USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service unveiled a newly designed website today. I went there wondering what’s new.

Technological enhancements include a new Google-powered search engine, an SVG interactive mapping application, an RSS news feed and XML technology. To complete the redesign effort, the site mirrors the look and feel of the official USDA web site. At the same time, the site continues to provide comprehensive statistical data on every facet of U.S. agriculture. Features such as the Quick Stats Agricultural Statistics Database offer the ability to search for data by commodity, state(s) and year(s). National, state and county level data can then be downloaded for easy use in a database or spreadsheet.

I was impressed to see RSS. They don’t have everything set up as an RSS feed yet but they’re working on it. You can bet I’m already a subscriber. Government agencies like NASS really need to get on the RSS bandwagon. It sure makes it easier to keep up to date with their reports without having to depend on email or other forms of communications distribution.

Way to go USDA – NASS.