Department of Agriculture Quotes
What is fascinating about this quotation is that each year in the United States millions of Americans get sick from contaminated food. Well over 100,000 need to be hospitalized, and over 3000 Americans die from food borne illness. Yet this Congressman from an agricultural state can make such an absurd statement. The US is better than most counties in terms of food safety, and is much improved over the last decades. However, it is certainly not COMPLETELY safe. Ideologically, he was trying to ward off calls for increased Federal Regulation of the Food System which he believed could not be as successful at making the system more safe as if the food industry engaged in self regulation. But it is common in modern politics to completely depart from the truth if the truth might create public and political pressure for legislation that the Congressman was ideologically opposed to. The end of reducing Federal Regulation for him justified a blatant untruth which misled the public who believed him. Worse, Americans have less trust in anything their legislators say as more and more are exposed making statements like this.
Actually, the Agriculture Department was one of Lincoln’s greatest achievements. The subsidies and corporate welfare came much later. The biggest benefits were the land grant collages where agricultural research improved the yields and productivity and the Agricultural Extension provided training and technical assistance to American farmers making the United States the most efficient agricultural producer in the world. The subsidies and corporate welfare had and has nothing to do with the positive initiatives that Lincoln envisioned.
Actually, Kerry was incorrect, but he had a point, There are about 110,000 employees of the U. S. Department of Agriculture and every state has their own department of Agriculture with employees. There are about 2 million farms in America. So there is a government agriculture employee for about every 15 farms—a ratio that no other occupation shares.
There were many new scientific agricultural techniques emerging but most farmers knew nothing about them. Garfield wanted the Federal Government to provide education, communications and technical assistance to farmers. However, that was a radical notion and many did not see that as a proper role of the Federal Government. The President gave the example of an early Federal role of establishing lighthouses to protect and assist mariners sailing along the American coasts. Most Americans had accepted helping the maritime industry. Why not assist agriculture? The subsequent Federal role in Agriculture was one of the major factors in making the American farmer the most productive in the world as new techniques would be communicated to farmers rapidly and implemented without much delay.
Herbert Hoover was then the Food Administrator and in part with his assistance, Congress passed The Food Control Law August, 1917 which contained a provision, guaranteeing a wheat price to the farmer of two dollars a bushel. This was the beginning of Agricultural Subsidies and Corporate welfare for the large farm companies. It was passed under the Democratic Wilson Administration but Republican Herbert Hoover was one of the major supporters.
In 1925 retail prices of meat rose sharply. The Congressman wrote the Republican Secretary of Agriculture asking for an investigation of the meat packers. The Secretary refused but sent an Agriculture Bulletin entitled Economical Use of Meat in the Home:
As a result of the Commerce Department efforts, the wheat farmers of America with the help of the Department of Agriculture radically changed wheat farming procedures and techniques and despite the Great Depression by the 1940s American wheat was first class quality and by the 1950s was the best in the world and American wheat farmers were also obtaining more yield per acre than the farmers of anywhere else.
At the time the vast majority of Americans were farmers. That is the tradition and reality which caused the Department of Agriculture to become one of the most important cabinet departments. However, by the 21st century the Department of Agriculture had over 100,000 employees plus many more consultants and contractors. They had done their job so well that productivity eliminated the need for most of the farms. And the number of people earning the majority of their living as farmers is less than 1 million. So there are only 10 farmers for each employee of the Agriculture Department.
In 1905 President Roosevelt supported a Pure Food act. Business interests opposed it with such arguments as:
Gates was then a mid-level functionary at the CIA. His ability to tell the truth to powerful people got him promoted and he eventually became director himself as well as the Secretary of Defense. The Department of Agriculture at the time was generally known as a very bureaucratic organization.
