Compendium of Comparisons

Report Preface: In President Abraham Lincoln's fourth annual message to the Congress, he declared that "the Agricultural Department… is precisely the people's Department, in which they feel more directly concerned than in any other." Today, over a hundred years later, our Nation has changed from a rural to an urban society, but the Department of Agriculture, more than ever before, is truly the people's Department. The programs of USDA serve all of America's 192 million citizens, not just the 14 million farm population. More than two-thirds of USDA expenditures in the 1964 budget are for services which are of primary benefit to the general public. Less than one-third goes for price support and related programs in which farmers are the primary but not the exclusive beneficiaries. In a whole host of programs, USDA serves city people, as well as the rural population, businessmen as well as farmers. USDA performs far more consumer services than most people realize. There are, in fact, many reasons to believe that the Department of Agriculture provides more services to more people than any other agency of the Government, any industry, or any organization in the world. In a number of instances, the USDA and its various agencies perform these services with greater efficiency, with fewer employees, and at less cost than other agencies of government and private industry. The following pages contain a compendium of comparisons between USDA agencies and other governmental and private organizations. It is a wrap-up of many new facts and major comparative figures concerning the operations of the Department of Agriculture. It is designed to shed new light on the vast scope of USDA activities and services to the people of the United States.