Sid Miller, Tarleton State University Alumni, is now serving his second term as Texas Commissioner of Agriculture. He graduated from Tarleton with a Bachelor of Science degree in Vocational Ag Education. 

Commissioner Miller is an eighth generation farmer and rancher and his agricultural and farming roots tie back to the 1700’s here in the United States. 

“Agriculture has been in my family for eight generations, it just kinda becomes part of your DNA,” Commissioner Miller stated. 

The commissioner of agriculture serves in four year terms. Prior to his position as Agriculture Commissioner, Miller spent six years as a Texas lawmaker in the Texas house.

“I oversee a six billion dollar budget, that’s with a B. We do everything agriculture, cows, sows and plows,” Commissioner Miller said. “We’re also the consumer protection agency. We oversee all weights and measures, like scales and anything sold by volume and length or measurement. My largest division is nutrition, I’m responsible for five million school meals each day. Along with summer feeding programs, adult feeding programs, nursing homes, meals on wheels, area food banks, etcetera.”

Commissioner Miller has been serving since January of 2015. He is seeking to re-elect for the same term in 2022. Since his time in 2015, he has made big changes as well as installed programs to increase marketing.

“We run a program called the Gold Texas Program, we market that around the globe. I even have an office in Argentina. The first 12 months of my administration we were on every continent on the globe marketing Texas products,” Commissioner Miller added.

Texas agriculture and the industry as a whole are constantly evolving. New technologies are being produced nearly everyday and the industry is always figuring out a way to produce more with less. Commissioner Miller has since coined the term, “Agriculture 3.0,” and refers to it as our current agricultural state.

“Agriculture 1.0 was subsistence farming; one man, a mule and 40 acres. We moved from that to the age of mechanization, I call that agriculture 2.0. Where we had tractors and one farmer could farm a thousand acres or more with combines and tractors,” Commissioner Miller said. “Recently we’ve come to agriculture 3.0, it’s the age of technology where it’s not just a farmer sitting on a tractor. We have automatic milkers in our dairies, driverless tractors, drones doing aerial spraying and mapping and satellite images. It’s a lot more relying on technology now than mechanization.”

As a Texas legislator, one of Commissioner Miller’s goals was to help enhance Tarleton Agriculture and the university as a whole. A few of his projects included the Nursing Program and the Dairy Center. 

“The new technology center out at the Tarleton Farm is now gonna play a big part in Agriculture 3.0. That’s where new technologies are going to be developed and implemented. That’s why Tarleton is such an important agriculture college. They’re gonna shape the future of agriculture through that new building and the assets they have there,” Commissioner Miller said. 

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, approximately 10% of farms in the United States are established by beginning farmers (first generation). The USDA defines beginning farmers and ranchers as people who have worked on or managed a farm and ranch for 10 years or less. 

“Not everyone can start with a section of land and a $200,000 combine or tractor, but anyone who wants to start in agriculture can. This may shock some of your readers, the average farm in Texas is not getting bigger, it’s actually getting smaller,” Commissioner Miller stated.

With the industry becoming smaller and smaller, the value of agriculture classes becomes greater. Upon graduation from Tarleton State University, Miller spent his first five years out of college as an Ag Teacher. Though Miller never intends to mandate agricultural education classes, he highly values what the classes instill in today’s youth.

“FFA and agriculture classes are invaluable. That’s where leadership is taught. As a former FFA advisor and 4H leader, I like to tell everyone that the greatest natural resource we have in Texas is not oil and gas, it’s our youth,” Commissioner Miller commented.

According to ballotpedia.org, Texas will hold elections for agriculture commissioner Nov. 8, 2022. The election primaries are scheduled for March 1, 2022. 

In June of 2021, Sid Miller announced that he would be seeking re-election for his third term. Commissioner Miller has publicly announced that he believes he’s met the needs of Texas Agriculture. 

“Agriculture has always been the glue that has held Texas together,” Commissioner Miller said. “It’s the backbone of Texas still to this day, it’s very vital to our state.”

For more information about beginning farmers and ranchers or how to get started, visit www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/. For more information regarding Sid Miller and his current role in office visit www.texasagriculture.gov/About/CommissionerMiller.