can follow the discussion via the Twitter hashtag #KYF2.
Vilsack and Merrigan are chatting with us "public" types about the USDA's vast new digital project. It's an interactive web-based tool/document that includes maps, studies, data sets, and stories from farmers, ranchers, food producers & communities that highlight USDA's support for local and regional food projects. It might even be an attempt to move the hulking bureaucracy towards organic and maybe, gasp, better school food.
Who knows. It happens.
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
