Agriculture Department

Although the Agriculture Department does have a small visitor center in its downtown headquarters building, it is best able to show off its state-of-the-art food and fiber research at the sprawling 7,000-acre Beltsville, Md., Agricultural Research Center, which houses more than 325 agricultural scientists.

More than 25,000 people annually, including 10,000 from abroad, trek to the USDA facility, which hosts visitors in the historic log lodge built by Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps workers. Inside the lodge are photo displays about nutrition, genetic research and pest management; plaques honoring members of the Agricultural Research Service's Scientists Hall of Fame; and the Eisenhower Conference Room, site of a 1959 visit by the President and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

John Kucharski, the director of the visitor center, says he enjoys the opportunity to "take people out on the farm and give them a better appreciation of American agriculture. . . . If a visitor comes in and has a specific question, and if a scientist working on that issue is free, we'll give that person the opportunity to talk to that scientist." Later, inside the Agricultural Research Service's new Horticultural Science Laboratory, Kucharski introduced us to Robert Goth, a potato virus expert.

Since the research center became an operating farm in 1910, USDA scientists in Beltsville helped develop the aerosol spray can, conducted pioneering research on growth hormones for animals, and created the plant hardiness zone map. Today, they are at the leading edge of research in developing clean compost from animal, field and construction waste; in investigating the potential of farm animals to produce pharmaceutical products; and in raising Dutch elm disease-resistant trees.

The sprawling complex includes fields where studies are ongoing to test organic methods of growing corn, soybeans and wheat. Scientists also monitor the caloric intake of cows, the movement of chemical pesticides through the soil (using buried sensors and earth-orbiting satellites), and the resistance of plants to various kinds of pollutants.

Inside greenhouses visitors can view flowers and plants grown under state-of-the-art, climate-controlled conditions.

Agricultural Research Service
National Visitor Center
Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
(301) 344-2483
Md. Rt. 212, Beltsville, Md.