August 5th 1982, farmworker Sacharias Ruiz awoke at dawn in Bryan, Texas. He would not live to see the sun set. Mr. Ruiz’s job that day was to spray Dinitro-3, a highly toxic pesticide, on cotton plants in Bryan, Texas. The pesticide canister had a leak, just a small leak, but, nonetheless, a fatal leak. Soon, Mr. Ruiz was too […]
Sarah and the Two Jims
The 1980s were hard times for agriculture, the worst hard times since the Great Depression. When you look at the raw data, it is truly staggering. Real U.S. net farm income fell over 40% from the early 1970s to early 1980s. Well over a quarter of a million farms were lost in the 1980s. Those lost farms were overwhelmingly family […]
Pesticides are Hell on Bugs and Not Much Better on People
People’s History in Texas is in the middle of a in-depth project collecting oral history and archives on the Jim Hightower tenure as Commissioner of Texas Department of Agriculture from 1983-1991. In those eight years, an amazing legacy of support for family farmers and sustainable rural agriculture was implemented. That legacy of positive programs is still making its impact on […]
Wine, Texas, and the Camelot Project
The Jim Hightower Department of Agriculture (1983-1991) operated like the Knights of the Round Table. He attracted men and women who were willing to fight the good fight and sent them out into the field to Do Good things for the small farmers, the consumers, the farmworkers and the environment. One group, working through the marketing department, offered valiant services […]
40 years of No
Forty years ago, the Department of Energy made a colossally ill-conceived effort to declare Deaf Smith County a repository for the national mandated nuclear waste dump. The good folks of Deaf Smith didn’t think it was a particularly bright idea to put toxic radioactive waste in the ground below the Ogallala Aquifer. They also didn’t think it was safe to […]
Black Farmers in Texas Part III
by Benjamin Brown Black land loss ranked among the most pressing civil rights issues of the late 20th century, and yet it remained largely unaddressed in the sphere of public policy. Andy Welch described the Hightower Texas Department as the coming of a bright new day. “The Hightower election and administration was a big wake up. … The Texas Department […]
The Beginning of Southwest Cuisine and the Farm to Table Movement
By Shereena Mathew Before the 80’s, Southwestern cuisine didn’t really have a name or a presence even in the cooking field. It was through the hard work of the Gang of Five alongside the TDA that Southwest cuisine became known nationwide. The Gang of Five, consisting of cookbook writer Anne Lindsay Greer, and chefs Stephan Pyles, Dean Fearing, Avner Samuel, […]
Black Farmers in Texas
by Benjamin Brown Part 1 In 1973, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz rendered clear his approach to farm policy: “get big or get out.” It marked the latest episode in a century-long feud between Wall Street and the Main Street of agrarian America. In the wake of the Civil War, the federal government pursued a series of measures designed […]
Texas Organic Label First in Nation
First Texas official Organic Label Texas was first State to certify an Organic Label for produce. That’s right—TEXAS! In 1987, the Texas Department of Agriculture established an official State label guaranteeing that the produce was organically grown. It is a little known fact. It is so little known that it has almost been completely written out of the history books. […]