August 28 has repeatedly been a hinge date for U.S. agriculture—marking shifts in how the nation prices food, how farms endure disaster, and how civil-rights milestones reverberate across rural communities. From wartime price controls to hurricanes that redrew coastlines and flooded fields, and a landmark march that reshaped the policy climate for farmers of color, the date has left a durable imprint on the agricultural landscape.

Price controls and ration books: the day the OPA was born (1941)

On August 28, 1941, the federal government created the Office of Price Administration (OPA) by executive order, launching an unprecedented effort to stabilize prices and supplies as the nation prepared for and then entered World War II. The move had immediate and sweeping consequences for agriculture.

The OPA set ceilings on prices for a wide range of goods, including staples produced on American farms—meat, dairy, sugar, coffee, canned fruits and vegetables, and more. The goal was to prevent inflation and ensure equitable access to essentials despite wartime disruptions. Ration books, red and blue point systems, and retail price postings became everyday features of the food economy, while black markets and enforcement actions became part of the period’s lore.

For farmers, price ceilings were only half the story. To keep production strong, USDA and allied wartime agencies used “parity” concepts and commodity support programs to guarantee returns sufficient to cover rising costs. The War Food Administration (established in 1943) coordinated with the OPA to balance the needs of the home front, the military, and allies abroad. Farmers expanded output, adopted conservation measures to protect scarce inputs like rubber and fuel, and navigated labor shortages with everything from mechanization to the recruitment of seasonal workers.

The OPA’s August 28 founding thus marks a turning point: it formalized the federal government’s modern role in stabilizing food prices and supplies during crisis—an experience that still informs how policymakers think about supply chains, food access, and farm income support when shocks occur.

A tide that rewrote the coast: the 1893 Sea Islands Hurricane (1893)

On August 27–28, 1893, a powerful hurricane struck the South Carolina and Georgia sea islands, sending a devastating storm surge across low-lying fields and communities. Known as the Sea Islands Hurricane, it ranks among the deadliest Atlantic storms to hit the United States, and it left an indelible mark on coastal agriculture.

Saltwater swept across rice fields and cotton lands, breaching dikes and embankments that had been painstakingly maintained for generations. Livestock drowned, equipment was lost, and soils were inundated with salt, rendering many acres unfit for planting for years. The disaster accelerated long-running structural shifts: lowcountry rice culture, already under pressure after the Civil War and by changing markets, suffered blows from which it never fully recovered, hastening the center of U.S. rice production’s move to the Gulf Coast and, later, California.

The human toll was immense, especially among Gullah-Geechee communities whose livelihoods were intertwined with those tidal landscapes. Relief efforts led by the American Red Cross under Clara Barton included not only emergency food and shelter but also the distribution of seeds, tools, and small boats—early examples of organized agricultural disaster relief aimed at helping farmers replant and restore.

As today’s coastal producers confront sea-level rise and stronger storms, the Sea Islands Hurricane stands as an early, stark lesson in how a single surge can reorder both land use and rural economies.

Hurricane Irene inundates Northeast farms (2011)

On August 28, 2011, Hurricane Irene—downgraded to a tropical storm in parts of its path—pushed north into the Mid-Atlantic and New England, delivering torrential rains and catastrophic inland flooding. For agriculture in states like Vermont, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the timing could not have been worse: many diversified vegetable farms, orchards, and dairy operations were at peak season.

Raging rivers overtopped banks, scouring topsoil, depositing silt and debris, and cutting new channels through fields. Food-safety rules require that produce that has come into contact with floodwaters be discarded, so entire harvests were sometimes lost overnight, even when crops appeared intact. Orchards suffered windfall losses and damaged tree structure; dairy farms faced washed-out lanes, interrupted milk pickup, and ruined feed supplies.

In the weeks that followed, state agencies and USDA designated disaster areas and mobilized emergency programs—low-interest loans, conservation assistance for streambank repair, and technical support to restore soils and infrastructure. Irene also accelerated adoption of on-farm resilience practices: strategically sited high tunnels and greenhouses, elevated electrical and cold-storage systems, reinforced river buffers, and revised field layouts that account for flood paths and evacuation routes.

For many Northeastern producers, August 28 became a reference point—a reminder that in a warming climate, water risk is not just coastal and not just a late-fall hurricane problem.

A civil-rights turning point with rural echoes (1963)

August 28, 1963, brought the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where hundreds of thousands gathered and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” address. Though remembered as an urban moment on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the march’s aims and impacts ran straight through rural America.

Rural Black farmers and sharecroppers, long entangled in discriminatory lending and market access barriers, were part of the movement’s fabric. The civil-rights milestones that followed—especially the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—shifted the policy environment around USDA programs, land tenure, cooperative extension, and rural development. Decades later, class action cases like Pigford v. Glickman would confront documented discrimination in federal farm lending, underscoring how the struggle for equal rights carried specific meaning on the farm.

By situating economic justice alongside civil rights, the March on Washington placed agricultural livelihoods firmly within the broader quest for opportunity—a connection that continues to shape debates over access to credit, heirs’ property, and technical assistance for underserved producers.

Why August 28 still matters to agriculture

The threads running through these August 28 moments are strikingly contemporary. Wartime price controls and supply management inform how policymakers weigh interventions when shocks hit the food system. Coastal and inland storm impacts, from the Sea Islands Hurricane to Irene, foreshadow the resilience investments farms now make in the face of climate volatility. And the civil-rights legacy of 1963 continues to guide efforts to ensure that federal farm programs reach producers equitably.

History does not repeat, but on this late-August date it has often rhymed—reminding the country that stable food systems depend on fair rules, robust infrastructure, and communities empowered to adapt when the weather, the market, or the law changes course.