The Farm Service Agency (FSA) is the

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of comme ...

agency that was formed by merging the farm loan portfolio and staff of the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) and the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS). The Farm Service Agency implements agricultural policy, administers credit and loan programs, and manages conservation, commodity, disaster, and farm marketing programs through a national network of offices. The Administrator of FSA reports to the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm Production and Conservation. The current Administrator is Zach Ducheneaux. The FSA of each state is led by a politically appointed State Executive Director (SED).

History

The origins of the FSA start with several earlier agencies starting in the 1930s, with several programs and agencies developed during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. The

Resettlement Administration The Resettlement Administration (RA) was a New Deal U.S. federal agency created May 1, 1935. It relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. On September 1, 1937, it was succeeded by the Farm S ...

of 1935 was an early attempt to relocate entire farming communities to more profitable locations, but this was ultimately abandoned as it proved too controversial, expensive, and showed no signs of success. In 1937, the Administration was transformed into the

Farm Security Administration The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was a New Deal agency created in 1937 to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression in the United States. It succeeded the Resettlement Administration (1935–1937). The FSA is famous for its small but ...

and switched focus to the Standard Rural Rehabilitation Loan Program, which provided credits, farm management and technical supervision to rural farmers.Farm Service Agency: Agency History
/ref> Another predecessor of the FSA was the

Agriculture Adjustment Act The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part o ...

of 1933, which was intended as a program to help stabilize farm prices via price support loans to create crop reduction. The initial act was ruled unconstitutional in 1936 by '' United States v. Butler'', but these issues were taken care of by the

Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 :''This is an article about the "Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938". For the act by the same name in 1933, see Agricultural Adjustment Act.'' The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 () was legislation in the United States that was enacted as an ...

, passed two years later. Following

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the ...

and America's entry into

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the

War Food Administration The War Food Administration was a United States government agency that existed from 1943 to 1945. The War Food Administration was responsible for the production and distribution of food to meet war and essential civilian needs during World War II. ...

was created to assist in the production and transportation of food for both civilian and military use. At the end of the war, the WFA was reformed into the Production and Marketing Administration. The first attempt to consolidate the various farm agencies occurred in 1946, as the Farmers Home Administration act merged the Farm Security Administration and the Emergency Crop and Feed Loan Division of the Farm Credit Administration to form the Farmer Home Administration. The act also granted the organization the authority to ensure loans to farmers from other lenders, and later legislation established lending for rural housing, rural business enterprises, and rural water and waste disposal agencies. The USDA reorganization of 1953 also saw changes to the FHA, including renaming it the Commodity Stabilization Service. As part of the changes, the organization began to focus on the preservation of farm income. As part of their new goals, the Commodity Stabilization Service began conservation programs such as the soil bank. The Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Committees were also formed out of the community, county, and state committees focused on conservation. By 1961, the CCS was renamed the

Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service The Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) was an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture. It administered programs concerning farm products and agricultural conservation. It granted loans to farmers; purchased f ...

, as the agency had become more focused on conservation efforts. The ASCS remained active in assisting with their previous programs and the network of field offices. 1994 saw the reorganization of the USDA, which in turn resulted in the Consolidated Farm Service Agency, Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, Farmers Home Administration, and Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service being merged into the modern Farm Service Agency. Today, the committees often oversee activities in multi-county areas, due to USDA reorganization and consolidation of its field office structure into a network of about 2,500 field service centers. The committees are responsible for hiring and supervising the County Executive Director (CED), who manages the day-to-day activities of the field service center and its employees.

''Pigford v. Glickman''

In the 1930s, Congress set up a unique system under which federal farm programs are administered locally; this was influenced by the powerful Southern bloc in Congress, who represented only white Democrats from their home districts. White control of this program in counties across the South deprived many black farmers of potential benefits, as blacks had been politically disenfranchised at the turn of the century. Farmers who are eligible to participate in these programs elect a three to five-person county committee, which reviews county office operations and makes decisions on how to apply for the programs. County committees are panels of three to five farmers, elected by other farmers, to oversee the local operation of

commodity programs In United States federal agricultural policy, the term commodity programs is usually meant to include the commodity price and income support programs administered by the Farm Service Agency and financed by the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). Th ...

, disaster assistance, and other programs of the Farm Service Agency. County committees, established by the

Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act The Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act , enacted February 29, 1936) is a United States federal law that allowed the government to pay farmers to reduce production so as to conserve soil and prevent erosion. Legislative history The Act ...

of 1935 (P.L. 74-46), are so named because they have overseen

USDA The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of comme ...

field offices for farmers that once existed in most rural farm counties throughout the United States. In the South, black farmers were not commonly elected to county committees and were discriminated against in the administration of farm programs. A class-action lawsuit, ''

Pigford v. Glickman ''Pigford v. Glickman'' (1999) was a class action lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), alleging that it had racially discriminated against African-American farmers in its allocation of farm loans and assistance f ...

,'' was settled in 1999 to gain compensation for African-American farmers who had been damaged by such discrimination from 1981 to 1996. USDA's own investigation had shown widespread discrimination in the programs. The USDA paid more than $2 billion to settle thousands of claims of discrimination."The Pigford Case: USDA Settlement of a Discrimination Suit by Black Farmers", Tadlock Cowan, Congressional Research Service, January 13, 2009. Fetched February 9, 2009 from .

Shared Appreciation Agreement

A Shared Appreciation Agreement (SAA) is an agreement between the USDA and farmer borrowers, instituted when a borrower is severely delinquent on making payments on FSA real estate loans. Such an agreement allows for the forgiveness of a portion or all of the indebtedness, in return for the borrower sharing with USDA at the end of the term a portion of any appreciation in the farmer-owned real estate that served as collateral for the loan. SAAs were instituted as part of the Agricultural Credit Act of 1987 (P. L. 100-233) for the purpose of avoiding foreclosure due to the drop in land prices at that time.

Publications

The majority of the Farm Service Agency’s publications are related to the various programs that are run by them. Most of these publications are brochures or other material that discuss the programs' applications and success.

References

External links

*
Farm Service Agency
in the

Federal Register The ''Federal Register'' (FR or sometimes Fed. Reg.) is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices. It is published every weekday, except on fede ...