House Agriculture Committee Timeline

As the primary occupation of nineteenth-century America, agriculture was vital to the country’s stability and growth. To ensure continued development and give producers a political voice in Congress, Representative Lewis Williams of North Carolina recommended creating a separate and distinct agriculture committee.

Before the committee’s creation, agricultural issues were governed by the Committee on Manufactures and temporary, select committees. The House approved the creation of the new permanent standing Committee on Agriculture on May 3rd, 1820. 

As the nation continued westward expansion, President Abraham Lincoln and the new Republican party supported agriculture and land ownership through the Homestead Act and Morrill Act. The Morrill Act sought to expand education and provide access to practical education to a broader segment of the population. Land grant status granted federally controlled land to the states for sale, to raise funds, and to establish and endow colleges to teach agriculture and mechanical arts.

Representative Reverend Richard Harvey Cain (1825-1887) of South Carolina served 1873-1875 and 1877-1879. Cain was the first African American to serve on the House Agriculture Committee. During Reconstruction, Cain was active in several civil and land rights organizations. He was a key advocate for the South Carolina Land Commission which purchased land and resold it to both Black freedmen and the formerly enslaved.

Since the 1840s, reporters and witnesses had revealed evidence of food adulteration and unsanitary practices in drug and meat production. Adulterants were added to prolong shelf life but these additives (such as formaldehyde, salicylic acid, and borax) went unchecked by government regulation. Public outrage after several high-profile incidents prompted Congress to enact the Pure Food & Drug Act. Administration of the Act was assigned to the USDA's Bureau of Chemistry where Chief Chemist Harvey Washington Wiley was an early and ardent supporter of the Act. Wiley's research and investigations focused mainly on human consumption safety, and food and drink fraud. 

After World War I, U.S. agriculture faced lower commodity prices and growing debt. Meat packers manipulated prices by controlling all phases of the packing process, from raising livestock to retail sales. This led to consumer fraud and anticompetition. Gilbert N. Haugen (IA), Chair of the House Committee on Agriculture, introduced a bill to “regulate interstate and foreign commerce in live stock, live-stock produce, dairy products, poultry, poultry products, and eggs, and for other purposes." The Packers and Stockyards Act, with amendments, continues to provide stability in the domestic meat industry.

A key part of President Roosevelt's New Deal, the Agricultural Adjustment Act sought to boost farm prices by reducing surpluses. Through this Act, the government collected a tax on companies that processed farm products and used the funds to pay farmers to leave land uncultivated. The government purchased livestock from farmers and used the surplus agricultural goods to feed struggling families. The Act in turn created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, a USDA agency to oversee the distribution of subsidies.  

In 1930, as parts of the nation suffered from malnutrition brought on by the Great Depression, Dr. Hazel K. Stiebeling led the USDA Bureau of Home Economics new Food Economics section create to address public demand for meal and dietary guidance. Dr. Stiebeling was the first to research dietary allowances, and published two studies in 1933, Diets at Four Levels of Nutritive Content and Cost and Food Budgets for Nutrition and Production Programs. In 1935, the House Committee on Agriculture supported a budget increase for her ongoing research. In 1941 Stiebeling explained the importance of nutrition for a country about to enter WWII: "No nation achieves total strength unless all of its citizens are well fed." (Stiebeling, Are We Well Fed?) Her work set the benchmark for USDA nutrition research that continues today.

In January 1936, the Supreme Court ruled specific financing provisions of the original AA Act benefiting farmers unconstitutional. With farm country still suffering, Congress passed the new Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 reauthorizing most provisions of the original Act, and changed the funding source from a farm product processor's tax to the Federal Government. The new Act also established price supports, the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) to provide insurance against crop losses, and four regional research laboratories for the development of new uses for surplus farm products. Today, the FCIC program continues to protect agricultural producers from risk.

Dr. Allene Rosalind Jeanes, a chemist at USDA's Peoria, IL lab, discovered dextran-producing microbes in a sample of root beer sent to the lab, allowing her to produce dextran for research. In 1950, at the beginning of the Korean War, Dr. Jeanes and colleagues made a dextran-based blood volume expander that functioned as a plasma substitute to keep patients alive prior to surgery and transfusions. Dr. Jeanes was the first woman to receive a Distinguished Service Award from the USDA, and she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2017 for her research.

The economic crises of the 1980s also affected the U.S. manufacturing industry and urban communities, and caused concerns about food insecurity and hunger across America. The Rust Belt struggled with changing industry, economic challenges, and a population shift.

By the middle of the decade, Congress passed key legislation to help alleviate the suffering of the economic and farm crises. The House Committee on Agriculture sponsored the 1985 Farm Bill that expanded food stamps and nutrition programs. Congress overhauled farm assistance programs, passed the Agricultural Credit Act of 1987 to assist rural banks and lenders, and established Chapter 12 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to address the unique issues involved in family farm debt reorganization.

Since the 1930s, farm bills have provided significant support for food assistance and nutrition by addressing both food insecurity, or the lack of access to food due to financial constraints, and hunger, the physical effect from the involuntary reduction of food intake. These efforts include the creation of the Food Stamp Program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The Food Security Act of 1985, sponsored by Representative Eligio de la Garza (TX), took important steps to fight the domestic hunger crisis. The Act reauthorized the food stamp program, extended the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance program, and expanded nutrition programs.

Recent farm bills have helped ensure funding for healthy school meals through the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, supported access to fresh foods for underserved communities via the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, and amended the National School Lunch Act to encourage the purchase of locally grown and raised agricultural products.

Eva Clayton was elected to the House in 1992, making her the first African American woman to represent North Carolina in Congress. Clayton requested an assignment on the House Agriculture Committee to advance the rural and agricultural interests of her district and served on the committee throughout her five terms in Congress. She fought on behalf of African American farmers, sponsoring legislation to address economic inequities and discriminatory practices. In the 2002 Farm Bill, Clayton worked on sections focused on nutrition and combating hunger by extending food stamps to legal immigrants and supporting other nutrition programs.

The U.S. farming industry has evolved with the adoption of new technologies, including precision agriculture. Using precision technology, Global Positioning System (GPS) reads soil, moisture and yield monitors to create field mapping recommendations and to apply variable-rate technology (VRT) to customize fertilizer application. GPS also controls auto-steer tractors that result in increased accuracy when planting, spraying herbicide, or applying fertilizer, improving both economic and environmental efficiencies. 

These advanced technologies require high-capacity broadband in rural areas that previously lacked access. The 2018 Farm Bill prioritized this need, and in 2019, the House Committee on Agriculture convened a subcommittee hearing of witness testimony on precision agriculture's conservation benefits. Addressing the agricultural need and the technological barriers, the USDA is moving quickly to expand the broadband connectivity critical to using technology to improve yields, conserve natural resources, and feed a growing global population.