The United States Department of Agriculture (informally the Agriculture Department or USDA) is the United States federal executive department responsible for developing and executing U.S. federal government policy on farming, agriculture, and food. It aims to meet the needs of farmers and ranchers, promote agricultural trade and production, work to assure food safety, protect natural resources, foster rural communities and end hunger in the United States and abroad. The head of the department is the Secretary of Agriculture, who is a member of the Cabinet. The current Secretary is Tom Vilsack. Early in its history, the economy of the United States was largely agrarian. Officials in the federal government had long sought new and improved varieties of seeds, plants and animals for importation to the United States. In 1837 Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, a Yale-educated attorney interested in improving agriculture, became Commissioner of Patents, a position within the Department of State. He soon began collecting and distributing new varieties of seeds and plants through members of the Congress and agricultural societies.

Website
http://www.usda.gov/
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Agriculture

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Unraveling the health benefits of tomatoes: A molecular dive

Scientists at U.S. the Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and The Ohio State University (OSU) have been working to investigate how tomatoes may be imparting health benefits in a recently published ...

Scientists ratchet up key amino acid in corn

Experimental lines of field corn developed by a team of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and university scientists will usher in new commercial hybrids offering high-methionine grain.

Scientists spice up their anti-mosquito weaponry with mustard

Scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have shown that seed meal from plants in the mustard family can kill mosquito larvae, which start their lives in stagnant water before emerging into winged adults that ...

Scientists make healthy sorghum crop healthier

Scientists at the Children's Nutrition Research Center of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) helped develop healthier sorghum varieties containing significant concentrations of provitamin A carotenoids while also ...

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