When was the usda formed

Get in Touch! We would like to hear from you! Contract Vehicles. Need Help? We'd love to hear from you! Research and Science. Research Grants and Agreements. Research Resources. Rural and Community Development. Services: Links. Social Media. Transcripts and Speeches. Travel and Recreation.

Water Resources. The top contractor recipients and their percentage of all contracting during this time period include:. Congress angered animal rights advocates in December when it lifted a ban on funding horsemeat inspections by the U.

The ban was imposed in as a way to shut down the last remaining horse slaughterhouse in the U. But supporters of the new bill said the ban had produced unintended consequences, including a growing population of neglected horses during hard economic times. The legislation did not include funding for USDA inspections, leaving it to the agency to come up with the money.

Since no USDA inspectors were funded, that makes horsemeat illegal because processing plants must meet federal standards. Yet, entrepreneurs hoped to open a slaughterhouse either in Wyoming, North Dakota, Nebraska, or Missouri although the latter looked unlikely by July It was estimated a new facility could process up to , horses a year, with the meat being shipped to countries in Europe and Asia, including France and Japan.

CBS News. The controversy over genetically modified GM foods has raged for decades, as farmers, biotechnology companies, governmental regulators, non-governmental organizations and scientists have debated the advantages and disadvantages of GM.

GM foods are those possessing genes manipulated by scientists to give them more desirable traits, such as resistance to insecticides used on farms. GM can also mean plants that grow faster or possess added nutrients and vitamins, according to supporters. Some consumers oppose GM foods, claiming not enough testing has been done to know what the long-term implications of GM might be for humans.

Organic farmers have complained too, citing problems with their fields becoming contaminated with GM crops. Department of Agriculture has been in the thick of the GM controversy, approving numerous types of GM crops for production by large agricultural operations.

Genetically modified food controversies Wikipedia. Supporters of organic foods were outraged at the USDA in when it was discovered the USDA had allowed synthetic additives in certified organic products.

One example cited in the media was Horizon Organic Milk with DHA Omega-3, which was not an approved additive for organic food, according to The Cornucopia Institute, a watchdog for the organic industry. The Cornucopia Institute has sued infant formula manufacturers and Dean Foods, manufacturer of Horizon dairy products, for adding unapproved additives.

The pilot project called for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program SNAP, formerly known as food stamps to remove sugar-sweetened beverages from the list of approved food items. States were motivated to exclude soft drinks in an effort to tackle the problem of childhood obesity, which is exacerbated by sugary beverages. Brownell and David S. Ludwig, JAMA. Representatives of the meat industry reacted angrily toward a proposal by the U.

Labeled as adulterants, the six strains are related to Shiga toxins and can cause severe illness and fatalities, with young children and seniors most at-risk. Food safety advocates hailed the move, while cattlemen said it was unrealistic for the USDA to think its plan would work. That view is not supported by science. Coli Strains The Hagstrom Report. In February , the Obama administration announced a draft plan to protect one million acres of public land around Grand Canyon National Park from new uranium mining for 20 years.

The proposal, announced by U. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, was one of four alternatives in the draft plan. Mining supporters claimed the move would prevent the creation of new jobs, while environmentalists countered that mining would harm the environment and adversely affect canyon tourism.

In May , the Bureau of Land Management had authorized several new uranium exploration permits near the Grand Canyon, despite a congressional resolution the previous year barring new claims near the national park. In March , three conservation groups filed a lawsuit to stop uranium exploration the Grand Canyon.

It was the first of five such projects slated for the area. As a result of USFS policies, wildfires have gone from being high frequency, low-intensity events, which provide sustainability for certain ecosystems, to low-frequency, high-intensity events that make suppression of them futile, writes University of Maryland Professor Robert Nelson in his book A Burning Issue: A Case for Abolishing the U.

Forest Service. Due to the prolonged absence of fire and the reduction in timber harvests, the abundance of dead and dying trees provide a high fuel load and conditions for high-intensity fires that can cause enormous damage to soils, watersheds, fisheries, and other ecosystem components, Nelson argues.

Many environmental groups that view natural fires as an integral part of ecosystem management have also criticized fire suppression efforts, claiming that it lacks scientific basis. Meanwhile, firefighters and residents who live on forestland lobby heavily for fire suppression policies. Nelson, Independent Review. Forest Roads or Forest Fires? Buck, U. Forest Service, pdf.

