User:Dialectric/temp-ag

Indigenous Peoples
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Indigenous peoples of California, with diverse societies mainly reliant on hunter-gatherer methods, practiced seed collection and forest gardening. Some California hunter-gatherer tribes, including the Owens Valley Paiute, developed irrigation.

Spanish and Mexican period (1769-1846)
In the late 1700s, Franciscan missionaries established Spanish missions in California. Like earlier missions established in Baja California, these missions were surrounded by agricultural land, growing crops and raising animals originating from Europe. Indigenous workers from Baja California made up a large part of the initial construction and agricultural labor force of these missions. In the early 1800s, this flow of laborers from Baja California had largely stopped, and the missions relied on converts from local tribes. By 1806, over 20,000 Mission Indians were "attached" to the California missions. As missions were expected to become largely self-sufficient, Farming was a critically important Mission industry. George Vancouver visited Mission San Buenaventura in 1793 and noted the wide variety of crops grown: apples, pears, plums, figs, oranges, grapes, peaches, pomegranates, plantain, banana, coconut, sugar cane, indigo, various herbs, and prickly pear. Livestock was raised for meat, wool, leather, and tallow, and for cultivating the land. In 1832, at the height of their prosperity, the missions collectively owned over 150,000 cattle and over 120,000 sheep. They also raised horses, goats, and pigs.

While the Spanish were the most successful farmers active in California in the early 1800s, they were not the only ones. In 1812, the Russians established Fort Ross in what is now Sonoma County, California, and intended the fort in part as an agricultural supply point for other Russian activity on the west coast. Despite Russian plans for the colony, agriculture at Fort Ross had low yields, significantly lower than the California missions. These low yields resulted from issues including inefficient farming methods, labour shortages, coastal fog, and rodents.

The Spanish (1784–1810) and Mexican (1819–1846) governments made a large number of land grants to private individuals from 1785 to 1846. These Ranchos of California included land taken from the missions following the 1830s government-imposed secularisation. The Ranchos were focused on cattle ranching, and hides and tallow for the California hide trade were their main product. There was no market for large quantities of beef, especially in the days prior to refrigeration, railroads or ice production.

US Control
The demand for beef rose rapidly with the Gold Rush, and the influx of miners and other fortune seekers flooded into northern California. Cattle prices soared with demand.

A shift in the economic dominance of grain farming over cattle raising was marked by the passage of the California "No-Fence Law" of 1874. This repealed the Trespass Act of 1850, which had required farmers to protect their planted fields from free-ranging cattle. The repeal of the Trespass Act required that ranchers fence stock in, rather than farmers fencing cattle out. The ranchers were faced with either the high expense of fencing large grazing tracts or selling their cattle at ruinous prices.

California hide trade declined after the passage of the California "No-Fence Law" of 1874.

David Jacks (businessman) popularised Monterey Jack cheese in the 1860s..

San Leandro Oyster Beds - During the 1890s, the oyster industry thrived until it became the single most important fishery in the state.

1869 and 1871. Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony

The United States Congress passed the 1877 Desert Land Act to encourage economic development of the arid and semiarid public lands of the Western states, and the 1902 Newlands Reclamation Act which funded irrigation projects on arid lands in 20 states including California.

1900s
California water wars were a series of political conflicts between the city of Los Angeles and farmers and ranchers in the Owens Valley of Eastern California over water rights.

Luther Burbank(March 7, 1849 – April 11, 1926)[1] was an American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science. He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career.

In the 1920s in California, Okie (often used in contempt) came to refer to very poor migrants from Oklahoma (and nearby states). The Dust Bowl and the "Okie" migration of the 1930s brought in over a million newly displaced people; many headed to the farm labor jobs advertised in California's Central Valley.

California Alien Land Law of 1913

California agricultural strikes of 1933

Bracero program - from 1942 - 1964, laws and diplomatic agreement with Mexico - guaranteed decent living conditions (sanitation, adequate shelter and food) and a minimum wage of 30 cents an hour.

1970 - The Salad Bowl strike was a series of strikes, mass pickets, boycotts and secondary boycotts that began on August 23, 1970 and led to the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history.[2]

California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975