United States Department of Agriculture 

Open Government Plan 

Version 4.0
USDA OGP 4.0 FINAL Page i 

Table of Contents 

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 3

I. New and Expanded Initiatives ....................................................................................................... 3

I.A. Open Data .......................................................................................... 4

I.B. Proactive Disclosure ............................................................................ 7

I.C. Privacy .............................................................................................. 8

I.D. Whistleblower Protection ...................................................................... 9

I.E. Websites .......................................................................................... 10

I.F. Open Innovation Methods ................................................................... 10

I.G. Access to Scientific Data and Publications ............................................. 11

I.H. Open Source Software ........................................................................ 11

I.I. Spending Information ......................................................................... 13

II. Ongoing Initiatives .......................................................................................................................14

II.A. Participation in Transparency Initiatives ................................................ 14

II.B. Public Notice.................................................................................... 17

II.C. Records Management ....................................................................... 17

II.D. FOIA .............................................................................................. 19

II.E. Congressional Requests .................................................................... 20

II.F. Declassification ................................................................................ 21

II.G. Public Participation ........................................................................... 21

II.H. Collaboration ................................................................................... 23

II.I. Flagship Initiative: ............................................................................ 24
USDA OGP 4.0 FINAL Page ii 

Change Log 

Version Date Comments

Version 1.0 4/7/2010 Initial Release

Version 1.1 6/25/2010 The plan includes updates based on public comments 

on the plan, self-evaluation, and independent plan 

assessment. This includes details on congressional 

requests, declassification management, open 

standards, dataset calendar, program task schedule 

and additional editorial updates. Key sections 

updated include:

Addition of New Sections 2.7,6.4, 6.5

Updates to Sections 2.0, 3.0, 6.0, 8.0

Addition of New Appendices C, D

Version 2.0 4/9/2012 Major Revision. Version 2.0 extends Version 1.1 from 

FY 2012 through FY 2014. The OGP v2.0 replaces the 

introductory narrative sections in OGP v1.1 with new 

narrative sections on: What We Learned (1.0); 

Current OpenGov Culture at USDA (2.0); and OGP 2.0 

New Initiatives (3.0). Appendix A: USDA Open 

Government Program Schedule includes major 

revisions that show current progress status on work 

begun in OGP v1.1, and adds significant milestones for 

new work planned in OGP v2.0.

Version 3.0 7/1/2014 Major Revision. Departs substantially from Plans 1.0 

through 2.0. The OGP v 3.0 follows the structure and 

substance as outlined in White House/OSTP guidance 

referenced by memorandum (Feb. 24, 2014) and

supplemental guidance. Appendix A: USDA Open 

Government Program Schedule (OGP v2.0 Close)

provides final status to all preceding Open 

Government implementation milestones as seen in 

Plans 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0. USDA will create a new 

program schedule and report progress on Plan 3.0 

milestones with the first requested progress report.

Version 4.0 9/15/2016 Minor Revision. The OGP V 4.0 follows the structure 

and substance as outlined in White House/OSTP 

guidance referenced by memorandum (Feb.24, 2014) 

and supplemental guidance. This plan introduces the 

inclusion of four new Expanded Initiatives, which 

include observations on Open Innovation 

Methods, Access to Scientific Data and 

Publications, Open Source Software, and 

Spending Information.
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Introduction

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) vision is to provide economic opportunity 

through innovation, helping rural America thrive; to promote agriculture production that 

better nourishes Americans while helping feed others throughout the world; and preserve 

our Nation’s natural resources through conservation, restored forests, improved 

watersheds, and healthy private working lands.”

USDA is made up of 29 agencies and offices with nearly 100,000 employees who serve the 

American people at more than 4,500 locations across the country and abroad. These 

agencies impact the quality of life across America by providing the best available science 

and effective management of program delivery and resources.

This USDA Open Government Plan 4.0 Update (2016) is the fifth iteration of Open planning 

at the Department. It is preceded by Open Plans 1.0 (2010), 1.1 (2010), 2.0 (2012) and 3.0 

(2014). Plan 4.0 continues to build from its predecessors; in that Plans 1.0 and 1.1 were 

primarily foundational in nature and focused on establishing and launching basic Open

structures and procedures, while Plan 2.0 emphasized the promotion of new Open media 

and Open cultural changes. Plan 3.0 reported wide ranging successes and announced 

progressive future objectives in practicing Open as a business norm and accepting Open as 

a strategic organizational value.

Openness and Transparency principles permeate all levels and stages of mission/business 

delivery at USDA. The 2016 updates in the USDA Open Government Plan 4.0 address 

operational outcomes achieved since the last Plan update (v3, 2014), along with planned 

future improvements in specific Open subject areas.

To build on the advances in the previous Open Government Plans, Open Government Plan 

4.0 continues to align with USDA’s Strategic Plan 2014-2018, in particular Strategic Goal 5: 

Enable Information as a Strategic Asset for Decision Makers and Citizens at Any Level. 

I. New and Expanded Initiatives

USDA continues to build on the principles of Open Government – transparency, 

participation and collaboration and have increasingly infused them into the Department’s 

core mission strategies, operations and culture. In today’s USDA, Open is not a separate 

organizational function. It is not an independent layer of management oversight. In today’s 

USDA, Open is the way we plan ahead, conduct our business and report our results. From 

the highest levels of departmental planning to the closest farmer, rancher or forester on the 

ground, USDA is Open for business.
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In July 2016, the OCIO participated in the science, technology, engineering and math 

(STEM) Connector Million Women Mentor Program and hosted the USDA Open Data 

STEAM (science, technology, engineering, agriculture and math) Summer Camp to further 

embrace a new era of information openness and transparency. USDA also participated in 

the White House Summit on the United States of Women. The summit covered six topics; 

economic empowerment, health and wellness, educational opportunity, violence against 

women, entrepreneurship and innovation and leadership and civic engagement. Women 

and Girl participants discussed datasets collected on these topics at the federal and 

state/local level and discussed ways of furthering women’s roles in corporations, academia, 

the media and the public sector. 

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) provide an excellent example of the 

creative capabilities USDA is delivering as it embraces the type of transparency that the 

Open Government initiative promotes. At Fort Valley State University (FVSU) the next 

generation of leaders in agriculture and life sciences are working with technology that will 

help them solve the next challenges of understanding diseases and identifying new 

molecular targets for drug discovery, gene therapy and economic production of health food 

items for the future. “Bioinformatics is ‘biology in silico,” or digital biology,’ which is 

changing biological research into an informational science. The FVSU students majoring in 

STEM subjects joined with computer science majors to become competent in 

bioinformatics programming to gain experience writing algorithms and coding for 

biological problems. Computers are used to store, organize, and analyze vast amounts of 

data generated by scientific research. They take big data and turn it into practical data that 

researchers can use to compare existing information with new data. The capacity, speed 

and efficiency of bioinformatics are what make biology in silico so exciting.

