This content traces the evolution of U.S. legislation and regulatory agencies from the post-World War II era through the early 2010s, highlighting key developments in agricultural policy, labor rights, civil rights, environmental protection, and food safety.
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all right
so now we're in the post
world war two or world war one era the
in the delano
franklin delano roosevelt's new deal
program this is
trying to recover from
the depression farmers are given benefit
payments in return for limiting acreage
given to staple crops this is now
something that happens in part of the
farm bill currently to this day
and so it helps with
trade it helps with prices if all of a
sudden everybody says
i want to grow wheat
and we got so much wheat the price of
wheat crashes and it's an economic
disaster and
it creates problems domestically here in
the united states it also creates
problems for trade so
so
in order to balance this out you can't
just have individual families going
bankrupt and starving to death you need
to have some sort of stabilizing factor
in the uh
uh
in the economy in the economics of
agriculture so
some growers are actually paid not to
grow things and it might sound crazy at
first but it actually makes a lot of sense
sense and
most of the farmers that i know that
have taken advantage of this not like
they're being lazy and not growing
anything or doing anything
they're still working their tails off
there are examples and i would say that
in current times corporate
interests that are taking advantage of
farm bill monies that are being paid out
i can see why that pisses off some
people and there are some things in the
farm bill that we got to look at again
it's about money it's about how we balance
balance
our money
uh the idea is supposed to be to protect
family farms which i'm all for
uh but if you've got a billion dollar
corporation do you need to protect them by
by
manipulating what they grow
um are paying them to not grow things
that's a discussion for something else
there there's some wonderful things in
the farm bill and there are some things
but we want to support our egg we do
want to support our egg we want to
support our our small family growers so
that they can
keep their head above water keep going
keep working keep doing the good work of egg
egg
uh so that's enough on that
1935 the national labor relations act
establishes the national labor relations
board there's another one of those
regulatory agencies that exists for a purpose
purpose
they form the regulations for the laws
and they exist because a law says they
must exist
here it is in 1935. now there's an
organization that looks at labor
relations issues
social security act again another huge
issue coming out of the post
depression era and
and um
um
i don't care which side of the political
aisle you sit
our congressional leadership has not
done a good job of
keeping our social security money in the
social security
uh account centers pretty much used it
as their own little personal bank
account for budgetary purposes
and that's a big problem so there's a
lot of issues with social security today
it is not a welfare type program it is
money that we as citizens pay into it is
our money as citizens and
and
that money is to provide a safety net
for the workforce
when you become too old to work
when you become sick when
if you die before
you reach retirement and you've got kids
left behind this money is there as a
safety net for
for
and it is in jeopardy from mismanagement
1938 food drug and cosmetic act passed
uh fair labor standards act establishes
the wage in our division so now we have specific
specific
looking specific rules for actual wages
and how that works lots of detail and
they're very very interesting topics
but we were
not part of it yet
so we're still moving forward we have
the federal seed act required truthful
labeling on vegetable seeds
grade standards issued for frozen peas
again trying to standardize things so
not a whole lot happened in that era
just before world war ii but
once world war ii hit that was it there
wasn't much done in terms of laws and regulations
regulations
we were kind of busy with other
priorities at the federal and state levels
levels
uh the one thing that did happen um
um
was a lot of
research as i mentioned before advances
in food production health and pest
control as well as manufacturing and
other types of things research research research
research
was going on not new laws and regulations
then there was the post-war period that
it took a few years after 1945
when the dust was settling from world
war ii it took another
several years to
get our feet on the ground start
developing the economy it was all about post-war
post-war recovery
recovery
and one of those things was the
development of the agricultural research
service what it doesn't say here and
what you need to know is the
agricultural research service is a
division within the us department of
agriculture the usda ars
ars
agricultural research service and they
have a facility right next to the
hartnell college alisal campus on east
alisal road and
and
very important they're all over the
united states and even some international
international
research locations
56 fish and wildlife act with the
commercial fisheries bureau
and sport fisheries and wildlife bureau
all of
these again trying to
stabilize the foundation
foundation
1957 the civil rights act
again i told you there were several
civil rights acts we
had a civil rights act that occurred
coming right out of this the civil war
and a lot of people think the civil
rights act you know something in the
early 60s well that was
more of a
closing of the gaps some fixing of some
problems but the real start of the civil rights
movement legislation was in 1957
earlier than people
usually are told so this was all about
voting rights and equality although
although
you know some people think voting rights
it was like voting rights got fixed in one
one one
one
act one law and no voting rights it took
so many years and so many different
things to fix
because we had voting rights not only for
for
uh blacks but for native americans for
women for all kinds of different
problems that had to be fixed and it was
fixed over a whole long period of time
