Acreage Reporting for Organic Farming

Just a stray thought: has the acreage reporting system been changed to recognize organically grown crops and the GIS system to recognize organic ground? 

FSA and Drones

Via Marginal Revolution, here's a piece on how archeologists are using drones in their work.

Causes me to ask: when is FSA going to drones?  Last I knew FSA had a set of aerial photographs which were scaled and ortho-corrected (which I think means adjusted for changes in elevation) with which one could measure the area of a field, and a yearly set of slides taken from small planes to help identify which crop was in which field.  I'm sure that's changed as they've implemented their GIS system, but I'm not sure how.  On the theory the agency still needs to spot-check the accuracy of what they're being told by the farmer, I'd assume there's still some aerial slides being taken.  Drones might be a better approach (except for all the rules and regulations about their use, which presumably archeologists in Peru don't need to worry about).

Sodsaver Provision

The Sustainable Ag coalition blogs about sodsaver/cross compliance here.  They say:

While the Sodsaver provision in the Senate bill does not, as we had proposed, deny all crop insurance subsidies on newly broken out land, it does provide for a 50 percent reduction in the subsidy.  It also includes two important provisions that prevent people from gaming the system to increase their revenue insurance coverage at the expense of taxpayers and the environment.  One keeps the newly broken out land isolated from other crop acres the producer may have when calculating insurable yields.  The other requires the operator to take a percentage of the county average yield until being able to show a multi-year yield history.

They go on to note a similar provision in the 2008 act was neutered. I assume enforcing this would require the insurance agents to access FSA data.

I wonder how the GIS system handles history--can you go back through historical land use layers?  This sort of issue, breaking out "noncropland" for annual crops has been a perennial issue in ag programs.  One question I'm not sure ever got answered is: does cropland ever become noncropland, when "noncropland" the land hasn't yet been devoted to "nonagricultural uses".

I remember one of the Great Plains state specialists assuring me that the county office would know the different between land which had once been cropped and land which had never been cropped.  I was dubious then and am more dubious today.

Drones and Aerial Photography

Here's a piece at TPM about the use of drones within the US.  I wonder how long it will be before FSA's aerial photography is done by drones?  And disaster reporting? Fly a drone and provide a digital feed to a ground station to get good data on the extent of flooding, etc. Won't drones eventually be more economical than small planes or helicopters?  If they can stay up for 36 hours they can presumably accomplish more photography than manned aircraft.  And streaming the data back to the base station offers a lot of flexibility, particularly if you can feed it in as a layer to the GIS system.

I don't know: is FSA compliance still being done by aerial photography? Does ACRSI include spot checks?

USDA's GIS Portal

Nextgov reports USDA is doing a portal to all of its GIS stuff.  The catch is schedule:

The new portal, which is hosted in Amazon's public EC2 computer cloud, is already available to a few divisions within Agriculture and will be launched departmentwide in the next couple of months, Lowe said. The site should be available to the public about six to eight months after that.

Why, if it's operational, does it take 6-8 months to make it available to the public?  Esri is the vendor doing the protal.

ACRSI Comments

See this USDA blog post for an invitation to comment on the proposed acreage and crop reporting system initiative, either at USDA or through comments on the Federal Register publication.

From the Field: FSA, NRCS and State

Chris Clayton at DTN reports one Iowa farmer's experience: with EQIP:

The Natural Resources Conservation Service sent Bailey to the Farm Service Agency to see if the land had a conservation plan. FSA sent Bailey back to NRCS to create a conservation plan. Eventually, the conservation plan was established. Because it was a livestock operation, Bailey needed to apply manure, so he also had to create a manure management plan. Bailey had to learn a phosphorus application program. He then also had to file a manure management plan with the county.[And Iowa State Agriculture required a livestock premises ID.]

Reminds me of the Kentucky state executive director in 1993 and Infoshare/Service Center Initiative.

The farmer suggests:

"If we had a way in the Midwest to document how many pounds of nitrogen were going down the Des Moines and the Raccoon rivers, and could report that back to each individual farmer, he would quickly convert that back into dollars. That feedback response would be more powerful than a regulatory or an incentive-based approach. Part of the problem we have got in causing change to happen is providing timely feedback to the operator. That information becomes very powerful to correct and change the problems with the application on our landscape."