Lastly, the Agricultural Marketing Service is responsible for enforcing organic regulations, 

to ensure the integrity to USDA’s Organic Seal. Among all the nutrition facts, ingredients 

and dietary information on food packages, “organic” might appear as one more piece of 

information to decipher. Understanding the organic label can help shoppers make informed 

purchases. In order to promote transparency and make an organic claim or use the USDA 

Organic Seal products must follow strict production handling and labeling standards and go 

through an organic certification process. Becoming familiar with organic labeling enables 

consumers to make informed choices about the products they purchase. 

I.A. Open Data

USDA has developed, implemented, and institutionalized a OneUSDA Digital Strategy that 

continuously assesses the improvement of digital services and systems that are 

information and customer centric. To ensure open data, content and web APIs are the new 

default, we will collaborate among the data, platform, and presentation layers to coordinate 

Digital Strategy activities across agency and functional lines, including IT, web and 

communication subject matter experts. As such, the Office of Communications Web 

Communication Division, the Office of the Chief Information Officer, as well as Agency web, 

communication and program offices make up the Department’s digital strategy ecosystem.
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The OneUSDA Digital Strategy will:

• Continue to ensure that data is open, accurate, clearly described, structured, 

machine-readable, and digital services are optimized for mobile use. 

• Continue to ensure more agile acquisition and budget processes that support the 

procurement and management of digital technologies. 

• Continue to develop additional guidance through policy to address open data, digital 

signatures, performance and customer satisfaction measurement, and mobile 

optimization. 

• Continue to refine and expand the use of enterprise data taxonomy to standardize 

commonly used data for business intelligence purposes. 

• Continue to develop open data strategy that addresses the framework for sharing 

critical information at key decision points throughout the entirety of the enterprise. 

• Continue to identify, prioritize, and modernize existing data that are not currently 

available to the public. 

• Continue to maintain a virtual dynamic inventory of open data at USDA.gov/data, 

populated by digital agency data inventories. 

• Continue to deploy a virtual enterprise geospatial reference repository to promote 

data quality with metadata best practices, templates, conventions, and other USDA 

branding standards. 

• Continue to provide guidance and training to data SMEs to develop web APIs, 

structure unstructured content or information, and to incorporate customer 

feedback for product improvements.

To ensure future information systems and services comply with the Federal Digital 

Strategy and Open Data Policy (M-13-13, May 9, 2013) and to modernize existing systems 

to leverage Application Interface Programmable Interface (APIs), USDA will continue to 

integrate digital strategy and open data requirements and guidance to existing processes 

and workflows such as Capital Planning and Investment Control reviews, IT Governance 

Process life-cycle reviews; and is aligning these requirements with the Enterprise 

Roadmap. USDA will continue to ensure that all new information collection, creation, and 

system development efforts will be done in a way that supports downstream 

interoperability between information systems and distribution of information with our 

customers. This includes using machine-readable and open formats, data standards, 

information stewardship and common metadata used by the Open Data Working Group 

(ODWG).

USDA will continue to focus on establishing a framework to enhance, enrich, and open, to 

the extent practicable, its Enterprise Data Inventory (EDI) and to ensure that the 

Department and its component Agencies are prepared to identify, document, and submit 

quarterly a comprehensive EDI to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In so 

doing, USDA has already achieved several internal milestones that lay the groundwork for 

the Department's future Open Data efforts and is positioned to meet OMB's Open Data 
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requirements. The following milestones are among the Department's recent Open Data 

achievements: 

• Creation of an Open Data Website and Data Portal: USDA will improve its open data 

website and develop a USDA Data Portal to provide a user-friendly website and data 

portal that provides the capability for users to quickly gain access to various USDA 

data sources. Thus, providing users with the ability to discover current, on-going 

and future data events within a common place and having access to a robust set of 

searchable datasets and APIs. The new website will provide federal, state, local, 

tribal, industry and academia organizations, as well as, researchers, civic hackers 

and application developers with the ability to discover and use USDA data more 

efficiently.

• Creation of an USDA Enterprise Data Management Policy: This policy will formalize 

the United USDA’s approach to a data driven culture and a management paradigm 

that will support operations, reporting, data sharing, and decision making. It will 

also promote the adoption of governance standards, and management practices, 

adherence to data lifecycle principles, and the sharing and use of data to enhance 

mission performance.

• Creation of a community-based approach to promoting the meaningful use of open 

data: Develop a strategy for public and private partners who seek to generate useful 

insights that furthers USDA’s Program’s mission for government programs and civil 

society. 

• Ensure USDA open data makes a difference in citizen’s lives: Develop a plan to 

engage citizens to gain insight on how USDA data is being used and, more 

importantly, how can we improve our practices to provide useful data to the public. 

• Continue to update the Open Data Blog: Continue to provide subsequent blogs on a 

quarterly basis on USDA open data success stories and lessons learned. 

Improve systematically inventorying non-public, restricted, and public data assets by 

automating the USDA four-step data publication process. This multi-step dataset review 

process involves various internal stakeholders such as Data Stewards, Chief Information 

Officers, Privacy Officers, agency legal staff, and Information Security System Program 

Managers, Records Managers, and Controlled Unclassified Information managers. The 

purpose of this multi-perspective approach is to ensure that datasets are adequately 

reviewed and approved prior to release.

USDA will continue to make public data assets available for download and/or use through 

an API’s. USDA met its requirements to customers to identify High-Value Data and Content 

to Make Available through Web APIs, including the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 

Geospatial, and scientific research data.
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USDA will continue to take steps to encourage public use of already released datasets, in 

order to promote public knowledge and foster innovation. To engage with internal and 

external customers, USDA uses its integrated communications platform to offer various 

opportunities for input and engagement. Given USDA's broad mission and diverse range of 

customers, agencies will maintain open lines of communication with stakeholders. 

As USDA's Open Data Policy implementation continues, data stakeholders and interested 

citizens can regularly learn about new opportunities for collaboration through 

USDA.gov/open, social media activities like our monthly #AskUSDA chats, and updates 

from the USDA Blog. USDA will also employ other methods such as GitHub, USDA and 

Agency Twitter Accounts, Google+, Facebook and Storify and Veterinary, Medical and 

Urban Entomology Priories IdeaSpace.

To identify data assets not yet publicly available and establish specific timelines for online 

publication in open formats, USDA is in the process of developing a Dataset Prioritization 

Process. As part of the process, the ODWG will coordinate with the Whitehouse, USDA 

Office of the Secretary, OC, FOIA Office, and analyze Customer Feedback to determine highvalue datasets not yet publicly available. The ODWG will submit recommendations to the 

Open Data Council which approves the datasets. A schedule of publishable datasets will 

then be developed to release pertinent data assets on a quarterly basis. USDA budget and 

program planning guidance will include emphasis on the critical partnership between the 

OC and OCIO. In addition, it will include recommendations for agency web, information 

technology and public affairs professionals who will coordinate activities at the agency 

level in improving public knowledge about agency products and services. 

