September 15 has repeatedly intersected with turning points in American agriculture—shaping how farms are taxed and financed, how food moves and is regulated, and how global politics and extreme weather ripple through fields, barns, and supply chains. Here are some of the most consequential “on this day” moments and why they still matter across rural America.

1794: Washington calls up the militia to quell the Whiskey Rebellion

On September 15, 1794, President George Washington issued a proclamation calling forth the militia to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. The uprising grew out of a federal excise tax enacted in 1791 on distilled spirits—a levy that fell heavily on frontier grain farmers who commonly converted bulky, hard-to-ship rye and corn into whiskey, a more transportable and often barterable product.

Washington’s action, taken under the Militia Acts of 1792, affirmed the new federal government’s authority to levy and collect taxes, even in the face of violent resistance. He later personally reviewed the troops as they marched west. The revolt collapsed without a pitched battle; a handful of leaders were tried for treason and pardoned. The whiskey tax was eventually repealed in 1802, but the episode left a lasting imprint on agricultural policy: it underscored the federal role in shaping farm economics through taxation and signaled that the young republic would enforce national policy beyond the Atlantic seaboard.

For agriculture, the rebellion highlighted enduring tensions between farm-level realities—perishability, transport costs, cash scarcity—and national revenue policy. It also foreshadowed the central place that infrastructure and markets would occupy in farm prosperity throughout the 19th century.

1959: Khrushchev lands in the U.S., setting the stage for farm diplomacy

On September 15, 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev arrived near Washington, D.C., beginning a headline-making U.S. tour. While the Cold War framed the visit, it also opened a unique window on agriculture: days later, Khrushchev toured Iowa cornfields and feedlots at the farm of Roswell Garst in Coon Rapids, an exchange that captured national attention.

The Iowa stop, born of Garst’s earlier seed sales and agronomic conversations with Soviet agronomists, showcased the productivity gains of hybrid corn, modern feeding systems, and American extension know-how. Although the marquee farm visit occurred on September 23, the diplomatic door that swung open on the 15th helped normalize agricultural exchanges between the superpowers—an arc that would, years later, include massive U.S. grain shipments to the USSR in the 1970s. The episode remains a touchstone in the idea that farm technology and trade can be conduits for détente as well as commerce.

2022: A rail strike is averted—keeping harvest season moving

In the pre-dawn hours of September 15, 2022, the White House announced a tentative agreement between major freight railroads and labor unions, averting a strike that could have begun the next day. For agriculture, the timing was critical: September is the front edge of corn and soybean harvest across the Midwest, a period when elevators, ethanol plants, feed mills, and exporters rely on railcars to move grain and on-time deliveries of fertilizer, diesel exhaust fluid, and other inputs.

Industry groups had warned that even a short disruption would back up country elevators, depress local cash bids, strain storage, and choke export schedules at Gulf and Pacific Northwest terminals. The tentative deal kept trains running and gave policymakers and shippers breathing room. While longer-term labor issues continued into the winter, the September 15 agreement prevented immediate, cascading impacts on farm cash flow and logistics during one of the most time-sensitive stretches of the crop year.

2006: Spinach E. coli crisis galvanizes modern produce safety

Mid-September 2006 marked a watershed in produce safety. On September 14, federal health officials warned consumers to avoid fresh spinach due to a multistate outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 traced to bagged greens from California’s Salinas Valley. By September 15, recalls were underway nationwide and retailers had pulled product from shelves.

The crisis led to sweeping changes that still shape leafy greens fields today. California and Arizona growers created the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreements in 2007, codifying on-farm food safety practices, verification audits, and water and wildlife hazard controls. The episode also accelerated momentum for the federal Food Safety Modernization Act’s produce safety rule, which later set baseline national standards for agricultural water, worker hygiene, and postharvest sanitation. For consumers and growers alike, those tense September days reframed expectations about traceability, testing, and accountability in fresh produce.

2018: Florence’s inland floods inundate farms in the Carolinas

On September 15, 2018, as the remnants of Hurricane Florence stalled over the Carolinas, torrential rain began inundating rural communities, fields, and livestock operations across eastern North Carolina and parts of South Carolina. Rivers rose for days, submerging corn and sweet potato fields near harvest, flooding poultry and hog barns, and overtopping some manure lagoons.

The disaster intensified debates over disaster preparedness, manure management, and the siting of concentrated animal feeding operations in flood-prone watersheds. It also stressed the safety nets farmers rely on—from crop insurance and conservation programs to emergency cost-share for carcass disposal and debris removal. Florence’s inland flooding underscored a new reality for agriculture: storms are not only coastal events, and their most destructive impacts can arrive far from landfall, days later, through watersheds that bind towns and farms together.

What ties these moments together

Though separated by centuries and circumstances, these September 15 milestones trace the contours of American agriculture’s enduring challenges and adaptive capacity. From taxation and federal authority to science-driven productivity, from the fragility and resilience of supply chains to the rigor of food safety and the force of extreme weather, each episode shows how policy, technology, and risk management converge on the farm gate.

They also highlight a consistent lesson: changes that begin far from the field—the stroke of a presidential pen, a diplomatic arrival, a labor accord, a pathogen’s emergence, a stalled storm—can quickly determine what gets planted, harvested, shipped, and served at the table.