United States Secretary of Agriculture

The **United States Secretary of Agriculture** is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The position carries similar responsibilities to agriculture ministers of other governments.

## Secretaries of Agriculture

The following is a list of Secretaries of Agriculture, since the creation of the office in 1889.
|scope="col"|No.|scope="col"|Portrait|scope="col"|Name|scope="col"|State of residence|scope="col"|Took office|scope="col"|Left office|scope="col" colspan=2|President(s)|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|rowspan="2"||rowspan="2"|Isaac Newton|rowspan="2"|Pennsylvania|rowspan="2"|July 1, 1862|rowspan="2"|June 19, 1867|style="background: ;"||Abraham Lincoln||
|rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="3"|Andrew Johnson|||||||||||
|rowspan="3"||rowspan="3"|Horace Capron|rowspan="3"||rowspan="3"|December 4, 1867|rowspan="3"|July 31, 1871|||||
|rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="2"|Ulysses S. Grant|||||||||||
||Frederick Watts|Pennsylvania|August 1, 1871|1877||||||||||
||William Gates LeDuc|Minnesota|July 1, 1877|1881|style="background: ;"||Rutherford B. Hayes|||||||
|rowspan="2"||rowspan="2"|George B. Loring|rowspan="2"|Massachusetts|rowspan="2"|July 1, 1881|rowspan="2"|1885|style="background: ;"||James A. Garfield||
|style="background: ;"||Chester A. Arthur||||||||||||
||Norman Jay Coleman|Missouri|April 3, 1885|February 14, 1889|style="background: ;"||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.

- Parties
 (14)
 (18)