Continue to improve the Data Publishing Process, which enables USDA to work with its 

seven Mission Areas and Administrative Offices to make information resources accessible, 

discoverable, and usable by the public; thus, improving Americans' lives and contributing 

significantly to mission results.

USDA will continue to create economic opportunity by providing American entrepreneurs 

and innovators with open and machine readable data. USDA has currently prioritized 

datasets such as Disaster Relief Data, Scientific Data, Food Safety, Conservation, Animal and 

Plant Health Data and Food Nutrition Data, all of which will be used to help drive scientific 

discovery, new and innovative solutions and spark economic activity.

I.B. Proactive Disclosure

The Department continues to recognize the importance of proactive disclosures. Within 

USDA, component the FOIA offices at the agency and mission area level identify records for 

proactive disclosure in a number of different ways. Some of the most common include 

reviewing incoming FOIA logs, correspondence logs created by the Office of the Executive 

Secretariat (OES), feedback through customer portals, coordination meetings between 

various USDA FOIA offices and the Office of Communication, in addition to coordination 

meetings between various USDA FOIA offices and USDA’s Open Government team.
8

Once records are identified as potential candidates for proactive disclosure, they are often 

reviewed by an agency FOIA professional and then cleared by a subject matter expert prior 

to publishing. If the records fall within one or more of the four categories of records to be 

maintained under 5 U.S.C. §552(a)(2), they are posted in the appropriate USDA FOIA 

reading rooms. Otherwise they are posted on other portions of USDA’s website in various 

open formats. 

I.C. Privacy

The Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, Public Law No. 93-579, (Dec. 31, 1974) established 

a Code of Fair Information Practice that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and 

dissemination of personally identifiable information about individuals that is maintained in 

systems of records by Federal agencies. A system of records is a group of records under the 

control of an agency from which information is retrieved by the name of the individual or 

by some identifier assigned to the individual. USDA produces on a quarterly basis Privacy 

Management Reports, and an annual Senior Agency Official of Privacy (SAOP) report. Both 

reports are uploaded via the OMB MaxPortal to the Department of Justice’s CyberScope 

tool.

The USDA’s Privacy Office, in conjunction with Cyber Security, collects quarterly and 

annual metrics for Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) reporting to 

OMB. Metrics are collected for the SAOP report, which summarizes information reviews 

mandated by the Privacy Act of 1974, e-Government Act of 2002, and the Federal Agency 

Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007. Quarterly and annual reports are submitted into Cyber 

Scope by the Cyber Security Audit Liaison. This reporting helps to analyze the current state 

of the privacy program.

The Department’s Privacy Office has not reviewed or participated in the review of any data 

mining activities. USDA’s mission does not include data mining, as defined by the “Federal 

Agency Data Mining Report Act of 2007, “conducting...queries, searches or other analyses 

to discover or locate a predictive pattern or anomaly indicative of terrorist or criminal 

activity...” Therefore, USDA does not report on data mining, nor does it post the reports on 

a webpage.

Since 2012, the USDA Privacy Office published via AgLearn two privacy training course. In 

FY 2012, “Protecting Personally Identifiable Information” training module was launched. 

This hour-long course provided Agency Privacy Officers with key training on privacy 

responsibilities, and requirements. In FY 2013, the USDA Privacy Office launched an

abbreviated Protecting Personally Identifiable Information “PII Lite” course. This shorter 

course is designed to provide USDA employees, stakeholders, affiliates, and contractors 

with the basic, vital information how to protect the personal information entrusted to each 

of them as they fulfill USDA’s mission.

Over the next two years, USDA will increase the frequency of postings of Privacy Threat 

Assessments (PTAs) and Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs), and System of Records 

Notices (SORN) as required by the Privacy Act. A current listing of PIAs can be found:
9

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?navid=PRIVACY_POLICY_ES. The 

current list of SORNs can be found at http://www.ocio.usda.gov/policy-directives-recordsforms/records-management/system-records.

In accordance with the Open Government Directive, USDA will continue to actively 

participate in and promote Open Data and transparency. To this end, the Department’s 

Privacy Office implemented a multi-step internal data set review process. In addition, the 

Department’s Privacy Office will also solicit feedback on external privacy policy via such 

tools as GitHub, and the more formal Federal Register process. The Department anticipates 

it will conduct a review of the current privacy policy located at 

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?navtype=FT&navid=PRIVACY_POLICY. 

As this policy requires update or revision, USDA plans to use collaborative citizen 

engagements to enhance and facilitate discussion with stakeholders both internal and 

external to USDA. As additional tools are implemented at USDA, we will garner greater 

input on policy at the inception stage, rather than later in the policy execution life-cycle.

I.D. Whistleblower Protection

The USDA Office of Inspector General (OIG) established a Whistleblower Protection 

Ombudsman (WPO) as required by the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act 

(WPEA) of 2012. The WPO has established an informative webpage at: 

http://www.usda.gov/oig/ombudsman.htm, which includes educational resources on the 

rights of potential whistleblowers and the responsibilities of USDA supervisors. Also on 

this webpage are direct links to both the Merit Systems Protection Board, 

http://www.mspb.gov/appeals/whistleblower.htm, and the Office of Special Counsel 

(OSC), http://www.osc.gov/, who has primary jurisdiction over complaints alleging 

whistleblower reprisal. 

In 2014, the WPO created a training module which was added to the AgLearn Training 

System as a means of educating all employees (supervisory and non-supervisory) on the 

WPEA. This training provides an overview of the expanded coverage which the WPEA 

provides whistleblowers. The training was announced agency wide and will be highly 

recommended for all employees. This has received 499 ratings from those taking the 

training since its inception and it has an overall rating of 3.75 on a scale of 5.

The OIG was first certified through OSC’s 2302 Certification Program in 2013. As the 

certification is only valid for 3 years, OIG is now due for recertification and has just 

submitted its recertification form and will be holding the required training within the next

couple of months. As mandated by the Open Government Initiative, all agencies are 

required to be certified in OSC’s 2302 Certification Program. As of the last response to the 

Open Government Plan, the USDA WPO facilitated the sending of an email to all USDA 

employees informing them of USDA’s participation in OSC’s 2302 certification program. 

This email further explained the role of the WPO and provided links to the WPO page, OSC, 

and numerous educational OSC resources which are required distribution materials under 

the 2302 certification program. Additionally, the WPO coordinated with the USDA Office of 
10

Chief Information Officer to get the same educational resources posted on the Policies and 

Links tab accessible through the USDA homepage, 

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?navtype=FT&navid=POLICY_LINK.

The WPO informed the Director of Strategic Human Resources Planning and Accountability 

(Allen Hatcher) of the requirement for USDA to apply for participation in the 2302 

Certification Program. It appears that USDA applied for participation in April of 2016 and 

conducted training for it in May of 2016.

