Why It Was Illegal to Sell All Your Raisins Until 2015

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: raisins, New Deal, World War II, raisins reserve
2. 3:00 – 6:00: raisins, Fifth Amendment, Marvin Horn, John Roberts
3. 6:00 – 8:26: raisins, Brilliant, raisins reserve, almonds

Notable quotes from "Why It Was Illegal to Sell All Your Raisins Until 2015"

• Today, we're talking about a far more esoteric crime. Selling 54% or more of your personal raisin crop in the year 2002. Now, these days, a California grape farmer like you is allowed to sell as many of your raisins to whomever you.

  about raisins · at 0:05

• Deal, Congress passed the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, which gave the government power to create a crop reserve to stabilize the market.

  about Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 · at 1:55

• Remainder the farmers stayed in business. In the 2002 2003 season, as we know, that portion was set at 47% enough to turn Marvin Horn into a conscientious objector. And fair…

  about Marvin Horn · at 3:46

• Decision, the Supreme Court found that the rules around the raisin reserve were in violation of the Constitution's fifth amendment, which says, among other things, that the…

  about Fifth Amendment · at 5:25

• The Scotas decision, a few thousand acres of California farmland per year were already turning to more valuable crops like citrus, almonds, and pistachios. And many of the…

  about citrus · at 6:46

• This video sponsor, Brilliant. In a world increasingly dominated by data and computers and math, Brilliant's interactive, highly visual lessons will unlock your inner math…

  about Brilliant · at 7:32

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Marvin Horn — Person · Referenced expert · 2 mentions · first at 0:37
  His legal battle against the raisin reserve system led to its eventual end.
• Rocky Pipkin — Person · Referenced expert · 2 mentions · first at 0:34
  Private investigator hired to monitor Marvin Horn's compliance with the raisin reserve.
  New Deal, the Fifth Amendment, the Magna Carta, a real life private investigator named Rocky Pipkin, and a real life grumpy raisin grower by the name of Marvin Horn. In 2002…
• John Roberts — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at 5:35
  Authored the majority opinion in the Supreme Court case ending the raisin reserve.
  Things, that the government can't take your private property without quote just compensation. That amendment, as Justice John Roberts mentions in the majority opinion, has its…

Books & papers

• Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 — Book · Core topic · 1 mention · first at 1:55
  Legislation that allowed the creation of the raisin reserve to stabilize markets.

Products & tech

• juice — Product · Referenced product · 1 mention · first at 6:58
  Mentioned as a more popular product than raisins.
  Grown were being made into more popular products than raisins, like juice or wine. Meaning over supply wasn't the kind of issue it had been in the years past. So the judicial…
• wine — Product · Referenced product · 1 mention · first at 6:58
  Mentioned as a more popular product than raisins.
  Grown were being made into more popular products than raisins, like juice or wine. Meaning over supply wasn't the kind of issue it had been in the years past. So the judicial…

Concepts & topics

• raisins — Concept · Core topic · 13 mentions · first at 0:07
  Central to the discussion about the raisin reserve and its economic implications.
• raisins reserve — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at 0:45
  A government-controlled system to stabilize raisin prices, central to the legal case.
  Every other raisin maker in the US, was to give a whopping 47% of his crop to the federal government to put in their raisin reserve. And not because of some fresh new policy from that nasty communist George W. Bush.
• Fifth Amendment — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at 0:30
  Central to the legal argument against the raisin reserve, focusing on property rights.
• New Deal — Concept · Referenced concept · 2 mentions · first at 0:30
  The Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, part of the New Deal, enabled the raisin reserve.
  Luckily, all the way back in the New Deal, Congress passed the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, which gave the government power to create a crop reserve to stabilize the market.
• Magna Carta — Concept · Referenced concept · 2 mentions · first at 0:30
  Referenced in the legal argument about property rights and compensation.
  Opinion, has its roots in the Magna Carta, which centuries earlier and an ocean away protected people from having their crops taken away without payment.
• almonds — Concept · Referenced concept · 2 mentions · first at 2:06
  Mentioned as a more valuable crop replacing raisin production.
  And low, around this time, the government created reserves for a bunch of stuff. Walnuts, almonds, tart cherries, and of course, raisins. Here's basically how the raisin…
• citrus — Concept · Referenced concept · 1 mention · first at 6:50
  Mentioned as a more valuable crop replacing raisin production.
• pistachios — Concept · Referenced concept · 1 mention · first at 6:52
  Mentioned as a more valuable crop replacing raisin production.
  Acres of California farmland per year were already turning to more valuable crops like citrus, almonds, and pistachios. And many of the grapes being grown were being made into…