Followup on ACRSIP

FarmWeeknow has an interview with Mr. Scuse on the streamlining of acreage reports. (ACRSIP).  Not much different than my previous post on the subject, except for this:

The streamlining project is not intended to reduce USDA offices (there currently are 2,241 nationwide) or personnel, according to Scuse. Farmers who do not embrace technology still will be able to report crop information in person at their local FSA offices.

My problem with that statement is the same I had back in 1992: how do you do a cost-benefit analysis to justify the expense of the hardware and software needed for this without cutting people and offices?  It can't be done IMHO.

Kudos and Brickbats FSA County Offices: Strongly Recommended

Mr. Blankenship, a wheat grower from Washington, testified before the Senate Ag committee last week.  Excerpts from his testimony

"In my case, FSA is the easiest local office to deal with. FSA personnel are better trained
than others and more familiar with the actual impacts of changes to program eligibility, payment
limits, etc."

"All in all, the partners in Blankenship Brothers probably make 10 separate visits of several hours to our FSA office per year, minimum, for sign-ups, certification of acreages, CRP status checks, SURE eligibility questions and returning paperwork once proper signatures are collected."

"This GPS-based data management system meshes very well with the GPS-based mapping
recently adopted by my FSA office"  (But otherwise interaction is all paper, with FSA dataloading.)

"The differences between administrative perspectives of offices have caused
some producers to go so far as to buy a small parcel of land in a neighboring county in order to
transfer all of their acres to that county’s FSA office."

I strongly recommend it.  NASCOE will be pleased with it, as he leans towards FSA administering programs.  What he may not fully appreciate are the limitations on making programs operate the same way.

It's good to learn that the effort people like Kevin Wickey (NRCS) and Carol Ernst (FSA) (among many others) put into GIS so many years ago has finally paid off, at least for one operator in one county office.

NRCS and FSA--Testimony from FSA

I quote from a legislative statement dated today, the testimony of Mr. Lohr:

Both FSA and NRCS are in the process of upgrading their technology and business processes, FSA through the Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems (MIDAS) project and NRCS through the Conservation Delivery Streamlining Initiative. Having FSA administer conservation programs would go a long way towards assisting NRCS in reaching its Streamlining Initiative goals of reducing field staff administrative workloads by 80%. It would also enable their field staff to reach the goal of spending 75% of their time in the field providing conservation assistance to farmers and ranchers. NRCS has indicated concern with the administrative burden on field office technical staff from expanded roles for contract development and management. NRCS’s Streamlining Initiative encourages a move to a “natural resource centric view” concentrating on identifying and solving resource problems and moving away from a “financial assistance centric view.”

The NRCS Streamlining Initiative highlighted as one of its top objectives the implementation of programs through alternative staffing and delivery approaches designed around more efficient business processes to minimize the non-technical workload on field staff.

Now is the time to make the IT changes to enhance FSA’s administrative and NRCS’s technical capabilities .For example, FSA and NRCS use different GIS software programs, ArcGIS and Toolkit, respectively. This is not practical. It is extremely inefficient to develop and maintain two USDA systems to administer farm and conservation programs. We can no longer afford these inefficiencies.

The third from the last sentence surprises me.  So much for the work of Kevin Wickey.

House Ag and IT in USDA/FSA

House Ag committee held a hearing on the status of USDA and FSA IT, including GIS.  Only the opening statements of the witnesses are available online.  The USDA CIO and FSA Administrator testified.  Much of their statements sounded like 5, 10 or 15 years ago, addressing the same issues of outmoded equipment, stovepipe systems, decentralized chaos among the agencies.  The second session had the National Farmers Union, NASCOE, NAFEC, the National Association of Conservation Districts and the National States GIS council. 

I found the second session more interesting:  One question--why wasn't the Farm Loan organization (the old FmHA specialists) represented?  (To show how slowly things move in USDA, note I'm referring to an organization (FmHA) which disappeared 16 years ago.)  They certainly have IT concerns, although the Administrator seemed to say their systems were in the best shape of any.  A surprise--the NASCOE rep said GIS products were the single biggest workload item. An unlikely request--the National GIS rep asked for dedicated money for the NAIP (aerial photos/GIS) separate from FSA money, but was very complimentary of the Salt Lake City staff.  I wonder why that was--is it possible that because the Aerial Photography Field Office in Salt Lake is the only FSA office which produces real, tangible products (setting checks to producers aside), that it's easier for them to take a businesslike approach to its operations?

