0:06 and after my
0:07 my
0:09 1.5 second break
0:17 so what do i want to say about history
0:19 i'm going to go through a lot of things
0:20 and i'm going to go through it fairly quickly
0:24 i've
0:27 made a lot of things bold
0:29 it's bold i really want you to pay
0:32 attention or if i speak about it at any
0:35 length pay attention to what i say
0:37 the things that are important i
0:39 generally say or make it bold in some
0:42 way call your attention to
0:44 you are responsible to read this stuff
0:48 not just listen to me and ignore
0:51 the pages
0:54 um i'm not going to read this to you i'm
0:56 not going to say
0:58 anything about the viewpoint of this
1:01 this is strictly a cut and dry look at
1:03 the united states history through the
1:05 lens of what was going on with agriculture
1:07 agriculture
1:09 i'm not going to talk about imperialism settlement
1:11 settlement
1:14 social issues with the native americans or
1:14 or
1:16 anything like that that's a different
1:17 class and i don't want to get
1:19 sidetracked we have too much to talk about
1:20 about
1:22 really important issues really important
1:25 in our history but i'm gonna
1:27 be looking through the straw
1:29 looking at agriculture and things that
1:32 affect ag business
1:35 so essentially north america became this
1:40 refuge became this place
1:42 where you were quote free
1:46 and to do what you wanted um
1:48 freedom of religion freedom to have your
1:50 own communities and
1:53 it was a different mentality from again
1:56 a european settler standpoint that brought
1:59 the uh
2:05 the bulk of people
2:08 here that formed what we now know as the
2:10 united states
2:12 and so it was all about agriculture
2:15 hunting producing crops timber meat hides
2:16 hides
2:18 the one thing that's not there is
2:20 fisheries and all of those are agriculture
2:21 agriculture
2:23 timber which is lumber building wood
2:26 that is agriculture forest management
2:27 and timber is agriculture
2:32 cows pigs sheep
2:35 agriculture wool from sheep that's agriculture
2:37 agriculture um
2:39 um hunting
2:40 hunting
2:43 that's agriculture trapping beavers
2:45 that's agriculture all of those things
2:48 are considered agriculture we forget
2:50 about a lot of the broader sense of what
2:52 is agriculture
2:55 the pants i'm wearing are made of cotton
2:57 these pants are agriculture the table
3:00 i'm sitting at is wood this table is
3:02 agriculture okay uh
3:04 uh
3:06 there really wasn't much
3:09 except agriculture
3:11 in the early united states
3:12 there were small businesses you know you
3:15 have the the saloon the tavern or the
3:18 uh churches and the um
3:21 local stores
3:23 so there are businesses to support
3:25 things that uh
3:28 could arguably arguably be
3:30 not part of agriculture but the vast
3:32 majority of the early u.s was
3:39 supply and demand tells us that farms
3:42 and farming methods improved the supply
3:44 of food increased prices sag
3:47 a lot of people growing a lot of people farming
3:48 farming
3:50 you got too many people
3:52 learning how to do things learning to do
3:55 a pretty good job getting better at it
3:58 and all of a sudden boom
4:00 you got a whole lot of product
4:03 and the ability to sell that product to
4:05 somebody becomes
4:07 more difficult
4:10 so fewer people are needed on farms
4:14 the production farmers to non-farmers or
4:20 take three the proportion of farmers to
4:22 non-farmers declined so there are fewer
4:25 farmers needed to support the population
4:26 and we've been going on that downhill
4:29 trend since
4:32 probably the
4:38 and the history of the regulation
4:41 is really intertwined with agriculture
4:42 in a big way
4:44 laws and regulations in the united states
4:46 states
4:49 is a history of agriculture
4:50 until we get to modern times where it
4:54 doesn't feel like it is anymore
4:56 but essentially all of a sudden this
4:58 huge increase in farming production in
5:01 this new powerhouse of agriculture and
5:04 trade as we were trading with
5:06 other countries
5:08 we were trading with
5:10 partners north and south of us as well
5:12 as back in the european
5:13 european
5:16 uh homeland for a lot of the people who
5:18 were here um
5:18 um
5:29 even though i
5:33 i understand that looking at the
5:36 u.s history from a european perspective is
5:42 something that bothers a lot of people
5:45 it is the reality of what happened
5:48 in agriculture and trade it is that
5:51 relationship that brought the people
5:55 here and created the economic trade
5:56 that grew
5:58 to become the united states
6:01 now all of a sudden we have this
6:03 fledgling country that's getting
6:09 many fewer farmers than
6:11 originally were needed before everybody
6:14 was a farmer or somehow connected to
6:16 farming and now you can do other
6:18 businesses and other jobs and
6:23 and um you can have the
6:26 this blacksmith and the um
