E-Gov at USDA/FSA

I've always been curious how many farmers actually make use of the e-government options on the USDA website. ("Always" = 1992, back in the old days with Infoshare, which was a pilot project initiated by the Republican administration. The project had lots of hype, but it wasn't clear how many farmers could take advantage.) Now I've seen an indication of the answer.  USDA has submitted for OMB a collection of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act for the USDA's e-authorization process, the means by which a USDA customer gets a login/password. Level 1 has minimal security requiresments; Level 2 permits doing business on-line, such as applying for benefits, but requires in-person verification.  The estimate of usage is 40,088 for level 1 and 18,088 for level 2.

That seems small, given the option has been available for a number of years. Why isn't the usage higher--my suspicions:"Build it and they will come" doesn't work  But that's probably what's happened in USDA--people have built different functions and put them out, but without any nurturing. The way FSA is organized there's no one in charge of e-government programs, no one to watch how much usage there is, to figure out where the problems are and what the fixes might be.  Conversely, FSA has 70+ years experience of trying to improve service through county offices.

It's also true these e-government options probably don't have great potential to benefit the farmer. Someone who farms in multiple counties might gain, but I doubt they'd gain much.  To see what I mean, look at a contrasting application, Treasury Direct:  If you want to buy a bond from the Treasury Department, you used to have to establish a paper account with an FRB.  Most peopel did their purchases through brokers, paying the service fee.  But with the Internet you can buy on-line without ever talking to a live body at Treasury or exchanging a piece of paper, or paying a transaction fee.

I think e-government won't advance much at FSA until either they reorganize to make it a focus on the program side and/or they're able to provide access to all of the farmer's information, particularly GIS data. Or maybe integrate FSA GIS with the farmer's own record keeping software?