Republican lawmakers set out in to approve the release of large tracts of public lands from government protection.

The bill potentially affected six million acres of BLM wilderness study areas and as much as 36 million acres of roadless areas in the National Forest System. Any BLM lands not designated as wilderness or under consideration for wilderness designation would have been eligible for release, under the legislation. Similarly, the Forest Service would have been compelled to let go of roadless areas not deemed wilderness or not recommended for such designation. The Obama administration opposed the bill, saying it would undermine the ability of both agencies to carry out resource conservation.

The USDA under President Barack Obama stirred controversy in December when it sought to change the nutrition guidelines for federally funded school lunch programs. Under new regulations developed by the USDA, the calorie intake of school lunches for primary students would be reduced to for each student, for middle school, and for high school students. The change also called for using more multigrain breads instead of white bread and making sure vegetable servings were really made up of vegetables.

Existing guidelines allowed for an eighth of a cup of tomato paste to equal one serving of vegetables, which allowed school lunches to serve pizza to meet its vegetable requirement.

The changes sought to eliminate this loophole over the opposition of tomato farmers. The USDA also wanted to cut back on salt, potatoes, and saturated fats in school lunches, while boosting the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Adams, Los Angeles Times. The case was settled out of court 11 years ago, when the department found that black farmers had to wait three times longer for loans and subsidies. In October , U.

On July 19, , Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign her position as Georgia State Director of Rural Development days after video excerpts were posted online by Andrew Breitbart, blogger and media commentator, which purported to show her making racist remarks to a gathering of the NAACP Freedom Fund. Sherrod, who is black, was making precisely the opposite point with an uplifting story of how she helped a white family avoid loss of their farm through foreclosure in while employed at a private advocacy firm for African-American farmers.

Large sums of money are given annually through price supports for certain crops or farmers. These subsidies artificially keep American produce prices low on foreign markets, harming struggling foreign farmers, critics argue.

While a number of pundits still deny global warming science, in May , the U. Climate Change Science Program issued a report on the threats of climate change to agriculture and other key natural resources, which was authored by 38 researchers from universities, national laboratories, non-governmental organizations, and federal service.

The USDA was the lead agency for the report and is using the findings to develop a new strategic plan for climate change research. Shifts in plant productivity and type will likely also have significant impact on livestock operations. Higher temperatures will also likely reduce livestock production during the summer season, but these losses will likely be partially offset by warmer temperatures during the winter season.

Increased CO 2 and temperatures will also more rapidly progress the lifecycle grain and oilseed crops, but as temperature rises, these crops will increasingly begin to experience failure. Climate change will also likely lead to a northern migration of weeds, the report found. Climate Change Science Program.

Climate Change Program Report. Downed cattle are prohibited from the food supply as the risks of infection, contamination, and disease are heightened with lame animals. Following the story, these products were placed on hold, and million pounds of beef was recalled—the largest beef recall in U.

The recall included beef products dating back to February of Statement by Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer. USDA officials maintain that they follow regulations as directed by the department and Congress, but those regulations are increasingly confusing or opaque. Requirements for determining eligibility for RD assistance tend to be quite variable and even subjective, depending on the program itself and leaving room for lawmakers to weigh in.

For some programs, assistance is limited to towns with populations below 2,, but for others numbers can reach up to 50,, and some census-based decisions can divide eligible communities by street or block.

Gaul and Sarah Cohen, Washington Post. The report was in response to concerns raised by Senator Tom Harkin D-Iowa in on possible inflation of actual investigations conducted by the competition division in annual GIPSA reports to suggest a higher rate of enforcement activity.

The report confirmed accusations that top officials had intentionally blocked investigations by refusing to provide clearance for employees to conduct investigations and inflating the number of investigations to give the misleading appearance that the agency was responding to pressures to clamp down on anti-competitive practices and market concentration.

The report identified three areas of material weaknesses: defining and tracking investigations, planning and conducting competition and complex investigations, and making agency policy.

Additionally, it said the agency had not taken sufficient actions to strengthen operations in response to a finding previously reported by the Office of Inspector General in and the Government Accountability Organization GAO in The main issues of concern were that the GIPSA investigations were led by economists without the formal involvement of attorneys from the Office of General Counsel; and that the investigations process was designed for traditional trade practice and not suited to the more complex anti-competitive practices currently at issue.