I.E. Websites

USDA’s Digital Strategy can be found at www.usda.gov/digitalstrategy. USDA.gov uses best 

practices and common standards for both federal and industry, and has established 

internal web standards in addition to the Federal-wide standards set by OMB and 

GSA. USDA.gov’s last redesign addressed user-experience issues by taking a task-centric 

approach to its information architecture and navigation and improving the look and feel 

and design strategy.

USDA.gov is currently undergoing a major website redesign using newly released Federal 

Standards, an open-source content management solution, and industry best practices as a 

model for information delivery. USDA has reevaluated its digital taxonomy, information 

architecture, usability, accessibility, responsive performance, and user experience.

USDA takes a task-centric approach to define our information architecture and improve the 

user experience. USDA.gov uses analytics tools such as Google Analytics and SiteImprove to 

identify our top tasks, combining those with metrics from all USDA Agencies and 

identifying trends. These trends are analyzed and incorporated into the user interface/user 

experience of the web site. USDA participates fully in the Digital Analytics Program where 

all major USDA websites are engaged with Google Analytics and real-time monitoring.

USDA has established an open-source enterprise framework to allow for coordinated 

content delivery and sharing. Through this framework, all USDA digital assets can take 

advantage of a shared strategy to increase efficiency, share costs, and in the future, share 

content through separate mission areas.

I.F. Open Innovation Methods

Innovations in Food and Agricultural Science and Technology (I-FAST) Prize Competition

The aim of the NIFA I-FAST prize competition (the “I-FAST Competition” or the 

“Competition”) is to develop and implement the Innovations in Food and Agricultural 

Science and Technology (I-FAST) Pilot Program. USDA NIFA will partner with the National 

Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps) to provide entrepreneurship training 

to USDA NIFA grantees under this I-FAST pilot program. The goal is to identify valuable 

product opportunities that can emerge from NIFA supported academic research. Selected 

USDA NIFA I-FAST project teams will have the opportunity to concurrently participate in 

the educational programs with NSF I-Corps awardees.
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Ideation Solutions Planning, Accountability, and Reporting Staff, ESG, and Office of 

Information Technology are working on developing a concept of operations for the use of 

Ideation Software. This effort will gather NIFA’s requirements for stakeholder feedback at 

all levels of NIFA (program, division, institute, and possibly agency), including what is 

currently being done, what feedback we would like to be getting and from whom, and how 

often we would want this stakeholder feedback. This requirement will then be used to 

assess if the use of idea engine software is appropriate. Requirements definition is 

scheduled to start October 2016. We expect a recommendation by the Second Quarter of 

FY17.

 

I.G. Access to Scientific Data and Publications

On February 22, 2013, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the Executive 

Office of the President issued a memorandum to all agencies to develop guidelines to 

increase access to the results of publicly-funded scientific research: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp_public_access_mem

o_2013.pdf. As a result, the Department of Agriculture recently posted its plan to 

implement the directives called for in the memorandum: 

http://www.usda.gov/documents/USDA-Public-Access-Implementation-Plan.pdf. One 

implementation milestone is to pilot required Data Management Plans (DMPs) as a part of 

many of its competitive research and integrated programs. This document informs 

potential applicants of proposal submission requirements associated with of these pilot 

programs in 2015. 

NIFA’s mission is to Invest in and advance agricultural research, education, and extension to 

solve societal challenges. To achieve its goal, NIFA provides scientific leadership and 

funding to various partners. Increased access to scientific research results (e.g., scholarly 

publications, digital data sets) from NIFA-funded projects is critical to achieving NIFA’s 

vision to catalyze transformative discoveries, education, and engagement to address 

agricultural challenges. Therefore, an appropriate data management plan (DMP) should be 

a core component of research planning for proposals submitted to NIFA. 

I.H. Open Source Software

USDA submitted an Implementation Plan to Increase Public Access to Results of USDAfunded Scientific Research, to the OSTP in early 2014. The plan was approved by OSTP in 

November 2014. The approach is to increase access to scholarly publications and digitally 

formatted scientific data resulting from unclassified research results supported wholly or 

in part by USDA funds, to the extent feasible and consistent with law; agency mission; 

resource constraints; and U.S. national, homeland, and economic security. The plan is 

consistent with all policies and requirements set forth in the OSTP Public Access 

memorandum (February 22, 2013), and makes provisions to ensure that implementation 

of the plan: 
12

• Contributes, in the long run, to raising the profile and reputation of the food, 

agricultural, and natural resources as providers of significant contributions to many 

areas of scientific innovation and value to society; 

• Proceeds in close coordination with other science agencies and partnering 

organizations; 

• Maintains the highest level of effective funding for science that resource constraints, 

agency mission, and consistency with the law allow; 

• Minimizes the burden on the scientific community, including researchers, 

professional societies, and publishers; 

• Allows flexibility in pursuit of disparate agency missions, operating models, 

stakeholder needs, and meeting the evolving expectations in the scientific 

community regarding access to scientific results; 

• Provides public access to scientific results, without charge; 

• Supports governance of and best practices for managing scientific results across 

USDA; 

• Ensures effective access to and reliable preservation of scholarly publications 

resulting from USDA funds for research, development, and education; and 

• Preserves and increases the use of research results to enhance scientific discovery. 

Four categories of tasks will be carried out in a logical and practical manner: 

• Policy 

• Business processes, procedures, and resources 

• Information systems and automation 

• Outreach, education and training 

Some of the above tasks are incremental extensions to programs already in place at USDA. 

Each category of tasks will be implemented in three phases: Phase I (2015), Phase II 

(2016), Phase III (2017 and beyond). 

The development of a departmental policy on public access to scholarly publications is 

USDA’s first step to ensure compliance with federal laws, executive orders, directives, and 

policies. The policy enhances innovation and competitiveness by maximizing the potential 

to create new business opportunities. It will accelerate scientific breakthroughs and 

innovation as well as enhance economic growth and job creation. The policy serves as a 

roadmap for mission area and/or individual USDA agency compliance, and sometimes 

serves as a charge for mission areas and/or USDA agencies to undertake their own 

implementation. 

The USDA public access policy for scholarly publications will require that authors submit 

to the USDA public access archive system all final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that 
13

meet the above criteria once the manuscript is accepted for publication. In lieu of the final 

peer-reviewed manuscript, USDA will accept the final published article, provided the 

author has the right to submit the published version. The USDA will ensure easy search 

and download of scholarly publications resulting from USDA funds without charge no later 

than 12 months following publication. 

I.I. Spending Information

On May 9, 2014 the Digital Accountability and transparency Act (DATA) Act was signed into 

law. This Act furthers the requirements of the Federal Financial Accountability and 

Transparency Act of 2006 and imposes new reporting requirements. The Department of 

Agriculture’s (USDA) Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) is a government leader on 

DATA Act implementation and is has been central to the DATA Act’s initial implementation 

plans, sitting on multiple committees and advising Federal partners. The Department CFO 

is a member of the Interagency Advisory Committee.