**Status**

|No.|Portrait|Name|State of residence|Took office|Left office|colspan="2"|President(s)|||||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||Norman Jay Coleman|Missouri|February 15, 1889|March 6, 1889|style="background: ;"||Grover Cleveland|||||||
||Jeremiah McLain Rusk|Wisconsin|March 6, 1889|March 6, 1893|style="background: ;"||Benjamin Harrison|||||||
||Julius Sterling Morton|Nebraska|March 7, 1893|March 5, 1897|style="background: ;"||Grover Cleveland|||||||
|rowspan="3"||rowspan="3"|James Wilson|rowspan="3"|Iowa|rowspan="3"|March 5, 1897|rowspan="3"|March 3, 1913|style="background: ;"||William McKinley||
|style="background: ;"||Theodore Roosevelt||||||||||||
|style="background: ;"||William Howard Taft||||||||||||
||David F. Houston|Missouri|March 6, 1913|February 2, 1920|rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="2"|Woodrow Wilson||||||
||Edwin T. Meredith|Iowa|February 2, 1920|March 4, 1921||||||||||
|rowspan="2"||rowspan="2"|Henry Cantwell Wallace|rowspan="2"|Iowa|rowspan="2"|March 5, 1921|rowspan="2"|October 25, 1924|style="background: ;"||Warren G. Harding||
|rowspan="3" style="background: ;"||rowspan="3"|Calvin Coolidge|||||||||||
||Howard Mason Gore|West Virginia|November 22, 1924|March 4, 1925||||||||||
||William Marion Jardine|Kansas|March 5, 1925|March 4, 1929||||||||||
||Arthur M. Hyde|Missouri|March 6, 1929|March 4, 1933|style="background: ;"||Herbert Hoover|||||||
||Henry A. Wallace|Iowa|March 4, 1933|September 4, 1940|rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="2"|Franklin D. Roosevelt||||||
|rowspan="2"||rowspan="2"|Claude R. Wickard|rowspan="2"|Indiana|rowspan="2"|September 5, 1940|rowspan="2"|June 29, 1945|||||
|rowspan="3" style="background: ;"||rowspan="3"|Harry S. Truman|||||||||||
||Clinton Presba Anderson|New Mexico|June 30, 1945|May 10, 1948||||||||||
||Charles F. Brannan|Colorado|June 2, 1948|January 20, 1953||||||||||
||Ezra Taft Benson|Utah|January 21, 1953|January 20, 1961|style="background: ;"||Dwight D. Eisenhower|||||||
|rowspan="2"||rowspan="2"|Orville Freeman|rowspan="2"|Minnesota|rowspan="2"|January 21, 1961|rowspan="2"|January 20, 1969|style="background: ;"||John F. Kennedy||
|style="background: ;"||Lyndon B. Johnson||||||||||||
||Clifford M. Hardin|Nebraska|January 21, 1969|November 17, 1971|rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="2"|Richard Nixon||||||
|rowspan="2"||rowspan="2"|Earl Butz|rowspan="2"|Indiana|rowspan="2"|December 2, 1971|rowspan="2"|October 4, 1976|||||
|rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="2"|Gerald Ford|||||||||||
||John Albert Knebel|Oklahoma|November 4, 1976|January 20, 1977||||||||||
||Robert Bergland|Minnesota|January 23, 1977|January 20, 1981|style="background: ;"||Jimmy Carter|||||||
||John Rusling Block|Illinois|January 23, 1981|February 14, 1986|rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="2"|Ronald Reagan||||||
||Richard Edmund Lyng|California|March 7, 1986|January 21, 1989||||||||||
||Clayton Keith Yeutter|Nebraska|February 16, 1989|March 1, 1991|rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="2"|George H. W. Bush||||||
||Edward Rell Madigan|Illinois|March 8, 1991|January 20, 1993||||||||||
||Mike Espy|Mississippi|January 22, 1993|December 31, 1994|rowspan="3" style="background: ;"||rowspan="3"|Bill Clinton||||||
|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|Richard Rominger|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|California|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|December 31, 1994|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|March 30, 1995|||
||Dan Glickman|Kansas|March 30, 1995|January 20, 2001||||||||||
||Ann Veneman|California|January 20, 2001|January 20, 2005|rowspan="4" style="background: ;"||rowspan="4"|George W. Bush||||||
||Mike Johanns|Nebraska|January 21, 2005|September 20, 2007||||||||||
|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|Charles F. Conner|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|Indiana|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|September 20, 2007|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|January 28, 2008|||
||Ed Schafer|North Dakota|January 28, 2008|January 20, 2009||||||||||
||Tom Vilsack|Iowa|January 20, 2009|January 13, 2017|rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="2"|Barack Obama||||||
|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|Michael Scuse|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|Delaware|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|January 13, 2017|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|January 20, 2017|||||
|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|Mike Young|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|January 20, 2017|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|April 25, 2017|rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="2"|Donald Trump|
||Sonny Perdue|Georgia|April 25, 2017|January 20, 2021||||||||||
|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|Kevin Shea|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|January 20, 2021|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"|February 23, 2021|rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="2"|Joe Biden|
||Tom Vilsack|Iowa|February 24, 2021|January 20, 2025||||||||||
|bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||bgcolor="#E6E6AA"||rowspan="2" style="background: ;"||rowspan="2"|(2025–present)|
||Brooke Rollins|Texas||Incumbent||||||||||

## Living former Secretaries of Agriculture

As of December 2025, there are eight living former secretaries of the interior, the oldest being John R. Block (served 1981-1986). The most recent death of a former secretary of state was that of Robert Bergland (served 1977-1981) on December 9, 2018.

## Infobox (official post)

- **post**: United States Secretary
- **body**: Agriculture
- **flag**: Flag of the United States Secretary of Agriculture.svg
- **flagborder**: yes
- **flagsize**: 130
- **flagcaption**: Flag of the secretary
- **insignia**: Seal of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.svg
- **insigniasize**: 120
- **insigniacaption**: Seal of the department
- **image**: Brooke Rollins USDA official portrait 2025 (54342147675).jpg
- **incumbent**: Brooke Rollins
- **incumbentsince**: February 13, 2025
- **department**: United States Department of Agriculture
- **style**: Mr. Secretary (informal)
The Honourable#United States, 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 of the United States, President
- **appointer qualified**: with United States Senate, Senate advice and consent
- **termlength**: No fixed term
- **formation**: February 15, 1889
- **first**: Norman Jay Coleman
- **succession**: United States presidential line of succession, Ninth
- **deputy**: United States Deputy Secretary of Agriculture
- **salary**: Executive Schedule, Executive Schedule, level I