Thursday, June 11, 2015

Wasting Food

I've posted a few times on the idea that food waste occurs when customers reject food at the supermarket.  Buried in this article is the assertion that half of food waste comes in business channels, but half comes at home because of reasons like these:

snobs

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Egg Prices--Back to the Good Old Days

I mentioned this back in April, when I was amused by the euphemism--"depopulation" used to cover killing the infected poultry.

Now the bird flu epidemic has resulted in killing so many birds that there's an "egg crisis".

As is usual these days this reminds me of my youth.  In the 1950's we just beginning the process of switching from small growers to contract growers.  The reason for the change was economics. There were two cyclical processes at work: supply/demand and feed prices.

  Small growers like my parents had no pricing power, meaning that egg prices yo-yoed up and down.  If feed prices were down, you could make money.  But if you were making money you'd increase your flock and your neighbor would blow the dust off her brooder stoves and order some chicks.  The result would be overproduction, and prices would drop.  Meanwhile the prices of feed (corn, wheat, oats) would have their own fluctuations.

My mother would get very indignant at this, blaming the people who weren't true chicken farmers but who simply jumped on the bandwagon of higher egg prices.

The solution, obvious in retrospect, was for consolidation to give big egg producers some pricing power, and the ability to adjust production in line with market conditions.  That meant going to contract farming, where the farmer has the chicken house and associated equipment, and simply contracts with the big outfit to produce x number of eggs from y number of hens. (It's similar to the process for growing chickens for meat.)  This reduced price risk meaning egg prices have been more stable.

Unfortunately, the logic of contract farming meant replacing small flocks with large flocks, taking advantage of labor-saving equipment (I've no fond memories of gathering eggs from under possessive hens who'd bite my hand and twist.)  In effect it's like moving air travel from lots of single engine planes to 747's, meaning safer air travel and fewer accidents, but when there is an accident, it's big.  That's where we are now.

Rubio and Real Estate

The Times has a story on the Rubio family finances today.

Slate notes that the Rubios were doing what every striving upwardly mobile person was supposed to do in 2005, buy real estate. They were fortunate--they lost money, but didn't have to hit the bankruptcy court.

I'd cut him a break--IMHO learning to deal with money is a multi-generational thing.  I've been reasonably successful by learning from my father's (over conservative) and grandfather's (a sucker) mistakes.

Tuesday, June 09, 2015

The Quiz Kids

One of the Quiz Kids just died.  Too young to know them?  The wikipedia entry.

It was always fun when I knew the answer.  (My memory may be playing tricks here--did I ever know the answer?)

Monday, June 08, 2015

Ridiculous Headline

On a Grist post:" 90 Percent of our diets could be local, if we nix Big Ag"

What's omitted is the fact we'd have to nix most of our way of life. 




Swoosh Nets Student $35

That's the factoid of the day: the Nike "swoosh" trademark just earned the person $35.

From a Wonkblog post on the evolution of 12 famous trademarks.

Friday, June 05, 2015

The Perfect Potato

Technology Review has a post on a British effort to engineer the perfect potato.  As far as I can tell from a quick read, it involves identifying potato varieties with the desired traits (blight resistance, etc.) and the genes involved, and combining them into one potato.  Apparently there are "genetically modified" varieties already, each with a desired trait, so it's a logical next step to combine them.

When they write "genetically modified", I'm assuming it's not inserting genes from one species into another, but rather moving the genes in the laboratory, not by cross-breeding.  It raises the question I've noted before: where do you draw the line in opposing GM-foods?  At one end of a continuum is a plant/animal which is different than any which lived before, because the combination of genes is new, but one created by normal sex/seed production.  Then you get into conventional breeding. Then moving genes in the lab, but still within the same species.  Then using CRSPR to edit genes out.  And finally adding genes across species lines. 

IMO you can make the same cautionary argument in each case--there might be harm to humans from this new combination of genes.  Obviously the likelihood grows as you move along the continuum. Again in my opinion I don't think there's much likelihood of harm at any point.

Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Comments on Actively Engaged

Chris Clayton at DTN has a summary of the comments on the proposed rule for actively engaged determinations. Here's Grassley's statement at the original publication.

What I'd Like: Move to Estonia

Via Marginal Revolution, this report on e-government in Estonia.  Through one user identity:
Today’s Estonian citizen can (though he or she does not have to):
  • Identify themselves, via e-ID, an electronic identity system
  • Vote (iVote, available since 2007)
  • Complete tax returns (and make payments or receive refunds)
  • Obtain and fulfil prescriptions (eHealth)
  • Participate in census completion
  • Review accumulated pension contributions and values
  • Perform banking, including making and receiving payments
  • Pay and interact with utilities (like water, gas and electricity)
  • Interact with the education system (e-Education)
  • Set up businesses
  • Sign contracts
  • And more.
Compare that with our government, where we're still struggling with USDA agencies providing such service.


Tuesday, June 02, 2015

The Receipt for Service II

I've got a problem with the Receipt for Service implementation. Just in terms of bureaucracy and system design, county employees are asked to dual-task, do the work to support what the customer wants or needs plus as a separate operation record the history of the encounter. The extra work isnot likely to please the employee and the fact it's separate increases the likelihood it won't get done, undermining the validity of the statistic

A separate problem arises when it's the producer/farmer herself going online to do the work, as for example the new NRCS process.  How are those transactions going to be tracked?