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For more than four decades, Los Angeles County was America's top agricultural producer. What happened? In a new book published by Angel City Press, From Cows to Concrete: The Rise and Fall of Farming in Los Angeles, the University of California's Rachel Surls and certified Master Gardener Judith Gerber detail the rise and fall of agriculture in Los Angeles County.
Rachel Surls is the Sustainable Food Systems Advisor for University of California Cooperative Extension is part of the University of California's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. As part of her role with UC ANR, Rachel is leading a team that is studying urban agriculture in California, assessing needs, developing educational resources and providing best practice recommendations for urban agriculture policy at the municipal level. Her work - part of UC's Global Food Initiative - is playing an important part in helping UC address one of the most compelling issues of our time: how to sustainably and nutritiously feed a growing world population.
Rachel is also a member of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council and has been actively engaged in working with the City of Los Angeles to develop urban agriculture policy. Rachel joined UCCE in 1988 and has provided leadership for the local Master Gardener Program, supporting school, home and community gardening in the Los Angeles area. She earned her B.S. in agronomy at Virginia Tech, an M.S. in Agricultural Sciences at Cal Poly, Pomona and a Ph.D. in Education from Claremont Graduate University. She is a former Peace Corps Volunteer.
Read more about the history of agriculture in Los Angeles in this intervew by Rose Hayden-Smith, PhD with author Rachel Surls.
What inspired you and [co-author] Judi Gerber to write this book?
During the time I was the UC Cooperative Extension County Director, I came across some statistics for farming in Los Angeles County that really surprised me. Once - relatively recently - Los Angeles County was a huge agricultural producer, but no one seemed to know this. It was once the largest, most bountiful agricultural county in the U.S. (for four decades, between 1909-1949). It's now primarily urban and is the most populated county in the nation. So there was this extreme turnabout in only 40-50 years. I was intrigued.
Photograph of a group of about 15 Chinese farm workers pruning vineyard, ca.1900. California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960
You are nationally known for your work in urban agriculture. Do you see ways in which LA's past agricultural production and today's urban ag scene are connected?
I see all kinds of parallels; it's so interesting. For example, there are many things going on today that echo what was happening decades ago, or even more than a century ago. People aren't aware of that earlier work, but they are repeating it.
One example is beekeeping. Recently, the city of Los Angeles made it legal to keep bees in backyards. So many people love this idea and the practice. Back in the 1860s, Los Angeles turned to beekeeping as an industry after the cattle industry fell apart. The nail in the coffin for cattle was a two-year drought. After the cattle industry failed, everyone thought Los Angeles was done; just a dry backwater. People who understood the value of bees - including John Muir - advocated for beekeeping. There were bee ranches sprinkled throughout the foothills of Los Angeles County; it became a mecca for beekeepers.
Chicken raising is another example. There were lots of small chicken ranches around Los Angeles County, in part because of low start up costs and being an agricultural enterprise that was relatively easy to get into. Many people came to Los Angeles to start chicken ranches. Backyard chickens in Los Angeles County are extremely popular today.
Chickens in an outdoor pen on a chicken ranch, ca.1900. California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960
We're both fans of Douglas Sackman's seminal book about the Southern California citrus industry Orange Empire, which explores the importance of boosters in helping encourage people to move to the region. How did boosterism impact agriculture in Los Angeles County?
Boosterism played a huge role in the past in terms of agriculture. Agriculture in Los Angeles has always gone hand in hand with real estate. One of the important trends of the early 20th century was to create neighborhoods where homes sat on 1-3 acres of land. These were called small farm homes or little farms. The owners were sometimes called little landers. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Times were very involved in promoting this concept. Landowners could subdivide big wheat farms and create opportunities for multiple land sales. Especially after the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, there was a rise in suburban mini-farms.
Boosters played an important role in promoting that model and in providing these small farmers with all sorts of training and resources. Each year, the Los Angeles Times and the Chamber of Commerce sponsored a small farm home contest throughout the Los Angeles basin.
Today, the notion of boosterism is a bit different. Many times you see a boosteristic quality to the way elected officials talks about urban agriculture and support it. That sounds great, but as things play out on the ground, talk of support doesn't always translate into reality.
How is the history that you so beautifully portray informing your work today? Has your study of the past changed how you think about that work?
It is influencing my work. The small farm home era is especially important the period from 1910 to 1940 or 1950. That
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