FSA IT Report Required

From the Agriculture appropriations bill (now passed and sent to the President):

Given the complexity and scale of FSA's information technology (IT) improvement initiative, the conferees seek to ensure that FSA successfully and cost-effectively delivers the modernized systems relevant to the Department's submission under Section 300 of OMB Circular A-11. Moreover, the conferees recognize that achieving FSA's IT modernization goals depends on coordination and integration with other IT initiatives across the Department that are beyond FSA's control.
Accordingly, the conferees direct the Department to submit to the Committees a description of how the Department will coordinate and oversee the interdependent planning and implementation of FSA's IT modernization initiative with all other related Department IT modernization initiatives.
Furthermore, the conferees direct the Department to submit to the Committees an expenditure plan for all past-and current-year funds allocated for FSA IT systems modernization and stabilization activities since fiscal year 2008 that describes:
1. The FSA IT projects funded;
2. The expected performance capabilities and mission benefits of each of these projects;
3. The estimated and completed project cost, schedule, and system operation milestones with target dates;
4. The estimated and actual costs associated with attaining these milestones;
5. A comparison of the project cost, schedule, and milestones to those provided in fiscal year 2008; and
6. The processes, tools, contracts, and human capital in place or planned to accomplish effective management and oversight of the projects.
After the initial expenditure plan, the Department is to provide reports by April 1, 2010, and by August 1, 2010, that provide updates on the cost, schedule, and system operation milestones. To the extent milestones are missed, the report is to provide a summary of the reasons why and plans for corrective actions.
The conferees recommend that funds be allocated to implement the National Agriculture Imagery Program, with images collected nationally on an annual basis, in order to provide the maximum benefit for USDA programs and other users of these images. The conferees encourage the Secretary to utilize all appropriate imagery sources to meet programmatic requirements.

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?

NAIS and Food Facility Listings

In my comments on National Animal Identification System I suggested APHIS might ask FSA to do as they used to do with the food and facility listings maintained in case of nuclear disaster. Little did I realize that 20 years after the end of the cold war, we're still maintaining the data. But now FSA is moving to the GIS system. See this FSA notice. I applaud the move, though I've a qualm or two about the need for the data.

NAIS Comments

I tried to submit NAIS comments today, but regulations.gov seems to be either overloaded or not working well. So, for what they're worth, my two cents:

Comments on NAIS

I grew up on a small dairy/poultry farm so I can understand some of the concerns of the small producers. As a retired bureaucrat I also see the fix APHIS finds itself in. It seems to me APHIS is stuck--there's no way to go forward on your current lines because the opposition is too vocal, too numerous, and too dug in. You can't get the participation without paying the freight; you can't get the dollars from Congress to pay the freight because you can't get a broad consensus in the field.You need something different to break the logjam.

I think there are historical analogues that can be instructive. In the 1960's USDA maintained a food and feed facility directory. In the case of a nuclear attack USDA field offices would have been responsible for inventorying what was left and coordinating its use.Thank goodness it was never put to the test.

Also in the 50's and 60's we had the fluoridation controversy and the fight over whether seatbelts should be required in cars. In both cases time has cooled the flame of conflict, particularly as the older geezers died and the new generations came along. There are some issues where that's the best you can do in the U.S.--the founding fathers didn't design the government for fast efficient action.

My suggestions:

1. First, you need a more accurate title. "National Animal Identification System" must have been invented by a bureaucrat. It sucks. No wonder small farmers are scared of it. In the U.S. we rarely have national systems for anything, not in the sense the French or Japanese have a national education system, for example. What you have under the title "NAIS" is a typical federal mish-mash of organizations and standards which is successfully creating confusion. A better name for what you're doing might be: "Standards for Animal Identification Systems"--more descriptive and more accurate, and possibly less scary for NAIS opponents.
2. Rely on the USDA field offices (i.e., FSA and NRCS) to create and maintain a national list of names and addresses of people and legal entities who are raising animals and the types of animals raised. There shouldn't be much additional work required, because they already should have all farmers in the Service Center Information Management system. You'd need to get animal type information added and give access to APHIS field personnel. The offices should also try to increase their efforts to give farmers their own access info.
3. Add layers to the geographical information system (GIS) used by NRCS and FSA to reflect the addresses recorded in item 2. Ideally separate animal types by layer, so one view shows all cattle ranchers, another all sheep, etc.
   

The idea would be, after items 2 and 3 are complete, if there's a report of a disease occurrence in hogs, say H1N1 flu, you could display the locations of all hog farmers within a radius of 30 miles, 100 miles, or whatever and have a listing of their phone numbers and email addresses to use in making contact. Time required: minutes, leaving you 47 hours to work the list. This seems to me to be easily doable and it gives you a national quick response system with, I hope, a minimal intrusion on the concerns of the No-NAIS people.