6:26 um
6:30 textile maker and the
6:32 dressmaker and you know all the other
6:34 things that are needed to create a community
6:40 but also
6:41 there's no
6:44 laws there's no regulations for all of
6:47 this it's kind of
6:48 i guess
6:50 it's not really a good way of putting
6:52 but the wild west of of
6:53 of
6:56 growing things there are no rules so
6:56 so [Music]
6:59 [Music]
7:02 a lot of things started to happen to
7:05 put into place some basic
7:07 laws and regulations some rules the
7:09 country realized that were
7:12 our country's success is really on the
7:15 backs of agriculture our economic power
7:18 is our grain and our cost and our trade
7:21 ability to take this agricultural
7:22 product and
7:25 trade it for value and
7:31 uh and
7:32 and
7:34 you can't separate
7:36 separate
7:37 agriculture in the history of the united
7:41 states from the wars that occurred
7:43 during the formation of this country the
7:46 revolutionary war the mexican war
7:48 really established
7:50 the start of what the united states was
7:52 going to be [Music]
7:54 [Music]
7:56 it created
7:59 the land that we call the united states largely
8:01 largely
8:03 and so what do you now have
8:07 more need for more agriculture
8:10 and more demand for more products people need
8:11 need
8:13 horses and they need their horses to be
8:15 shot they need
8:18 wagons they need clothes they need
8:21 cups and plates and shovels and
8:23 all kinds of things
8:24 and so now there's industry
8:26 industry
8:28 and you gotta feed everybody you gotta
8:29 clothe everybody so this industry is
8:31 primarily still
8:34 agriculture with supporting things
8:35 things
8:40 you also have all of these young men
8:43 they're also the women that are uh
8:44 uh crucial
8:45 crucial
8:47 to these
8:50 wartimes that are doing
8:54 unsung work the backbone of work to
8:56 to help
9:01 the young men who are
9:02 out there
9:09 then what was it 1849
9:11 go 49ers
9:14 1849 the big gold rush the famous gold
9:17 rush and that just
9:20 exploded more growth
9:30 the civil war boom
9:31 boom
9:33 huge impact
9:34 in terms of
9:37 land rules agriculture
9:44 popular and political views and the
9:47 president and his his administration
9:49 also define the shape
9:51 our defined and shaped laws and regulations
9:52 regulations
9:54 in agriculture and in other fields that
9:56 affect agriculture so for example
9:59 president woodrow wilson
10:01 signed laws establishing the parameters
10:03 of the department of labor and its functions
10:05 functions
10:08 franklin roosevelt signed many economic
10:09 and social measures during the depression
10:11 depression
10:13 president richard nixon signed the clean
10:16 air act clean water act and endangered
10:19 species act so the most
10:24 powerful fundamental foundation of our
10:26 laws that are
10:28 to protect the environment were signed under
10:29 under
10:31 by the republican president nixon and i
10:34 think a lot of people think that
10:36 uh you know environmental laws it's all a
10:41 democratic kind of
10:43 an issue
10:46 arguably today that is certainly largely
10:49 true but
10:50 back in
10:53 the days of richard nixon he's the one who
10:54 who
10:57 was in that chair who signed
10:58 those three
11:02 foundational laws that exist today
11:06 which protect our environment
11:08 so don't get caught up in
11:10 red versus blue right versus left
11:13 republican versus democrat
11:15 those are important issues to talk about
11:19 but it is a moving fluid
11:21 issue over time
11:24 lots of things change within those discussions
11:29 from its beginning the usda was
11:32 dedicated to assisting farmers
11:35 as the population became better informed
11:37 and more literate meaning ability to
11:39 read and write
11:41 more affluent they had more money it
11:43 turned its attention to rules that would
11:45 protect itself
11:49 the late 1800s and early 1900s saw more
11:50 information published through the growth
11:52 of newspapers etc
11:54 etc and
11:56 and
11:59 so there's this huge foundation
12:01 of laws that created the usda that
12:04 created some rules for
12:07 uh agriculture and trade that created
12:10 the ability of agriculture because it is
12:14 the powerhouse the
12:16 the united states recognized that its
12:19 position in the world as a country that
12:22 mattered in the world depended on other
12:24 countries having confidence in our
12:27 product and the willingness to buy and
12:30 trade for our product
12:32 in order to do that we had to
12:34 have the laws and regulations and
12:37 enforcement to say that yeah we've got
12:44 and it worked
12:47 and we became a very successful
12:50 agricultural trade powerhouse
12:53 in the world
12:55 but after this initial period lawmakers
12:58 began to enact laws to regulate
13:00 businesses particularly in regard to the
13:02 quality of product and selling of those products
13:03 products