but in 1957 this was
an attempt to
establish fundamental civil rights
that still
hadn't been achieved that should have
1962 so this is the beginning of the
environmental period
during the 1950s there was a whole bunch of
of
public interest in the environment in
in [Music]
[Music]
public health
in worker health and worker rights and
all of these things were
were
starting to build up in this post-world
war ii era
where yeah remember earlier i said
something about you know this was the
post-world war ii was about
prosperity and growth and and
and
everything was wonderful in this fantasy
world no it wasn't wonderful and people
this isn't right something's wrong with
how we're doing things we're growing and
and
expanding on our chemicals and research
and plastics and all these things that
are coming out of this post-world war ii era
era
it's exploding in a way that's not sustainable
sustainable
and we're taking advantage of workers
we're taking advantage of the environment
environment
uh there was a saying
back way back then the solution to
pollution is dilution
hey if you've got a bunch of poisonous
toxic stuff just throw it in the river
throw it in the ocean it'll get diluted
the earth is huge as long as we dilute
it it's fine
things are only dangerous in
concentrated amounts if you dilute it
nothing's a problem
and that
clearly wasn't true
in some ways when we have a very small population
population
or a very small amount of pollution
that maybe is true to an extent but
people started to realize this isn't right
right
so by the end of the 50s the public
already had this
undertone a bubbling fear about what's
going on in this country what are we
doing to the environment in particular
along comes a book at the perfect time
by rachel carson called silent spring
now i don't have her name on this
particular slide but her name is rachel carson
carson
and she wrote the book silent spring
specifically about
a chemical called ddt and i'm not going
to say the full name but ddt was this
miracle pesticide that really did a lot
of good in the world because it saved
arguably hundreds of thousands of people
from malaria during its use in
in
world war ii
and other diseases from
ticks and chiggers and mice and other problems
problems
it was this wonder drug it killed these
and so there was this mentality let's
just make a whole bunch more of this
and people started to realize well maybe
it's not that good for people even
though it's not directly toxic it
eventually does have some problems
but they're relatively minor in humans
it's a the problem is in the environment
and what was happening is ddt
is very persistent very stable chemical
so it stays in the environment and stays
in the fatty tissue in our bodies and in
the bodies of animals and so birds would
eat insects that were dying or didn't
quite die from the ddt and they would
build up ddt in their bodies
and because of the ddt in their bodies
it was discovered that songbirds were
laying eggs with very thin shells
and so the birds would sit on the eggs
the eggs would crack the babies would
not develop inside the egg no babies are born
born
hence the name silent spring
no songbirds being born no songbirds
singing in the spring
and it was really well received by the
public as this
awakening and awareness that we can't
keep doing things no matter
how good they may seem
on one level
ddt is wonderful in saving lives of
soldiers and citizens in
world war ii
it we can't just
blindly put things in the environment
it's dangerous
and so
silent spring
really can be looked at as the book that started
started
the environmental movement even though
it didn't really start it it just triggered
triggered
what was already welling up in our country
1963 the equal pay act provides
sex-based wage discriminate or prohibits
sex-based wage discrimination
uh so since 63 we're talking
a long time ago we're talking almost 60
years ago and we're still working on sex
page wage discrimination it's still
happening it's just illegal to do it now
people just find different ways of doing
it we're still trying to fix that
problem but at least
this is a step in the right direction in 1963.
1963.
1964 civil rights act made racial
discrimination and segregation illegal
this is the
civil rights act that most people point to
to
and when you think of uh martin luther
king jr you think of the civil rights
act you usually are thinking 1964
even though
initial
efforts started
in the 1950s
uh voting rights act of 1965 abolishes a
poll tax opening up polling or
voting rights to
people without having to
pay a poll tax
basically discriminating against people
who couldn't afford to vote
1966 the first monitoring program
established to determine the effects of
typical agricultural pesticide use again
looking at safety
age discrimination in employment act of
1967 protects individuals who are 40
years of age or older from discrimination
discrimination again
again
does it happen of course it does but at
least there's something saying you're
um nepa nepa the national environmental
policy act was passed again
again 19
19 late
late
1960s we're now starting to see the
the
effects of that environmental movement
of silent spring in 1962
it's now hitting
the federal laws and regulations we're
getting the national environmental
policy act
uh plant variety protection act we'll
talk about that at a later date
council on environmental quality
environment 1970 environmental
protection agency established a new
regulatory agency 1970 again this late
60s to early 70s all of this environmental
environmental concern
concern
in the population of the united states
is becoming law 1971
1971
occupational safety and health act
established the federal occupational
safety and health administration so the
environment isn't the only thing going
on it's also worker protection
public protection as well
employment standards administration is
established so again looking at protection
right away after that 1972 federal water
pollution control act and the clean air
act the banning of ddt i just mentioned
that with rachel carson's book
silent spring so
so boom
boom
environment environment environment
endangered species act the environment
all of this happening
in rapid succession
and this is this period right here is
richard nixon