Places & events

• World War II — Event · Referenced event · 2 mentions · first at 0:28
  Historical context for the creation of the raisin reserve due to changes in demand.
  Your wrinkly darlings. And to explain why, we're going to have to touch on, among other things, World War II, the New Deal, the Fifth Amendment, the Magna Carta, a real life…

Sponsors

• Brilliant — Company · Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at 7:30
  Sponsor of the podcast episode, promoting educational courses.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Think of the classic crimes. Robbery, murder, robbing a murderer. Boring. Today, we're talking about a far more esoteric crime. Selling 54% or more of your personal raisin crop in the year 2002. Now, these days, a California grape farmer like you is allowed to sell as many of your raisins to whomever you like. But until 2015, the government was allowed to take a massive annual cut of your wrinkly darlings. And to explain why, we're going to have to touch on, among other things, World War II, the New Deal, the Fifth Amendment, the Magna Carta, a real life private investigator named Rocky Pipkin, and a real life grumpy raisin grower by the name of Marvin Horn. In 2002, Marvin Horn, like every other raisin maker in the US, was to give a whopping 47% of his crop to the federal government to put in their raisin reserve. And not because of some fresh new policy from that nasty communist George W. Bush.

0:52 This had already been common practice for decades. But 47% was just too much for Horn. So when Uncle Sam sent a truck to pick up the goods, Uncle Marv turned them away and landed himself a $695,226.92 fine, which ignited a legal battle that over a decade later would spell the end of the raisin reserve. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Why the did the US government keep a raisin reserve in the first place? Picture this. It's World War II. A very bad time in general, but a baller time to be the United States economy. During the war, our government was buying tons of raisins to send over to Europe as troop snacks. But when the war ended, not only did government demand for raisins plummet, but grape farms in Europe began to recover and start producing again, meaning not only did the many raisin growers of California Central Valley lose business from their biggest customer, but they also had more

1:45 competition. By 1949, the price of raisins had fallen 60% in about 3 years from 309 bucks a ton to just 130. Luckily, all the way back in the New Deal, Congress passed the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, which gave the government power to create a crop reserve to stabilize the market. And low, around this time, the government created reserves for a bunch of stuff. Walnuts, almonds, tart cherries, and of course, raisins. Here's basically how the raisin reserve, the reserve, worked. Every year, a group of private raisin producers called the raisin administrative committee would decide based on the size of that year's harvest what portion of it each grower had to put in the reserve. The idea was to prevent over supply. If a year saw a bumper crop, or if say everyone had devoted a ton of land to raisins while there was a war going on, but now the war is over and they're growing more

2:34 raisins than anyone needs, raisin growers could collectively artificially reduce the supply of raisins to the US market, which would keep the price high enough to keep them all in business. The Department of Agriculture, for its part, would take whatever portion the committee decided on and make it law. Then take all those extra raisins and distribute them in non-competitive ways. Either exporting them to foreign markets, donating them, putting them in school lunches, adding them to animal feed, or trying to wean old Gipper off those dang jelly beans.

3:01 Those reserve raisins didn't tend to make a ton of money, but any money they did make would be distributed back to the farmers after paying off the government's administrative costs, though often not that much. Between storage for raisin warehouses all over California, to administrative overhead and marketing raisins overseas, the ACT department tended to spend most or all of their revenue, sometimes in the tens of millions of dollars, before returning anything to the growers. While this solution was on some level kind of silly, it did work. By the 1958-59 season, about a decade after the reserve started, raisin prices were back up to $2 per ton more than their 1946 levels.

