Wofford Benjamin Camp

Wofford Benjamin Camp (1894 to 1986), known as Bill, was a USDA agronomist who did much to build the California cotton industry and corporate farming. Born in Cherokee County, South Carolina, he took an agronomy degree at Clemson in 1916 and joined the USDA Cotton Breeding Office, which sent him to California in 1917 to develop long-staple cotton for aircraft fabric in the First World War. At the Shafter station in Kern County he tested 96 varieties from around the world, chose Egyptian Pima, and after the war switched the state to the Acala 8 variety, pushed for mechanized ginning and won a one variety law in 1924. He worked briefly for the Bank of Italy in 1928, oversaw the cotton program of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration from 1933, and in 1936 left the USDA to found W. B. Camp and Son, a diversified farming operation in Kern County.