13:05 really to
13:08 this
13:11 not only image but the reality that we have
13:12 have
13:14 good product
13:16 we regulate control
13:17 control
13:19 and standardize our product in a way
13:21 that makes
13:24 trade international trade and interstate trade
13:26 trade
13:28 something that is dependable
13:34 the appearance of federal laws
13:36 regulating agriculture and related
13:40 businesses follows a certain pattern
13:42 so an early rush
13:46 in the 1800s up to world war one
13:48 with some trailing creation of laws in
13:50 the 1920s so that's the
13:53 the foundational regulation the
13:56 beginning the getting things started
13:58 started
14:00 there was very very little
14:02 done prior
14:06 to the civil war there wasn't much in place
14:07 place
14:10 so a whole bunch was done late eighteen
14:13 hundreds up to world war one
14:15 then the depression era now all of a
14:17 sudden it's like wow we need to shore up
14:20 the economy we need to fix
14:21 fix
14:24 things to help out our farmers
14:26 agricultural improvements and laws
14:28 supporting research and development
14:31 increased during and after world war ii and
14:32 and
14:34 that was a
14:38 an era of an explosion in research and
14:41 understanding and science
14:44 we understood that we needed to compete
14:47 in order to not be swallowed up during
14:50 world war ii we needed to develop
14:52 better ways of doing things better ways
14:55 to make rubber better ways to grow crops
14:56 better ways to
14:57 to
14:59 design and build a tractor everything
15:01 everything
15:03 material science
15:05 agricultural science
15:07 uh chemistry
15:16 explored in whole new ways
15:18 in the years just prior to
15:21 and through world war ii and then it
15:24 continued on afterward um
15:26 um
15:28 so we get into the 1950s
15:29 and 60s
15:32 it was this post-war growth and
15:34 prosperity period for the united states
15:36 again that's
15:40 looking through a very very far away
15:43 lens we're looking at it as the
15:46 country's economy is growing as we're
15:49 developing new methods and sciences
15:51 exploding and [Music]
15:52 [Music]
15:54 you get in closer and you realize
15:57 there's all kinds of problems socially
16:00 not everybody is writing that prosperity
16:02 and growth
16:05 curve a lot of people are not huge
16:07 amounts of
16:10 social injustices going on but
16:11 at the
16:13 higher level just looking at the growth
16:16 of the country
16:17 it was huge
16:20 the idea that we have this romanticized
16:23 image of the 50s and 60s that
16:29 there was opportunity for
16:31 everyone maybe everyone didn't
16:34 get it but there was opportunity and
16:36 there was growth and there was money
16:39 there was this new thing that never
16:44 existed before called the middle class
16:46 that was new
16:49 and arguably the the middle class did
16:51 start largely during the industrial
16:58 world war ii but
17:01 the idea of a recognized large middle
17:07 and without getting into the social injustice
17:08 injustice and
17:09 and
17:12 disparities between different groups in
17:15 the country it certainly was an area an
17:18 area of growth an era of growth with
17:19 with
17:23 a new thing to aspire to the middle class
17:27 prosperity combined with increasing
17:29 environmental awareness produced a spurt
17:31 of environmental laws
17:34 in the late 60s and the 70s so it's not
17:37 just the environment that was a huge
17:40 change but it also continued with
17:43 worker safety worker rights and
17:44 and
17:47 things of that sort
17:49 and it put a lot of new requirements on
17:52 farmers during those 60s and 70s that's
17:54 the environmental era
17:56 by the 80s the basic laws were largely
17:59 in place and the focus shifted to
18:01 regulatory implementation and to
18:04 amendments to establish law fixing
18:06 things making it work modernizing
18:09 modernizing
18:12 adding detail to the regulation that was
18:24 so
18:28 1860s farmers made up 58 of the labor force
18:30 force by
18:31 by
18:35 1862 the usda was created by
18:39 president lincoln who signed it into law
18:42 the same year the moral land grant
18:44 college act
18:45 was authorized
18:47 so there are lots of land grant colleges
18:50 they exist to this day
18:52 based on this
18:53 effort to create
18:56 create
19:00 universities and organizations of higher learning
19:02 learning
19:04 focused primarily on agriculture
19:06 agricultural research and agricultural
19:09 learning the homestead act past
19:12 encouraging new settlement trying to increase
19:13 increase
19:16 settlement and need for agriculture
19:19 moving or pushing
19:27 uh and as i mentioned before
19:28 i'm going to make certain things bold
19:30 and i'm going to skip some things if i
19:32 skip something
19:35 pause and read it
19:37 so if the gainfully employed persons 47.4
19:39 47.4
19:43 were engaged in agriculture in 1807.
