АҚШ Ауыл шаруашылығы министрлігінің ғылыми зерттеу қызметінің тарихы мен жетістіктері

Research agency of the US Department of Agriculture

The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is the principal in house research agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). For 2018, its budget was $1.2 billion.

Prior to the inception of ARS, agricultural research was first conducted under the umbrella of the Agricultural Department in the U. S. Patent Office in 1839. It was created to collect statistics, distribute seeds and compile and distribute pertinent information. In 1862 the USDA was created and agricultural research was moved to its department. That same year, the department issued its first research bulletin on the sugar content of grape varietals and their suitability for wine. Six years later the USDA would begin its first research on animal diseases, specifically hog cholera, which was causing devastating losses at the time. In the early 1900s the USDA began analyzing food composition and the first studies of nutrition and the effects of cooking and processing foods were conducted. Finally, in 1953 the Agricultural Research Service was created to be the USDA's primary scientific research agency.

From the very beginning the Department of Agriculture and in turn the Agricultural Research Service has been focused on improving not only the farming industry but also the quality of food and the health of Americans. In 1985, technology to produce lactose free milk, yogurt, and ice cream was developed through the Agricultural Research Service. The grape breeding program, currently located in Parlier, CA which began in 1923, developed seedless grapes and continues to release new grapevine varieties with improved traits. The ARS Citrus and Subtropical Products Laboratory in Winter Haven, Florida, actively works to improve the taste of orange juice concentrate. The Agricultural Research Service had a Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) research program, which experimented on cats infected with the parasite, from 1982 until 2018. The prevalence of T. gondii parasite has been reduced by 50% in the U. S. as of September 2018, which the ARS claims is a result of their research. The USDA has since discontinued the use of cats in their research amid acute accusations of animal abuse, and a lack of meaningful contribution to the field in recent years (only three of thirteen papers published about T. gondii by the ARS were published after the year 2000). More recently, the ARS has focused research on genetics and plant and animal DNA. Their research has developed pest resistant corn, faster growing plants and fish, and a focus on plant and animal genome research and mapping. Outside of scientific research, the ARS has worked to release databases on food components in order to assist consumers with making informed decisions about food choices.