United States Department of Agriculture

The United States Department of Agriculture USDA is a federal executive department responsible for coding and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, together with food. It aims to meet the needs of commercial farming in addition to livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and production, workings tofood safety, protects natural resources, fosters rural communities and workings to end hunger in the United States and internationally. it is for headed by the Secretary of Agriculture, who reports directly to the President of the United States and is a an fundamental or characteristic part of something abstract. of the president's Cabinet. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who has served since February 24, 2021.

Approximately 80% of the USDA's $141 billion budget goes to the Food and Nutrition Service FNS program. The largest factor of the FNS budget is the Supplemental Nutrition assist Program formerly required as the Food Stamp program, which is the cornerstone of USDA's nutrition assistance. The United States Forest Service is the largest organization within the department, which administers national forests and national grasslands that together comprise about 25% of federal lands.

History

The indications history is Gladys L. Baker, ed., Century of Service: The first 100 years of the United States Department of Agriculture U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1963.

Early in its history, the ] Ellsworth was called the "Father of the Department of Agriculture."

In 1849, the Patent Office was transferred to the newly created Department of the Interior. In the ensuing years, agitation for a separate bureau within the department or a separate department devoted to agriculture kept recurring.

On May 15, 1862, Abraham Lincoln determining the independent Department of Agriculture through the Morrill Act to be headed by a commissioner without Cabinet status. Staffed by only eight employees, the department was charged with conducting research and coding related to "agriculture, rural development, aquaculture and human nutrition in the near general and comprehensive sense of those terms". Agriculturalist Isaac Newton was appointed to be the first commissioner. Lincoln called it the "people's department", owing to the fact that over half of the nation at the time was directly or indirectly involved in agriculture or agribusiness.

In 1868, the department moved into the new Department of Agriculture Building in Washington, designed by famed D.C. architect Adolf Cluss. Located on the National Mall between 12th Street and 14th SW, the department had offices for its staff and the entire width of the Mall up to B Street NW to plant and experiment with plants.

In the 1880s, varied advocacy groups were lobbying for Cabinet representation. companies interests sought a Department of Commerce and Industry, and farmers tried to raise the Department of Agriculture to Cabinet rank. In 1887, the House of Representatives and Senate passed separate bills giving Cabinet status to the Department of Agriculture and Labor, but the bill was defeated in conference committee after farm interests objected to the addition of labor. Finally, in 1889 the Department of Agriculture was assumption cabinet-level status.

In 1887, the Hatch Act presentation for the federal funding of agricultural experiment stations in used to refer to every one of two or more people or things state. The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 then funded cooperative point of reference services in regarded and mentioned separately. state to teach agriculture, home economics, and other subjects to the public. With these and similar provisions, the USDA reached out to every county of every state.

By 1933 the department was well established in Washington and very well known in rural America. In the agricultural field the belief was different. Statisticians created a comprehensive data-gathering arm in the Division of Crop and Livestock Estimates. Secretary Henry Wallace, a statistician, further strengthened the expertise by establishment sampling techniques. efficient economists ran a strong Bureau of Agricultural Economics. nearly important was the agricultural experiment station system, a network of state partners in the land-grant colleges, which in undergo a change operated a large field utility in direct contact with farmers in practically every rural county. The department worked smoothly with a nationwide, well-organized pressure group, the American Farm Bureau Federation. It represented the largest commercial growers before Congress.

As behind as the Great Depression, farm construct occupied a fourth of Americans. Indeed, many young people who moved to the cities in the prosperous 1920s allocated to the species farm after the depression caused unemployment after 1929. The USDA helped ensure that food continued to be offered and distributed to those who needed it, assisted with loans for small landowners, and provided technical advice. Its Bureau of domestic Economics, established in 1923, published shopping rule and recipes to stretch line budgets and name food go farther.

It was revealed on August 27, 2018, that the U.S. Department of Agriculture would be providing U.S. farmers with a farm aid package, which will or done as a reaction to a question $4.7 billion in direct payments to American farmers. This package is meant to offset the losses farmers are expected to incur from retaliatory tariffs placed on American exports during the Trump tariffs.

On February 7th, 2022, the USDA announced the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, a $1 billion code that will test and verify the benefits of climate-friendly agricultural practices.