Small Farmers in the Past

One of the frustrations of dealing with proposals like Mr. Bittman's to create more small farmers is a knowledge of history.  We've been there, done that. Our history shows small farms being consolidated into large farms, small farms going out of production and reverting to trees (see New England and New York), small farms being converted to suburbs.  Our history also shows repeated "back-to-the farm" movements, sometimes with government support, as here. 

My point is, not that small farms are bad, but they have vanished for economic reasons. Unless and until the food movement comes up with structures which change the reasons, small farms are doomed.

Now niche markets will work for some, but they don't represent an "answer" for America, just for a subset of Americans who can afford the tab.

I'm Late, I'm Late--re: Krauthammer

Read a review of a book on Lewis Carroll over the weekend, which probably accounts for the title of this piece.  But to the meat:

Last week the NYTimes had a piece on Marco Rubio's finances.  One of the bits was the fact he bought a boat for $80,000.  Now the Times, being a good Democratic paper, was impressed by that.  Then Charles Krauthammer in the Post devoted a column to handicapping the Republican candidates, including the quote which appears below.  I wanted to snark at him in a letter to the editor, thinking perhaps it could make this coming Saturday's "Free for All" page, but I procrastinated so long I've decided to use my snark here:

"With his usual insight, Mr. Krauthammer encapsulated the difference between Democrats and Republicans into less than 30 words in his "GOP Racing Form, Second Edition".  "The New York Times’ comical attempts to nail [Rubio] on ...  financial profligacy (a small family fishing boat — a “dream dinghy,” says a friend of mine — characterized as a “luxury speedboat”)."  

 So Krauthammer and his Republican friends look at an $80,000 boat as a dream dinghy; Democrats look at the same boat as a luxury speedboard.

Me, I'm a Democrat. 

We Need More Farmers

So writes Mark Bittman in the NYTimes.

Logically he's saying we need higher food prices, in order to attract more people to farming. 

That's not the way he's going. Instead, while he acknowledges beginning farmer programs which assist people to buy land, he suggests that we forgive student loans for people who farm for 10 years.  Needless to say I don't like the idea--it's bureaucratically messy and, I suspect, economically inefficient.

The Elderly and Self-Driving Cars

Vox has a piece on the problems of the elderly who must drive up driving. As someone who's more rapidly nearing that time than I'd like, I like it all, especially as I endorsed self-driving cars (see the label) though there's more to the piece than just that.

And here's a Technology Review discussion of such cars.

There is one problem I can see with such cars.  Since we know that a human is driving the other car we see on the road, we can assume the car will behave in certain ways. It's likely early on that self-driving cars won't.  An example: a cardboard box falls off a truck--from the way it falls and bounces a human will assume it's empty.  A self-driving car may have to assume it's full, and to be avoided, possibly by an emergency stop, which the human driving the car behind that car  won't anticipate.   But such problems aren't show-stoppers.

Truest Headline Ever

The man who wrote "Headless Body in Topless Bar" just died.  But I nominate this as the truest headline:

"Oldest Person in the World Keeps Dying"

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:

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.

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?)

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.