3:36 So, the system stayed. Year in and year out, the raisin people would decide how many raisins to saddle the government with to restrict supply and the government would get rid of them and the price would stay high enough for the remainder the farmers stayed in business. In the 2002 2003 season, as we know, that portion was set at 47% enough to turn Marvin Horn into a conscientious objector. And fair enough, right? That's a lot of raisins to give to the Bush administration. And growers only got paid back 205 bucks a ton for the raisins in the reserve that year. And there were many, many years where they didn't get paid enough to cover the cost of growing the government's raisins, including years where they got paid nothing at all. But also in the 2002 2003 season, what the raisin growers did get to sell went for $745 bucks a ton.

4:20 In the next season, when they had to give the government 30%, they sold their own for $810. So arguably, the system was still working, but for Marv, it had gone too far. So in 2002, he stopped giving the A department their cut. Other growers get suspicious and send Rocky Pipkin PI to videotape how many raisins are going in and out. And they confirm that while every other grower is sending the agreed upon portion to the reserve, Horn is selling 100% of his crop at a price point that only exists because everyone else is following the rules. Eventually, the government finds him for the market value of the raisins he didn't hand over, plus a civil penalty, and he sues them, claiming that the reserve is unconstitutional. The issue proceeds to divide California's raisin grower community. Some who feel just as hamstrung by the mandatory reserve support Horn and even donate to his legal defense. Others want to see the

5:08 fine paid because Horn profited handsomely off of the rest of them following the rules he flouted. The case drags on through court after court after court until finally in 2015 the Supreme Court rules in Horn's favor, ending the raisin reserve for good. In their 81 decision, the Supreme Court found that the rules around the raisin reserve were in violation of the Constitution's fifth amendment, which says, among other things, that the government can't take your private property without quote just compensation. That amendment, as Justice John Roberts mentions in the majority opinion, has its roots in the Magna Carta, which centuries earlier and an ocean away protected people from having their crops taken away without payment.

5:47 As is part for the course with SCOD's decisions, they spilled a ton of ink explaining why exactly the government had no right to demand 47% of your raisins, even if the whole raisin club came together and decided you'd be better off if the government had 47% of your raisins. And we've hardly got the time to get into all of it. But the court said that the promise that you maybe might get some money back for the reserve raisins wasn't enough to count as quote just compensation. and that while the government is allowed to tighten the raisin supply by limiting production, the fact that they were literally taking existing raisins made this unconstitutional. When it comes to fixing the price of raisins, the court said the ends simply do not justify the means. But the truth is, the raisin reserve was all but dead before SCOTA's killed it. The raisin administrative committee hadn't actually had the

6:33 government to take a cut of everyone's raisins since 2009. So for about 6 years before the reserve was rendered unconstitutional, it was rendered obsolete. The growers, simply put, were growing an appropriate number of raisins. Between the year 2000 and the Scotas decision, a few thousand acres of California farmland per year were already turning to more valuable crops like citrus, almonds, and pistachios. And many of the grapes being grown were being made into more popular products than raisins, like juice or wine. Meaning over supply wasn't the kind of issue it had been in the years past. So the judicial striking down of the reason Reserve was less the destruction of a thing and more the guarantee that the thing that hadn't existed in a while wasn't allowed to come back. And you know what? Sure, let freedom ring. I guess in uncertain times, it's a great comfort to know Americans' constitutional right to sell

7:21 whatever fraction of our raisins we see fit is safe and sound. And hey, once you've gone out and tasted the sweet freedom of selling 100% of your raisins, how about you check out this video sponsor, Brilliant. In a world increasingly dominated by data and computers and math, Brilliant's interactive, highly visual lessons will unlock your inner math person. No matter how bad my I mean your grades were in pre-calc, everything's personalized, where you start, the practice sets they give you, and beyond. In my experience, it really is a great way to pick up some new skills. I took thinking in Python, hoping it would help me communicate with snakes. But in no time, I had a very real foundation in one of the most popular programming languages out there.

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Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Why It Was Illegal to Sell All Your Raisins Until 2015"?

In order: 0:00 raisins, New Deal, World War II, raisins reserve; 3:00 raisins, Fifth Amendment, Marvin Horn, John Roberts; 6:00 raisins, Brilliant, raisins reserve, almonds.

What is mentioned in this Half as Interesting episode?

16 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including raisins, raisins reserve, Fifth Amendment, Marvin Horn, Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, World War II. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Why It Was Illegal to Sell All Your Raisins Until 2015"?

The episode runs 8 min; the transcript is about 1,672 words in 12 timestamped sections.

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