To date, USDA has worked diligently towards developing a solution to collect, and store the 

DATA required by the DATA Act. USDA has:

 Conducted review of government-wide reporting requirements; 

 Met with USDA agencies to determine quality and consistency of data contained in 

key systems, 

 Created “As Is” process maps of key systems,

 Established practical definitions of data elements for USDA programs and 

administrative expenditures for proprietary and budgetary data elements and 

 Created a data extract with data quality checks needed to ensure the accuracy of the 

data.

 Developed a Data repository to collect and store the data required by the DATA Act

 Developed reporting and analytics tools

 Developed error handling processes to ensure that data validations take place and 

that data submitters address any resulting errors.

USDA plans on having the DATA Act fully implemented by November 30, 2016 and Meet 

the OMB and Department of Treasury (Treasury) reporting requirements. When the data is 

reported, USDA will be able to gain insights into spending at both the Treasury Account 

Fund Symbol level. Users of the data will be able to see spending broken out by Budget 

Object Classification (BOC) codes and Program Activity as found in the President’s Budget. 

Users of this data will also be able to link obligations and spending on procurements and 

financial assistance. This has not been available to the public before. The Department is 

working on reports for USDA Agency users to view the data and address any data errors. 

Once the data is posted on the Treasury USAspending.gov website in May, 2017, the public 

will have access to an unprecedented amount of open data. 
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USDA is also one of the initial groups of Federal Departments posting foreign assistance 

information to the Foreignassistance.gov website as required by OMB Bulleting 12-01. This 

data is also an open data set. The data on this website captures obligations and spending 

and shows foreign assistance by program and location. The data is sued by people all 

across the world form foreign governments to interested individuals. The data conforms to 

international data standards described in the International Aid Transparency Initiative 

(IATI) Treaty, to which the United States is a signatory.

II. Ongoing Initiatives

II.A. Participation in Transparency Initiatives

The Department is entering a new era of information openness and transparency. Open 

data has the potential to spur economic innovation and social transformation. Focusing just 

on economic impacts, in 2013, for example, the consulting firm McKinsey estimated the 

possible global value of open data to be over $3 trillion per year. A study commissioned by 

Omidyar Network has likewise calculated that open data could result in an extra $13 

trillion over five years in the output of G20 nations.

These impacts illustrate why it is important that we encourage people of every age to invest in 

STEM education. For example, the White House initiative on Equal Futures Partnership, aims to 

open more doors to high-quality education and high-paying career opportunities for women and 

girls in the STEM disciplines, fields in which they are currently underrepresented. To support 

this effort, Federal science and technology agencies, private corporations, and academic 

institutions are taking steps to collect better data on women and girls in STEM fields, expand 

STEM mentoring opportunities, encourage research-driven teaching practices, and increase 

access to online STEM-skill training.

Digital Strategy: USDA is working to develop, implement, and institutionalize a OneUSDA 

Digital Strategy that will continuously assess the improvement of digital services and systems 

that are information- and customer-centric. To ensure open data, content and web APIs are the 

new default, we will collaborate among the data, platform, and presentation layers to coordinate 

Digital Strategy activities across agency and functional lines, including IT, web and 

communication subject matter experts.

USDA has developed a USDA FITARA Common Baseline Implementation Plan that 

incorporates an Integrated Governance Framework and provides the executive teams with 

a process for reviewing investments and providing guidance to investment managers 

throughout a project's life cycle. Projects will be reviewed to ensure alignment with digital 

strategy guidelines.

As a member of the Executive Information Technology Investment Review Board (EBoard), the OC and Digital Strategy Lead will ensure Major IT capital investments follow 

digital service guidelines through the entire lifecycle process, and ensure that the 

investment goal and strategy are optimal for achieving USDA's mission.
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USDA is fully embracing this new mobile paradigm shift, and is mobilizing our business, 

transforming our organizations, and modernizing our technical infrastructures to meet the 

significant opportunities as well as challenges that mobility brings to the work place. As the 

adoption and use of mobile devices are accelerating within our department and customer 

base, USDA is staying on the forefront of both the business requirements as well as 

technical trends with a well thought out Mobile Computing Implementation Plan that takes 

advantage of the transformational opportunities in mobile business delivery for our 

agencies and customers.

USDA-OCIO will be leading this effort with oversight from the Chief Information Officer 

(CIO). The implementation will be governed through the Mobile Computing steering 

committee in coordination with the CIO council.

Responding to today's mobile opportunities, architecting for tomorrow's cloud 

environments, and integrating them with USDA's legacy infrastructures are all daunting 

challenges. The USDA Mobile Computing Program is focused on the following three key 

objectives:

 Procuring and managing heterogeneous commercial devices, applications, and data 

in smart, secure and affordable ways; 

 Leveraging existing enterprise systems in an integrated manner with new mobile 

solutions to minimize capital expenditures and maximize our return on 

investments; 

 Implementing end-to-end mobile services that streamline procurement, 

management and operational processes while improving IT management and 

visibility, gaining control, and cutting costs 

At the end of the day, everything must appear "seamless" to end-users while delivering 

significant business value in a secure manner.

The following key objectives for USDA for fiscal year 2013 will ensure foundational 

capabilities to allow our mobile customers access to our information and services, and to 

secure, manage and support mobile devices enabling our workforce to conduct business 

anytime, anywhere, on any device:

 Establish a Mobile Program Management Office 

 Establish a Mobile Computing Steering Committee 

 Publish a Mobile Computing PMO Website

 Develop and publish a USDA Mobile Computing policy and research and develop a 

BYOD policy 

 Deploy Mobile infrastructure solutions, including a 2nd generation Mobile Device 

Management, a Mobile Acquisition Management, and Pilot BYOD solutions 

Publish a Manual component in DR 1496-001 Digital Strategy Governance regarding 

Mobile Application Management and Development process, standards and marketing 

approach.
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Data.Gov: USDA agencies and staff offices are responsible for developing, managing, 

reviewing, and subsequent posting of their datasets to USDA.gov/data and subsequently to 

Data.Gov. The Department has two groups assisting the agencies in publishing their 

datasets. 

The Office of the Chief Information Officer Enterprise Architecture (EA) Division provides 

technical direction and assistance to the Agencies and Staff Offices on the use of the General 

Services Administration (GSA) dataset catalog tool, CKAN. Additionally, the EA group chairs 

the Data Architect / Data Steward Working Group(s) to facilitate the exchange of 

information and consensus among the Agencies and Staff Offices. The OC provides technical 

direction and assistance to the Agencies and Staff Offices on the actual process of 

publishing datasets to Data.Gov.

