Why No Commodity Purchase Program Under Sec. 32?

This is triggered by a twitter exchange I had today.

"Never" is a long time. While it's true they don't get direct payments, except when natural disaster destroys production. Produce farmers very occasionally get assistance from USDA purchases under Sec. 32 authority when prices have gone to hell.

— Bill Harshaw (@BillHarshaw) April 8, 2020

Back in the day USDA might have used "Section 32" authority to purchase fruits and vegetables (I don't think milk, but milk is its own complicated story) which were in temporary surplus, meaning prices were depressed below the level farmers expected/wanted/needed.  USDA purchases were intended to drive up prices, since the established programs covered only storable commodities (including milk, storable as butter and cheese).  The commodities would be donated to school lunch programs or various other food programs. (At some points in the past surplus potatoes were destroyed--see this Congressional Record reference.) For example here's an appropriations hearing in 1964 discussing the sweet potato removal program. I was never involved in administering these purchases, but ASCS/FSA was.

Of course these purchases were in response to lobbying by the producer group--if they could build the heat on USDA hot enough the Secretary would pull the trigger on the purchases, which would take the heat off until the next time. Over the years, as briefly described in this  description of the authority, the expansion of crop insurance to more crops and the establishment of the Non-insured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) (one of the reasons I retired, though that's a story for a different time) lessened its use, and in 2008 the law was changed further to restrict the Secretary's authority.

Farm Structure

ERS did a piece on farm structure recently. Here's its graph:



I've used it to counter the common meme that big corporations dominate agriculture.  It's not true, at least with field crops.  But then I started thinking--it's true enough that corporations are big in fruits and vegetables, but why would that be?

I'm guessing the key is that fruits and vegetables must offer much higher gross income per acre than wheat or corn.  If true, it would follow that those acres are much more valuable and therefore take more capital to acquire, leading naturally to the greater use of corporations to assemble the acreage.

Another factor might be the economic structure: field crops likely require less processing than do vegetables. And fruits and vegetables spoil, they can't be stored, at least not unless they're processed by canning, juicing, drying, or freezing. Those factors make it more likely for vertical integration.    We've had vertical integration with poultry and eggs for 50-60 years.  I suspect the fruits and vegetables sector preceded birds.

Berries and Cherries

Who knew that South Korea is importing loads of US blueberries and cherries, even more since the recent trade pact?  That's part of this article on Trump's effect on South Korea.

What was striking to me was how cheap the cherries were.  The article doesn't specify the size, but $8 isn't that much more than I'd expect to pay for cherries in my local Safeway.

Strawberries of the Past

Slate has a piece on strawberries of the past, linking to this USDA resource with pictures of old strawberries. See the previous piece.

Not My Parents Fruits and Veggies

This post discusses how fruits and vegetables have been changed over the generations by breeding--interesting.

Even in my lifetime, fruits such as grapefruit, oranges, blueberries have significantly increased in size.

Agricultural Robots: Progress Report

The Economist has an interesting piece on the development of agricultural robots: machines intelligent enough and adept enough to handle growing and harvesting fruit (mostly), sometimes in greenhouses, sometimes not. (I owe a hat tip to someone, but I had a senior moment.)   Machines can take over some functions, replacing (immigrant) labor and saving money.  The problem is they represent an added capital cost, so they imply bigger operations, more "industrial" farms. One truth the foodies often don't recognize is that fruits and vegetables already represent the most concentrated, most industrial branch of agriculture.  Of course, the promise of cheaper fruits and vegetables is something the food movement can't oppose, is it?