Some did protest, you are right... like my mom... taught by her dad and mom to organic garden before the so called "pioneers" of organic gardening even existed. I have a set of organic gardening magazines from the 50's and 60's; she had doubles of everything. Maybe she knew then about our future?
Man she would batten down the hatches when those trucks came through... they usually ran through at night between 10 and 2 A.M., sometimes the fog was not entirely dissipated by the time we had to leave the house and I can remember covering my nose with a scarf delivering my paper route...
Now perhaps the whole enchilada is in the chemtrails, with occasional unadvertised (if we are lucky, advertised) spraying in the heavily "infested" urban areas.