The United States Department of Agriculture

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Service Agency, provides leadership, insight and helps enforce public policy on food, agriculture, rural development, nutrition, and natural resources, generally by the means of science and management. The USDA prides themselves on their mission to help feed people throughout the world and to preserve the natural resources through conservation, improvements in processes and policy, and conditions.

In 1839, Th Agricultural Division was established at the Patent Office by Congress. A man by the name of Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, later named the “Father of the Department of Agriculture” was Commissioner of Patents with the Department of State. His work, reports, and collections of seeds and plants lead to a separate department, a bureau of agriculture, that would be devoted solely to agriculture.

In May 15th 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the USDA into legislation in an effort to protect food, agriculture, economic development, science, natural resources, and conservation. Agriculturalist Isaac Newton was the first commissioner o spearhead the project. In 1989, President Grover Cleveland ranked the department up to Cabinet level by signing a Cabinet status bill. Today, the USDA is comprised of 29 agencies and employs nearly 100,000 citizens across the United States.