The Agency and Staff Office Data Stewards will use the designated CKAN tool to manage 

their dataset metadata. From the CKAN tool, the data stewards will generate the EDI files 

(containing all datasets, both public and private) and the Public Data Listing (PDL) files 

generated from the agencies and staff offices’ metadata. Data stewards will also correct any 

errors during the file generation process.

The EDI files that are generated will be sent to the OMB Max.gov site (not accessible to the 

public). While the PDL files that are generated will be sent to OC for further publishing to 

USDA.gov/data. Using a “harvester” data retrieval tool to automatically extract the 

information from a PDL file, GSA “pulls” the metadata file provided by OC and posted on the 

USDA Digital Strategy page. The GSA “harvester” tool runs nightly to populate changes in 

USDA datasets posted to Data.Gov.

e-Rulemaking: The e-Rulemaking Presidential Initiative has greatly simplified the public’s 

participation in USDA’s rulemaking process by making regulatory information more 

accessible on Regulations.gov. USDA has also benefited from this initiative through cost 

savings associated with forgoing the need to develop and operate a duplicative agencyspecific electronic system.

In FY15, USDA posted 275 rules and proposed rules, 728 Federal Register notices, and 

34,251 public submissions via Regulations.gov. Overall, USDA has provided the public 

access to 384,710 documents in Regulations.gov. The e-Rulemaking Program also offers a 

streamlined internal rulemaking business process through agency access to FDMS.gov. 

USDA had 249 staff using FDMS.gov in FY15, and created 451 regulatory dockets in FDMS 

for regulatory actions published in FY15.

In 2016, e-Rulemaking and USDA will be identifying ways to improve the comment analysis 

and review process, implementing new search and reporting tools to help both agency 

users and the public identify information, and encouraging all agency users to continue to 

remain involved in their appropriate level of governance within e-Rulemaking. Along with 

these efforts, e-Rulemaking will identify hardware and software improvements for the 

system which can help advance the functionality of the agency and public participation in 

the regulatory process.
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II.B. Public Notice

USDA.gov provides the majority of its public meetings on USDA.gov/live our Department 

YouTube channel (youtube.com/usda), and blog (www.blog.usda.gov). An archive of our 

live streams is available to the public and includes symposiums, town hall meetings, Google 

Hangouts, and other live events. USDA leverages a wide variety of digital broadcast tools 

and new technologies such as Google + Hangouts, and we house our own TV and Radio 

studios.

USDA.gov/newsroom has links to resources such as our radio and TV programming, and 

Streaming Media Archives. The Secretary’s public schedule is also available on USDA.gov. 

USDA also uses the IdeaJam platform for public ideation sessions and feedback.

USDA.gov utilizes our existing broadcast services through our Creative Media and 

Broadcast Center to share public events through TV and Radio programming. 

USDA.gov/live is the center of all of our streaming events including Google + Hangouts and 

national symposiums.

II.C. Records Management

The Office of the Chief Information Officer manages USDA’s Records Management Program, 

for which the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) outlines the major 

responsibilities that Federal agencies currently have for preserving electronic records.

USDA has well-established processes and procedures to ensure the proper management, 

scheduling, and disposition of USDA records at https://www.ocio.usda.gov/policydirectives-records-forms/records-management. The USDA's Records Management Officer 

leads the department-wide effort to comply with the detailed requirements of the OMB M12-18, Managing Government Records Directive (MGRD). 

OMB M-12-18, Part I, Goal 1.2 of the MGRD, manage both permanent and temporary 

email records in an accessible electronic format by December 31, 2016.

 USDA formalized a Chartered Strategy for Digital Information Management 

Working Group to define near-term and long-term strategies, requirements and 

agency needs to manage permanent and temporary email records by December 31, 

2016. This working group consisted of subject matter experts from stakeholders 

units, records officers, legal counsel, information technology, litigation support, 

civil rights, enterprise architecture, privacy officers and freedom of information 

officers, all of which documented the requirements of each functional area. The 

Working Group provided a recommendation to the USDA Chief Information Officer 

(CIO) to implement the Capstone approach within USDA.

 Under the Capstone approach, USDA will manage all email records based on the 

role of the email account user and/or office, rather than on the content of each 

email. 
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 USDA will manage all email records in an appropriate electronic system that 

supports records management and litigation hold requirements, including the 

capability to identify, retrieve, and retain the records for as long as they are needed. 

 Capstone Officials have been identified, NARA form NA-1005, Verification for 

Implementing General Records Schedule (GRS) 6.1 Form has been submitted to 

USDA’s Senior Agency Official for signature. Once finalized, USDA Agency Records 

Officers will submit NA-1005 to NARA for approval.

 The Departmental Records Management Directive/Policy has been revised to 

incorporate managing email via the Capstone approach. This policy implements the 

OMB M-12-18, Part I, Goal 1.2, and NARA Bulletin 2013-02, Guidance on a New 

Approach to Managing Email Records. 

 USDA is developing a strategy to maintain an on-going updated list of Capstone 

Officials. 

OMB M-12-18, Part I, Goal 1.1 of the MGRD, manage permanent electronic records in 

an electronic format by December 31, 2019.

 USDA has developed guidelines and procedures that increase instructions for 

electronic records and better integrated management of electronic records 

into information technology (IT) governance. USDA has also revised its policy 

to emphasize that records management requirements must be considered 

during the business process design, enterprise architecture, and system 

development processes. USDA Agency Record Officers will work with 

program/staff offices to ensure records management functionality, and to 

ensure that the capture, retrieval, and retention of permanent records are 

incorporated into the design and development of electronic information 

systems. 

 USDA is in the process of identifying a possible enterprise-wide solution to 

manage permanent electronic records by December 31, 2019. USDA will 

continue working with stakeholders to develop functional requirements for a 

cost-effective enterprise solution and provide recommendations on 

associated pilot programs.

 USDA has identified requirements, met with USDA stakeholders, and 

conducted a market analysis to identify an end-to-end records management 

suite (Records, E-mail Archiving, and eDiscovery) that will assist in 

automating the management of electronic records for improving compliance 

and consistency, and to reduce the record keeping burden on individual 

agency staff. The vendors USDA met with have DoD 5015.2 STD certified 

records management applications compliant with the FRA, OMB Circular A130, as well as NARA requirements. USDA developed and conducted past 
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performance questionnaires and past performance reviews; the past 

performance analyses for these vendors will assist USDA in determining 

which vendor will be chosen to pilot an electronic records management 

application.

 USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) and Agricultural Marketing Service 

(AMS) are in various stages of supporting and managing their permanent 

electronic records electronically within the SharePoint Records Center 

electronic records management application. The SharePoint Records Center 

allows employees to submit permanent electronic records directly into 

SharePoint, at which point, the record is preserved until the end of the 

retention period. 

 The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) are conducting a records management 

application pilot to test the capability to capture, retrieve, access and dispose 

of electronic records. This pilot includes both temporary and permanent 

records, as well as email records.

 USDA will continue to explore ways to improve the Department’s records 

management capability based on programmatic needs and identify systems 

that require electronic records management. 