In response, the bipartisan U. In the second term of the George W. Bush administration, budget cutbacks resulted in the closing of FSA offices across the United States. Many farmers protested these cuts, as local FSA offices have been a crucial connection between farmers and the department since the s. In , Sen. History: Office of the Solicitor became responsible for the legal work of the Resettlement Administration in Textual Records: Case files, Newspaper clippings, Petitions concerning land condemnations, History: Established December 21, , with responsibility for internal audits and investigations.

Split into Audit Branch and Investigations Branch, Reconsolidated, Textual Records in San Francisco : Case files of significant cases, , including an investigation of price support irregularities in Kern County, CA, History: Division of Publications established to distribute technical publications, Separate Office of Information established as a departmental press service, Two units consolidated as Office of Information, Office initiated Motion Picture and Exhibit Service, Television service began, Textual Records: Records relating to exhibitions and expositions, General correspondence, Press releases, Radio releases, Indexes to press and radio releases, Daily record of press releases, Daily Digest , The Official Record , Weekly News Letter , World War II food campaign files, Farm paper reports, Reports to radio and magazine food editors, Issuances, Statements and speeches of the Secretary of Agriculture, Maps : Geography of the World's Agriculture , items.

Atlas of American Agriculture--Physical Basis , , with separate advance sections relating to natural vegetation, forest, growing season, and rural population distribution, 28 items. Graphic summaries of U. Decennial county outline maps of the United States used for plotting agricultural data, 32 items.

Manuscript and published maps of the world used for Yearbook of American Agriculture 10 items. Outline map of CT, 1 item.

See Also Photographs : Historical file of images from the collections of component agencies and bureaus of the Department of Agriculture, depicting department officials, buildings, and research activities in areas of pest control, soil conservation, and experimental farms; agricultural pursuits; and farm families, machinery, and buildings, G, 23, images. Soil Conservation Service photographs of agricultural and conservation activities, S, 5, images.

Photographic copies of oil paintings of department officials and American agriculturalists, n. P, 18 images. Scientists, agency buildings, experimental farms, personnel, and conferences, collected by plant pathologist Erwin F.

Smith, ES, images. Louisiana Purchase , Rio de Janeiro , Panama-Pacific , and other expositions; and botanical gardens, landscapes, and plant varieties, by Frank Lamson- Scribner, FLS, 3, images. Wallace, many by E. Purdy and F. Mounted views of various agricultural scenes, TN, images. Historical color photograph file of the Department of Agriculture, GK, 17, images. Photographs of charts, maps, and miscellaneous subjects, DN, 1, images.

Photographs of activities of the Bureau of Animal Industry, ca. Photographs of insects, B, images. Central Photographic Office Collections depicting agency officials, conferences, gardening, crop cultivation, animal husbandry, research, pest control, German prisoners of war picking peaches, and President Harry S. Truman signing the School Lunch Bill, N, 62, images ; and depicting agency officials, conferences, gardening, crop cultivation, animal husbandry, research, pest control, food inspection, home economics, and market regulation, ST, , images.

Photographs of agricultural subjects, KS, 1, images. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. The U. Department of Agriculture USDA is the federal agency that proposes programs and implements policies and regulations related to American farming, forestry, ranching, food quality, and nutrition.

The department now has 29 agencies with wide-ranging responsibilities, from food safety inspections to economic development for rural communities. Its programs help provide the following services, among others: broadband access in rural areas; disaster assistance to farmers, ranchers, and rural residents; soil, water, and other natural resource conservation to landowners; wildfire prevention; and agricultural research and statistics.

The USDA is vital in helping to keep America's farmers and ranchers in business and making sure that the nation's commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products is safe, wholesome, and properly labeled.

It also helps to support and ensure the health and care of animals and plants and the health of the land through sustainable management. The head of the USDA is the secretary of agriculture.

Undersecretaries oversee the divisions for rural development, food safety, and other areas, with nearly , employees who serve at more than 4, locations across the country and abroad. One of the USDA's main tasks is in the area of rural development, especially rural housing. It provides direct loans to very-low-income borrowers who want to purchase a rural home, guaranteed loans to moderate-income homebuyers, and loans and grants for rural home improvements and repairs. USDA Rural Development includes three agencies that provide assistance to rural families and communities.

In addition to its housing program, it has a utilities program and a business program. Department of Agriculture USDA is a federal agency that plays a major role in rural development, particularly housing. It also oversees and implements programs related to the farming, ranching, and forestry industries and regulates food quality and safety, and nutrition labeling.