19:45 that's the first time in american
19:48 history that farmers were less than 50
19:52 percent based on data
19:53 data
19:55 being collected at the time
19:59 and so it was a shift prior to the 1870s
20:01 there were more farmers than anything else
20:02 else
20:04 and some points it was a lot more
20:08 and we crossed paths about 1870
20:11 where farmers are less now farmers are
20:15 way less than half of the population um
20:16 um
20:20 1875 civil rights act of 1875 some
20:22 people think civil rights well isn't
20:24 that something that occurred
20:27 in the 1960s uh
20:28 uh
20:30 yeah there's a lot of civil rights acts
20:32 not a lot but there's several
20:34 and the first one uh
20:35 uh
20:38 1875 the reconstruction era law to
20:40 protect all citizens
20:42 in their civil and legal rights did it have
20:43 have
20:46 sufficient impact oh hell
20:50 no in many forms you know here we are
20:52 post civil war but in many forms slavery
21:00 different models different names but it
21:12 we had more civil rights that'll be
21:14 coming up
21:19 uh so here's agriculture in terms of the
21:21 growth domestic product
21:23 you can see that agriculture is going
21:25 down not because it's literally going
21:28 down in value this is a percentage
21:30 if it was value agriculture would be
21:32 going up
21:34 but as a percentage it's going down
21:37 because industry
21:39 is taking up more
21:40 more
21:43 not a whole lot more but industry is
21:44 taking up more
21:47 in uh modern times again this is not the
21:49 whole history of the united states this
21:50 is the history of
21:51 of
21:54 more modern period
21:56 but it's the services industry
21:58 in more recent years so this is what's
22:00 going on now
22:01 now
22:04 services industry is exploding in many
22:07 ways uh industries increasing
22:08 to a
22:10 smaller extent
22:12 and that's been taking um
22:14 um
22:16 the percentage of the total gross
22:18 domestic product
22:20 for the economic
22:22 earnings of the country
22:29 so 1880
22:30 1880 [Music]
22:32 [Music]
22:35 state board of viticulture
22:38 gotta love those wine guys 1883
22:39 methods developed to detect food adulteration
22:42 adulteration
22:44 which is a precursor to the food pure
22:47 food and drug act
22:49 something that's very important again a
22:52 food adulteration is adding
22:53 something changing something doing
22:55 something that would be unhealthy and sanitary
22:56 sanitary and
22:58 and uh
23:03 very important to have
23:05 economic power
23:08 if you don't
23:10 have the the ability to guarantee that
23:12 products are
23:14 safe unadulterated
23:16 it's you're not going to get there so
23:18 this is again a foundation in the late 1800s
23:20 1800s
23:23 for pure food 1889 department of
23:26 agriculture is given cabinet status what
23:28 does that mean if you're given cabinet status
23:30 status
23:35 that means you have a person a
23:37 leader your main
23:39 leader for your group
23:42 is in the president's cabinet you are
23:46 one of the people who
23:48 is a direct advisor directly to the
23:51 president of the united states
23:52 so that means that the department of
23:55 agriculture the usda hasn't
23:56 hasn't
23:58 has a director a leader that is
24:00 appointed by the president
24:02 when a new president comes in they can
24:04 either keep the same one if the person
24:07 is somebody they want or they can
24:09 appoint their own person and that person
24:10 then has
24:12 personal private
24:15 one-on-one ability to communicate
24:17 directly with the president of the
24:19 united states it's a big deal
24:22 agriculture is that big of a deal
24:24 uh biological control used to control
24:26 cottony cushion scale on citrus and
24:29 california so we think that bio control
24:31 methods is something that's very modern but
24:33 but
24:35 the concept of biological control
24:44 1890 the sherman antitrust act so
24:47 the the sherman antitrust act means that
24:50 businesses are not allowed to come
24:52 together to collaborate
24:54 collaborate
24:58 to do things that would fix prices or somehow
24:59 somehow
25:02 monopolize the market take advantage of
25:08 if you are
25:11 a company that's way too big you control
25:12 the market you can be broken up into
25:14 smaller pieces or
25:16 if you have
25:18 you know three oil companies that
25:21 control ninety percent of the market and
25:23 they decide to get together and fix
25:26 prices well who who can do anything
25:27 about it
25:30 so they artificially inflate prices
25:32 based on a conversation that happened
25:36 over a cigar and brandy in the back room
25:39 is that fair no
25:41 has it happened sure
25:43 now it's illegal you get caught doing
25:45 that kind of thing
25:48 the sherman anti-trust act
25:54 uh
25:58 1899 california pioneered the fight to
26:00 keep the mexican fruit fly out of the
26:02 united states so we've been battling
26:04 insects from
26:06 other areas trying to inspect crops and
26:10 keep things out for uh
26:16 1905.
26:18 let me take another quick break right back