II.D. FOIA

The Department of Agriculture’s FOIA program includes twenty component FOIA offices all 

varying in size and scope at the mission area and agency level. Each year, these twenty 

offices collaborate to process the approximate 22,000 FOIA requests received annually at 

the Department. Central to the Department’s FOIA program is the FOIA Service Center 

(FSC). The FSC is under the purview of the OCIO, Policy, E-Government and Fair 

Information Practices (PE&F). The FSC provides day-to-day coordination and oversight and 

ensures statutory compliance with the FOIA. The FSC also processes FOIA requests, 

consultations, and appeals on behalf of the Office of the Secretary (OSEC), the Departmental 

Management agencies, Office of Communications (OC), and the Office of Ethics (OE). 

To raise awareness regarding FOIA’s statutory requirements, the Secretary via his April 

2015 First Friday Message, encouraged all Department employees to renew their 

commitment to open government and transparency. With that, the Secretary asked all 

Department employees receiving a request for records under the FOIA to timely return 

those records to their assigned FOIA professional. The Secretary also encouraged all 

Department employees to learn more about their role and responsibilities in the 

Department’s FOIA process by reviewing the Department’s FOIA lite training module title 

FOIA for USDA Employees.

The FSC also continued to streamline the Department’s FOIA process to promote the 

OpenGov principles of collaboration, participation and transparency. In January 2016, the 
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FSC in coordination with the Department’s FOIA Training Subcommittee and the Office of 

General Counsel General Law and Research Division completed work on the first module of 

the Department’s extended online FOIA training titled FOIA for FOIA professionals. The first 

module includes six lessons aimed at providing a detailed introduction to the FOIA, the 

Department’s FOIA team, and procedural items related to intake. At the end of each lesson, 

FOIA professionals have an opportunity to test their knowledge with a ten question quiz. 

The anticipated release date for the second module emphasizing FOIA exemption 

application is Fiscal Year 2017.

The FSC also launched a variety of other training tools to increase substantive FOIA 

knowledge amongst the Department’s FOIA professionals and record custodians. In May 

2015, the Department began circulating an internal advice column featuring a beloved 

character from FOIA for FOIA Professionals providing guidance on commonly asked 

questions from the Department’s FOIA Community. The FSC also hosted multiple 

interactive tailored FOIA training sessions for record custodians to emphasize the 

presumption of openness, search requirements, commonly cited FOIA exemptions, and 

statutory deadlines. 

As for the FOIA backlog, the Department is pleased to report a 12.6% decrease in the 

overall request backlog. Rural Development (RD) contributed significantly with its 91% 

reduction. Other notable reductions included Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), Farm 

Service Agency (FSA), Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), and the FSC. The Office for 

the Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights (OASCR), Office of Budget & Program Analysis 

(OPBA) and Research, Education and Economics (REE) successfully closed the Fiscal Year 

with no backlogged requests.

The FSC is also pleased to report that the overall average number of days to process simple 

requests in Fiscal Year 2015 was 9.76 days, which is a 40.12% decrease from the previous 

fiscal year. The overall average number of days to process complex requests is 81.03 days, 

which marks a 2.47% decrease from Fiscal Year 2015. As for the 10 oldest consultations, 

the Department closed all ten. The 10 oldest pending perfected FOIAs, the Department was 

able to close seven of the ten listed.

The FSC continues to provide monthly backlog reports for the Department’s FOIA Officers. 

These reports are accompanied by strategies/tips for reducing their agency’s backlog. It is 

FSC’s expectation that the training, continuous monitoring, and e-discovery tools recently 

purchased will result in a further reduction in the backlog and processing times and assist 

with closing all ten of the oldest pending perfected FOIAs. 

II.E. Congressional Requests

Office of Congressional Relations (OCR) serves as the Department's liaison with Members 

of Congress and their staffs. OCR works closely with members and staffs of various House 

and Senate Committees including the House Agriculture Committee and the Senate 

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry to communicate USDA's legislative 

agenda and budget proposals.
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Within OCR is the Office of External and Intergovernmental Affairs (EIA) which serves as 

the liaison to elected and appointed officials of State, county, local, and Tribal governments. 

The office also serves as a liaison to USDA stakeholders.

Members of Congress and their staff can find help from OCR by calling the main phone line, 

faxing correspondence, or emailing requests for information directly to OCR staff. 

Conversely, OCR primarily communicates with Members of Congress and their staff 

through phone calls, email, and in-person meetings. 

II.F. Declassification

When classified information loses sensitivity over time, the restrictions on access to it - and 

the costs of protecting it - may be reduced or eliminated. Declassification is a determination 

that classified information no longer requires protection in the interest of national security.

When information no longer requires protection in the interest of national security, it no 

longer needs to be classified. Classification is eliminated.

Declassification is the removal of classification.

 TOP SECRET information becomes UNCLASSIFIED.

 SECRET information becomes UNCLASSIFIED. 

 CONFIDENTIAL information becomes UNCLASSIFIED. 

Standards: At USDA, the review and declassification of Classified National Security 

Information (CNSI) is guided by (1) Executive Order 13526, “Classified National Security 

Information,” (2) 32 Code of Federal Regulations Part 2001, subparts A-I, (3) Departmental 

Regulation (DR) 3440-001 “Classified National Security Information Regulation,” and (4) 

Departmental Manual (DM) 3440-001, “Classified National Security Information Manual.” 

Structure: The Secretary of Agriculture has sole classification authority and is the 

responsible official for all CNIS across the department. To administer the CNIS program the 

Assistant Secretary for Administration (ASA) is delegated the responsibility as the Senior 

Agency Official (SAO). As such, the ASA has re-delegated the responsibility for the regular 

management and oversight of the Department’s CNSI program to the Director, Office Of 

Homeland Security and Emergency Coordination (OHSEC). This delegation includes the 

declassification decision authority and the review processes. The Director of OHSEC has 

identified the Personnel and Document Security Division (PDSD) as the responsible 

Division for the implementation and oversight of these declassification processes.

II.G. Public Participation

Through the USDA Open Data Working Group, USDA is actively pursuing technologies to 

support the implementation of robust feedback mechanisms through USDA.gov. Currently, 

USDA supports feedback through various methods including commenting and feedback 

through our USDA Blog Wordpress platform, social media networks, ideation tools, 

feedback through our AskTheExpert knowledgebase, and through our Contact Us page 
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which houses an Information Hotline and organization directories. Many USDA agency 

websites leverage the ForeSee platform as well.

