The United States secretary of agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other governments.
| United States Secretary of Agriculture | |
|---|---|
 Seal of the department | |
 Flag of the secretary | |
| United States Department of Agriculture | |
| Style | Mr. Secretary (informal) The Honorable (formal) |
| Member of | United States Cabinet |
| Reports to | President of the United States |
| Seat | Jamie L. Whitten Building, Washington, D.C. |
| Appointer | The President with Senate advice and consent |
| Term length | No fixed term |
| Constituting instrument | 7 U.S.C. § 2202 |
| Formation | February 15, 1889 |
| First holder | Norman Jay Coleman |
| Succession | Ninth[1] |
| Deputy | United States Deputy Secretary of Agriculture |
| Salary | Executive Schedule, level I |
| Website | usda.gov |
The department includes several organizations. The 297,000 mi2 (770,000 km2) of national forests and grasslands are managed by the United States Forest Service.[2] The safety of food produced and sold in the United States is ensured by the United States Food Safety and Inspection Service.[3] The Food Stamp Program works with the states to provide food to low-income people.[4]
Secretary of Agriculture is a Level I position in the Executive Schedule,[5] thus earning a salary of US$221,400, as of January 2021.[6]
Since February 24, 2021, the current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who had previously served as the 30th secretary of agriculture in the Obama administration.
List of secretaries of agriculture
When the Department of Agriculture was established in 1862, its executive was a non-Cabinet position called the commissioner of agriculture. The commissioners of agriculture were:[7]
| No. | Portrait | Name | State of residence | Took office | Left office | President(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | .jpg) | Isaac Newton | Pennsylvania | July 1, 1862 | June 19, 1867 | Abraham Lincoln | |
| Andrew Johnson | |||||||
| 2 |  | Horace Capron | December 4, 1867 | July 31, 1871 | |||
| Ulysses S. Grant | |||||||
| 3 |  | Frederick Watts | Pennsylvania | August 1, 1871 | 1877 | ||
| 4 |  | William Gates LeDuc | Minnesota | July 1, 1877 | 1881 | Rutherford B. Hayes | |
| 5 |  | George B. Loring | Massachusetts | July 1, 1881 | 1885 | James A. Garfield | |
| Chester A. Arthur | |||||||
| 6 |  | Norman Jay Coleman | Missouri | April 3, 1885 | February 14, 1889 | Grover Cleveland | |
The position of secretary of agriculture was created when the department was elevated to Cabinet status in 1889. The following is a list of secretaries of agriculture, since the creation of the office in 1889.[8]
- Parties
Democratic (14) Republican (18)
Status
Acting Secretary of Agriculture
Nominee for Secretary of Agriculture
| No. | Portrait | Name | State of residence | Took office | Left office | President(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | | Norman Jay Coleman | Missouri | February 15, 1889 | March 6, 1889 | Grover Cleveland | |
| 2 |  | Jeremiah McLain Rusk | Wisconsin | March 6, 1889 | March 6, 1893 | Benjamin Harrison | |
| 3 |  | Julius Sterling Morton | Nebraska | March 7, 1893 | March 5, 1897 | Grover Cleveland | |
| 4 |  | James Wilson | Iowa | March 5, 1897 | March 3, 1913 | William McKinley | |
| Theodore Roosevelt | |||||||
| William Howard Taft | |||||||
| 5 | .jpg) | David F. Houston | Missouri | March 6, 1913 | February 2, 1920 | Woodrow Wilson | |
| 6 |  | Edwin T. Meredith | Iowa | February 2, 1920 | March 4, 1921 | ||
| 7 | .jpg) | Henry Cantwell Wallace | Iowa | March 5, 1921 | October 25, 1924 | Warren G. Harding | |
| Calvin Coolidge | |||||||
| 8 |  | Howard Mason Gore | West Virginia | November 22, 1924 | March 4, 1925 | ||
| 9 |  | William Marion Jardine | Kansas | March 5, 1925 | March 4, 1929 | ||
| 10 |  | Arthur M. Hyde | Missouri | March 6, 1929 | March 4, 1933 | Herbert Hoover | |
