The College of Agriculture became an administrative unit at LSU in 1908. But our roots go back to the first graduating class which had as one of its five graduates, a planter. While the mission of the college has changed and evolved over the last century, the commitment to agricultural production in the state of Louisiana remains the common thread that binds the College's past and future. The primary mission of the college - teaching - is an integral part of the university’s land grant responsibilities. The other components of the university’s agricultural land grant mission, research and service, are the primary responsibility of the LSU Agricultural Center. Many of the faculty of the college are jointly appointed with the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station or the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service, the research and service arms of the LSU Agricultural Center. The relationship between teaching, research, and service is a hallmark of the land grant system and an underlying aspect of the long-range plan for the College of Agriculture. The teaching programs in the college have evolved from a focus solely on production agriculture to a comprehensive array of programs beginning with the production of food and fiber products to new technologies in the areas of environment, natural resources, nutrition, human resources, biotechnology, agribusiness, food quality, value added products, consumer science, quantitative science, and global competitiveness.