which many of you may only know about it
and
actually he resigned before he was
impeached but
i was that whole watergate scandal and
you know a lot of people think oh he is
this evil president and this evil
uh republican anti-environment
person but
i'm certainly not going to hold him up
on a pedestal because i do not think he was
was
a good human being in many ways
but i have to give him credit he signed
legislative acts and made them law and
they are the foundation of our
um please pause and read this i'm not
going to
uh take any more time on this page but
as i mentioned before
the 80s and 90s were largely about
fixing things adding detail
making the regulations work better for
industry the law maybe didn't change
much at all but the regulations did or
um 89 the americans with disabilities
act again a very important
legislative action um
to address many discriminatory practices
93 this was under president clinton the
family medical leave act so employees employers
employers
are required if they have a certain
level of number of employees they get
the numbers 50 or more you have to grant
your eligible employees
unpaid leave during a 12-month period
for the birth of a child the care of a
newborn or an adopted child care of an
immediate family member who might be sick
sick
there are a number of reasons why you
might be able to get the
the family
family
and medical leave act 2006
2006 kaboom
kaboom
food safety has always been a modern
issue but 2006 it exploded because there
were a series of things going on that
mostly were falling under the radar but
a couple of things happened
there was an e coli outbreak that killed
a whole bunch of people
and e coli we all have it in our guts
but this particular strain of e coli is
something that creates a byproduct when
it's digesting its food that
we don't digest properly and this toxin
that we can't digest properly damages
damages
our kidneys
causes hus which is a kidney failure
disease and can kill you
and so that was one major thing social
media was another major thing and
changes in the
the
media itself the newspapers and and
and
tv news shows things like that um
um
all of the sudden people would grab on
to these food safety issues where they
weren't newsworthy before but because of
all these things coming together
the 2006 e coli outbreak
really exploded food safety into the
minds of public
and i'll talk more about that when we
2011
actually was signed in
2010 i believe but
but
it didn't become effective until 2011.
this was under obama president obama the
fda's or food and drug administration's
food safety modernization act or fisma
so it's under fda because they are the primary
primary
regulatory agency but fisma is what it
is called you need to know fsma you need
to know what fisma is food safety
modernization act it really brought food
safety to the forefront of
of
agricultural and food manufacturing
concerns this is mostly about ag production
production
and food processing it's not so much
about the restaurants and the grocery
stores although they are touched
everything is touched in the fisma act
act um
um fortunately
fortunately the
the local
local
central california
agricultural community had some very
strong voices that was able to
provide dramatic input through what's
called the leafy green marketing agreement
agreement and
and
it made
the fisma
final draft from the federal government
more realistic what the federal
government was first proposing was
absurd they had absolutely no idea how
agriculture really worked in terms of
the timing and logistics and
um the original draft of fisma was
arguably a disastrous
draft if it were to be implemented but
fortunately we were prepared
we got our voices heard
fisma largely
largely
took what we gave them for the leafy vegetables
vegetables
and berries and
and
used that
largely because we were citing fda
information going back to the 90s so we
were using their information as the
foundation for why we were making these
the government loves when you give them
something ready to go and all they have
to do is kind of massage it and
call it a law
it saves them work they're willing to do
it so
what we have now
initially a lot of growers were
panicking saying this is a bunch of crap
and i can't do this way too expensive
and this is going to bankrupt the
industry there was so much talk in 2009
10 11 all the way up until probably 2015
that i just couldn't believe how much
people were pushing back
now everybody just takes it for granted
everybody's figured it out everybody's
learned to work with it yeah there's
some problems yeah it takes some extra
uh 2016 congress approves the gmo
labeling law a bill that requires the
labeling of bioengineered food including
the option to use qr codes
i could go on about this
my background is in genetics i'm a phd
in genetics
and did agricultural genetics research
for many years before
kind of landing at hartnell in an
unexpected way but
i'll just say that
if something is a genetically modified
organism with gmo um
that doesn't mean much of anything that
is of value to the consumer people think
a lot of times gmos are unhealthy
they're unsafe
i'll talk about this at a later time but
it's a bunch of baloney it's
fear-mongering it's
it's not true
gmo really doesn't give you any useful
information on its own and the idea that
we have to label for it is absurd
but it's public
interest public pushing
um money
and fear and there are a lot of powerful
interests that wanted the labels
for marketing purposes because they
wanted to market other types of products and
and anyway
anyway
if you're scared of gmos don't be
but we'll talk about that at a later time
time so
so
that is it for the history you need to
write up a paper on this i won't remind
you on every lecture about writing up a
summary paper
um but focus on the big picture the the
eras as i describe them and are written
in the same module
module that
that
this powerpoint and video series
series
are located
and then pick out some highlights that
illustrate that
focusing especially on the ones that are
bold but just bring out some important highlights
and that's what you need to do in your paper
paper
so any questions
my cell phone
number is in the
syllabus or you can send me a canvas
inbox message
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