USDA maintains numerous websites or platforms where the public can engage in existing 

participatory processes:

USDA Blog – comments can be submitted and reviewed for posting through a Wordpress

platform. Blogs.usda.gov

AsktheExpert – A Knowledgebase and Customer Relationship Management tool that allows 

for users to provide feedback so that we can augment and improve the knowledgebase 

over time. Usda.gov/expert

IdeaJam– An ideation platform used to gather feedback and perform ranking on ideas on 

certain initiatives. Usda.gov/open

GitHub - Developers can provide feedback to USDA using the Issue Tracker to ask questions 

or make suggestions for improvement. When comments are submitted, USDA distributes 

the query to the relevant agency or program for response or action. Issue Tracker

USDA and agency Twitter accounts often share digital and open data related content, 

which remains an open platform to monitor and solicit customer feedback. Other social 

media channels are available for outreach, conversation, and feedback, including 

Google+, Facebook, and Storify.

Through USDA Results, USDA serves as a key model for the Public Participation Playbook. 

USDA Results is a progressive, year-long, multimedia storytelling effort that showcases 

how USDA has invested in and achieved results for farmers, ranchers, rural communities 

and every American. Throughout 2016, USDA released a new “chapter” of the story each 

month—focused on our investments in Americans, rural and urban alike—which helped to 

inform and engage the public around progress made in rural America over the past eight 

years through projects in affordable housing, energy efficiency and availability, clean and 

reliable drinking water and wastewater systems, internet access, and loans and grants for 

rural businesses, while helping to attract and retain a talented rural labor force. Citizens 

are able to engage and follow along on usda.gov, on the USDA blog, on our Medium site, on 

our Facebook page, and by using #USDAResults on Twitter. Through engagement, the 

Department is able to connect with citizens through our public-facing channels, gather 

feedback to inform continued progress, identify and focus on critical topic areas, 

strengthen the impact of USDA Results and increase transparency across the Department, 

and highlight collaboration with our stakeholders and partners. We can provide metrics to 

demonstrate engagement efforts and to show how USDA Results has performed across 

different mediums throughout our year-long effort, including data from the USDA blog, 

GovDelivery, and USDA’s Medium, Twitter, Bit.ly, Soundcloud, and Facebook channels.
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II.H. Collaboration

USDA is actively seeking ways to engage with Federal and non-Federal partners, the public, 

and non-profit and private entities in alignment with the visions of our core mission. USDA 

institutionalized a OneUSDA Digital Strategy that continuously assesses the improvement 

of digital services and systems that are information- and customer-centric. To ensure open 

data, content and web, we collaborate among the data, platform, and presentation layers to 

coordinate Digital Strategy activities across agency and functional lines, including IT, web 

and communication subject matter experts. As such, the Office of Communications Digital 

Communication Division, the Office of the Chief Information Officer, as well as Agency web, 

communication and program offices make up the Departments digital strategy ecosystem.

Changes to internal management and administrative policies happen at many levels. USDA, 

through the Open Data Policy Working Group, is looking at ways to improve collaboration 

and the technologies that can be leveraged to assist. 

USDA has developed a comprehensive IT governance process that incorporates an 

Integrated Governance Framework and provides the executive teams with a process for 

reviewing investments and providing guidance to investment managers throughout a 

project's life cycle. Projects will be reviewed to ensure alignment with digital strategy 

guidelines. 

To engage with internal and external customers, we will use our integrated 

communications platform to offer various opportunities for input and engagement. Given 

USDA's broad mission and diverse range of customers, agencies will maintain open lines of 

communication with stakeholders.

USDA utilizes IBM’s Connections and Microsoft’s Sharepoint platforms to promote internal 

collaboration. IBM Connections is an internal social platform that allows for workflow 

collaboration, file sharing and document revisions history, as well as a social 

communication tool. For the public, USDA seeks to engage ideation technologies and social 

engagement tools to bolster our public engagement effort.

The public can learn about our existing collaboration efforts through our Open 

Government, Digital Strategy and our New Media pages:

Open Government: usda.gov/open

Digital Strategy: usda.gov/digitalstrategy

New Media: usda.gov/new media

USDA uses open innovation methods such as prize-based challenges using Challenge.gov 

and collaboration platforms such as the developer community GitHub. USDA was one of the 

first Federal entities to establish a prize competition with Challenge.gov, paving the way for 

the now Federal-wide Challenge platform.
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II.I. Flagship Initiative:

Engagement and Support of the Next Generation of American Agriculture

The USDA Flagship initiative is the engagement and support of the next generation of 

American agriculture, which will include participation and collaboration from customers, 

stakeholders, and members of the public. 

In 2009, we recognized that the rapid aging of the American farmer was an emerging 

challenge. The average age of the American farmer now exceeds 58 years, and 2014 data 

shows that almost 10 percent of farmland in the continental United States will change 

hands in the five years that follow. That recognition has evolved into a robust, transparent, 

tech-based strategy to recruit the farmers of the future.

The next generation of farmers and ranchers will reflect the diversity of the nation. They 

may come from farming backgrounds or be new to agriculture; they may be college 

graduates coming home to farm with their families; or they may be veterans, second career 

seekers, immigrants and people from all ethnic backgrounds. 

We at USDA have engaged our resources to inspire a strong, productive next generation of 

farmers and ranchers by improving access to land, capital and risk management tools, 

including most recently prioritizing $5.6 billion over the next two years within USDA 

programs and services that serve new and beginning farmers and ranchers, both through 

the support of initial opportunity and for the longevity of the farms that begin. 

As a specific example of our work, in 2015, USDA launched the first comprehensive, 

interactive online tool for new and beginning farmers, aimed at connecting agricultural 

entrepreneurs with programs and resources available across the government. This site 

serves to both educate and empower our stakeholders – including by creating a new type of 

customer experience focused on a producers’ goals, and by making metrics and 

performance information available alongside the information about the programs.

Instead of focusing on individual programs, and relying on customers to build their own 

package of programs and advocate for the ways that the program should fit them, we are 

focusing on providing the broadest, most inclusive customer experience focus. By 

restructuring the way we talk about our programs, and increasing the visibility of not only 

how to apply, but how they actually work globally, we are empowering the next generation 

to advocate robustly for themselves. 

USDA has also worked to support the “big tent” of agriculture – providing tailored 

resources for women in agriculture, veterans looking for new opportunity, existing farmers 

who are looking to transition their lands and businesses and want to support the next 

generation of American agriculture, and youth who are looking for connections to the 

exciting new frontier of science and agriculture. 
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To build on the work that we have done, and help provide a roadmap for work to follow, 

USDA is engaging in a significant dialogue with our stakeholders and customers. 

Throughout 2016 and 2017, USDA will be gathering significant stakeholder and customer 

feedback, including by holding listening sessions to gather input from stakeholders and the 

public regarding potential USDA priorities for the next generation of farmers and ranchers. 

The listening sessions will offer an opportunity for individuals and organizations to 

provide comments that will help evaluate the work done to date, and where priorities for 

the future may lay. 

Through these efforts, together with interactive social media tools and paired customer 

surveys, we will fulfill the transparency, public participation and collaboration principles.

This Flagship Initiative will become part of how we do business within the USDA and part 

of our continuous improvement process.