The County Department of Agriculture was created on June 6,1881 by the Board of Supervisors, when they appointed the first three members to the County Board of Horticulture, S.E.A. Palmer, Anson Van Leuvan and Dr. S.R. McGee. San Bernardino County was the first of seventeen counties to act on the 1881 State law creating these Boards in an effort to eradicate codling moth, scale pests and other insect pests of fruit trees and to prevent the spread of these pests by inspections and quarantines. The Board of Horticultural Commissioners governed the Department until 1929, when the Board was consolidated into a single person, John P. Coy, the first Agricultural Commissioner.

The County Department of Weights and Measures was created in 1915 in response to California's Weights and Measures Act of 1913. This act established regular testing of scales and measures, required the County to appoint a person to perform these duties and provided that the person be paid five dollars per day. Prior to this act, inspection of scales and measures was a responsibility of the County Clerk. J.M. Bracewell was the first Sealer appointed by the County.

In 1993, the Board of Supervisors combined the Agriculture and Weights and Measures departments in an effort to reduce costs and increase service delivery to the residents of the County and appointed Edouard Layaye as the County's first Agricultural Commissioner/Sealer.

While many of the Agricultural Commissioner/Sealer's duties of exotic pest control, pest detection, plant quarantine inspections and testing scales remain the same now as they were over 120 years ago, regulating pesticides, enforcing produce and egg quality, regulating nurseries, export certification, testing gasoline pumps and checking price scanners have been added. Increased population and the volume and speed of transporting people and commodities make today's job of preventing pests, ensuring marketplace equity and regulating the agricultural industry more critical and difficult than in years gone by.