My comments on the remaining issues: think tiers and 6 degrees of connection.

By "tiers" you apply different rules for producers the products of whose animals may be exported than those which sell to neighbors. (Just as OSHA applies different rules for large factories than small shops.) You apply different rules for animals whose birth is separated by 6 steps from death to consumption than those which only have 2 steps.

Finally, I think you may be relying too much on the idea of identifying animals for small farmers That was the only way to go back in the days of tuberculosis and brucellosis, pushing paper, and IBM punch card sorters. But these days, when schools have moved from sending letters home to parents to automated calling and tweets, you should be flexible and innovative.

Workload for NRCS?

That's what I get from this item from the letter sent to Speaker Pelosi by a set of farm organizations about the carbon cap and trade proposals:

Eligibility and offset compensation should be based upon whether a project, technique or practice sequesters carbon or otherwise reduces GHG emissions. USDA should establish an activity baseline for each offset project type in effect on January 1, 2001 with standardized methodology. We support the establishment of a static baseline of activity to measure against when determining additionality. The fixed baseline should establish which practices were in effect on a specific piece of land on a specific date; any activity that results in GHG reductions measured against that baseline should be deemed eligible/additional.

I'm not sure why they used Jan 1, 2001 as the magic date. Nor do I know if they consulted with anyone from NRCS (or FSA) as to the feasibility of doing this. I know the acreage reports submitted to FSA provide some information on the activity on the land, but I don't know whether it's sufficient to be used for this purpose.

If and when it comes to writing legislation, there are lots of issues to be addressed. For example, there's a maintenance question--if farmer Jones was doing no-till on her acreage in 2000, does she have to have continued no-till in the years since? How about shifts in practices among the fields on the farm? And how do the bureaucrats encapsulate the requirement? (See my earlier mention of "conserving base".) Might it be another layer(s) added to the GIS?

But I'm sure this proposal is causing some bureaucratic hearts in NRCS to beat much faster.

Land Sales and GIS

Here's an article from the Imperial Republican I found of interest (the hook was an academic moving from ND to NE):

" The biggest factor was Nebraska’s full disclosure of ag land sales data. Shultz told participants at the Holdrege Water Conference in early February that in North Dakota, only county assessors have access to sale details.
Nebraska assessors must send detailed reports, including land prices and equipment sales, to a database for all sales that aren’t family to family. That data is used by UNO researchers to create Geographic Information Systems computer models that can sort and compare many variables.
One project involves mapping Republican Basin ag land sales and analyzing the value of water. Shultz said a goal is to identify the premium payments required to get landowners to retire parcels from irrigation."

My bureaucratic mind says there ought to be convergence of GIS layers and owners--why is everyone reinventing the wheel. But one obstacle is always the concept of private data. Until we get some community standards for what is acceptable use, the convergence can't happen.

Will USDA Join "Virtual USA"?

Federal Computer Week has an article on a meeting between DHS and some Southern states, looking to share geo-spatial data:

"Officials say the goal is to make local- and state-owned geospatial data interoperable and usable across jurisdictions, with non-federal authorities maintaining control over the data and deciding what data to share.

The program was inspired by the success that Alabama had in using information gathered at a local level to aid first responders. The recent meeting was hosted by Alabama’s Homeland Security Department, which created Virtual Alabama. [Google link here and Alabama link here]That is a system built on Google Earth Enterprise software that allows authorities to create data mashups by quickly pulling together information from an array of sources across the state’s 67 counties and make it available to first responders. "

As usual, I'm torn between the thought some top-down direction would be a whole lot more efficient and recognition that, in the current state of today's weak federalized government, this sort of initiative is the best we can expect.

Owner's Footsteps Are the Best Manure

That's the saying (or something like it) I heard from my parents growing up. But if you've got a couple thousand acres it's pretty hard to walk all the land. But modern technology comes to the rescue, as described in this post from Extension on "site-specific farming" (i.e., using GIS and computers to keep track of the specific characteristics of your land).

Old Aerial Photography

Here's an interesting article on efforts to retrieve the old aerial photography used in administering farm programs. The article refers to photos authorized in 1933, which surprises me but is possible. The project in Iowa is to try to identify possible "brownfields" for EPA, but they are historically important as well.