From CDFA Secretary Karen Ross
Happy 250th birthday America! As we celebrate our Nation’s founding, the California Department of Food and Agriculture offers a message of gratitude for the farmers, ranchers, farmworkers and all who work so hard to produce the bounty of America’s food and steward our land.
It is especially fitting to hold up all who have a role in agriculture because it has always been foundational to our Nation’s economy and well-being.
George Washington was a soldier, our Nation’s first President and a farmer – one who experimented with new crops, crop rotations and new fertilizers. Thomas Jefferson was also an innovative farmer who wrote: “Agriculture is our wisest pursuit because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals and happiness.” In the midst of the Civil War (May 1862) , President Abraham Lincoln, who also had agrarian roots, established the United States Department of Agriculture to support farmers and rural communities with research farms on what is now the National Mall. Throughout his presidency he pushed for legislation to advance agricultural research and education with the enactment of the Homestead Act for westward development; the Pacific Railway Act (to improve transportation of crops); the Morrill Act that established the land grant university system; and, the National Academy of Sciences.
In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted the Soil Conservation Act that established the Soil Conservation Service (now the Natural Resources Conservation Service) as the cornerstone of his New Deal. It was created to pay farmers for conservation practices to protect our soils in response to the Dust Bowl. To stress its importance, the President sent a letter to every Governor to encourage individual states to pass laws allowing local landowners to form and manage their own conservation districts. This framework ensured that soil erosion control was led locally rather than strictly federally. In it he said, “The nation that destroys its soils, destroys itself.”
Today I am grateful to be an American celebrating our beautiful land, our rich diversity, and the power of people coming together for the common good just as they did in July 1776.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Happy birthday America and Happy 4th of July!!