As early as 1937, the Technion gave courses in agricultural engineering. The Technion’s agriculture program provided technical assistance to the agricultural settlements and kibbutzim. The Hydraulics Department researchers helped turn aquaculture – fishponds – into industry.
In 1953, the department of agricultural engineering was established by Walter Clay Lowdermilk. Lowdermilk, born in the United States, studied geology and forestry, and in 1938 he was sent on a research trip to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. He was not Jewish and had scant knowledge about Zionism. After seeing the Jewish settlement in Israel and its contribution to the preservation of the land, he became a follower of the Zionist movement. In 1953 he helped establish the Department of Agricultural Engineering and headed it. In June 1957, he retired from teaching at the Technion and left Israel. In 1959, the Department of Agricultural Engineering was named for Laudermilk. The four-year program of studies in the department included one year spent at Hebrew University’s Faculty of Agriculture. The four-part curriculum included rural power and mechanization, land and water, rural electricity, and rural buildings. Later, with the decrease in the number of students, the faculty became a unit within the Department of Civil Engineering.