| 11 |  | Henry A. Wallace | Iowa | March 4, 1933 | September 4, 1940 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | |
| 12 |  | Claude R. Wickard | Indiana | September 5, 1940 | June 29, 1945 | ||
| Harry S. Truman | |||||||
| 13 |  | Clinton Anderson | New Mexico | June 30, 1945 | May 10, 1948 | ||
| 14 |  | Charles F. Brannan | Colorado | June 2, 1948 | January 20, 1953 | ||
| 15 |  | Ezra Taft Benson | Utah | January 21, 1953 | January 20, 1961 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | |
| 16 | .jpg) | Orville Freeman | Minnesota | January 21, 1961 | January 20, 1969 | John F. Kennedy | |
| Lyndon B. Johnson | |||||||
| 17 |  | Clifford M. Hardin | Nebraska | January 21, 1969 | November 17, 1971 | Richard Nixon | |
| 18 |  | Earl Butz | Indiana | December 2, 1971 | October 4, 1976 | ||
| Gerald Ford | |||||||
| 19 |  | John Albert Knebel | Oklahoma | November 4, 1976 | January 20, 1977 | ||
| 20 |  | Robert Bergland | Minnesota | January 23, 1977 | January 20, 1981 | Jimmy Carter | |
| 21 |  | John Rusling Block | Illinois | January 23, 1981 | February 14, 1986 | Ronald Reagan | |
| 22 |  | Richard Edmund Lyng | California | March 7, 1986 | January 21, 1989 | ||
| 23 |  | Clayton Yeutter | Nebraska | February 16, 1989 | March 1, 1991 | George H. W. Bush | |
| 24 | .jpg) | Edward Rell Madigan | Illinois | March 8, 1991 | January 20, 1993 | ||
| 25 |  | Mike Espy | Mississippi | January 22, 1993 | December 31, 1994 | Bill Clinton | |
| – |  | Richard Rominger Acting | California | December 31, 1994 | March 30, 1995 | ||
| 26 |  | Dan Glickman | Kansas | March 30, 1995 | January 20, 2001 | ||
| 27 |  | Ann Veneman | California | January 20, 2001 | January 20, 2005 | George W. Bush | |
| 28 |  | Mike Johanns | Nebraska | January 21, 2005 | September 20, 2007 | ||
| – |  | Charles F. Conner Acting | Indiana | September 20, 2007 | January 28, 2008 | ||
| 29 |  | Ed Schafer | North Dakota | January 28, 2008 | January 20, 2009 | ||
| 30 |  | Tom Vilsack 1st term | Iowa | January 20, 2009 | January 13, 2017 | Barack Obama | |
| – |  | Michael Scuse Acting | Delaware | January 13, 2017 | January 20, 2017 | ||
| – | .jpg) | Mike Young Acting | Washington D.C. | January 20, 2017 | April 25, 2017 | Donald Trump | |
| 31 |  | Sonny Perdue | Georgia | April 25, 2017 | January 20, 2021 | ||
| – |  | Kevin Shea Acting | January 20, 2021 | February 24, 2021 | Joe Biden | ||
| 32 | .jpg) | Tom Vilsack 2nd term | Iowa | February 24, 2021 | Incumbent | ||
Line of succession
The line of succession for the secretary of agriculture is as follows:[9]
- Deputy Secretary of Agriculture
- Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agriculture Services
- Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Administration
- Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services
- Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics
- Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety
- Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment
- Under Secretary of Agriculture for Rural Development
- Under Secretary of Agriculture for Marketing and Regulatory Programs
- General Counsel of the Department of Agriculture
- Chief of Staff, Office of the Secretary
- State Executive Directors of the Farm Service Agency (in order of seniority by length of unbroken tenure) for the States of:
- Regional Administrators of the Food and Nutrition Service (in order of seniority by length of unbroken tenure) for the:
- Mountain Plains Regional Office (Denver, Colorado)
- Midwest Regional Office (Chicago, Illinois)
- Western Regional Office (San Francisco, California)
- Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Agriculture
- Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Civil Rights
- Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Congressional Relations
