The Risks of Farming

The Life of a Farm blog is interesting. I found this bit particularly so:

The excavation [for foundation for possible poultry house] continues here on the farm. We are rapidly approaching a time when we will have to make a definite decision about the poultry houses. I’m still on the fence about this venture. My hunch is it would be profitable. It is a huge risk though. I finally got a copy of the contract we would be signing and I can tell you it’s certainly not a great contract. Cobb is paying for a lot of things that other companies aren’t, but it’s still a huge risk. The pay can be adjusted at any time and they can cancel your contract for a number of reasons. I guess the biggest reason I am having trouble making a definitive decision has to do with what is right for the land. I have such a bond with the land here. It’s beautiful land that could be used for so many other things it just seems a waste to put a commercial chicken house on it.

In the 1950's, poultry started becoming vertically integrated. Big companies would contract with growers to raise poultry. That had the effect of stabilizing prices for eggs and chicken, because the companies could implicitly coordinate to keep prices steady. (Same reason car prices don't vary by 50 to 100 percent from year to year.) The growers had the reassurance of operating in a more stable environment with much less risk day to day. The tradeoff was the loss of independence and control. (And, of course, the small growers, like my parents, went out of business.)

Contract farming is coming--it started with hybrid seed growing, then poultry, now hogs. It rationalizes and stablizes the market and spreads the risk.

The excerpt from Joel points out that the risk moves to the upfront decision--to sign the contract (and take out the loan to build the house and equip it). He also points to the "love of the land" which is real. You invest your time in anything, you're apt to come to love it.

NRCS vs FSA II--Moving the Money

Found the provision of the House farm bill, on page 101 of the conservation title.

101
H.L.C.
1 (c) ADMINISTRATION OF CONSERVATION PROGRAMS
2 BY FARM SERVICE AGENCY.—Section 1244 of the Food
3 Security Act of 1985 (16 U.S.C. 3844) is amended by in4
serting after subsection (f), as added by subsection (b),
5 the following new subsection:
6 ‘‘(g) ROLE OF FARM SERVICE AGENCY.—
7 ‘‘(1) ROLE.—The Secretary shall assign to the
8 Farm Service Agency the administrative duties asso9
ciated with delivering all programs under this title,
10 including administrative responsibility for making
11 such benefits available to participants in such pro12
grams.

I've left out the key bit--the next paragraph allows the Secretary to move the money to support this. That is the motivating bit--jobs and money.

I'm hardly an unbiased observer, but returning responsibility to FSA makes sense to me. In the ideal world, something like former Secretary Glickman's proposal to merge the administrative tails of the agencies serving farmers would be adopted. But that was killed late in the last century. As I understand, the question is basically who writes the checks. FSA and its predecessors have always prided themselves on being good check writers; NRCS and its predecessor have always prided themselves on their science and their education work. In 2002 the conservation lobby was strong enough to get NRCS assigned the checkwriting role for these programs. They seem to have had their problems (Harshaw's law--you never do things right the first time). In their defense, it's particularly difficult for them because their IT operations were even more decentralized than FSA's.

Anyhow FSA's lobby, notably its "union" (National Association of State and County Office Employees--NASCOE, but don't try its website using Firefox, use IE), has urged the return of these responsibilities to FSA and apparently has enough support on the Hill to make it into the draft. Here's its position paper.

I fully expect this fight to continue as long as I live, or the separate agencies do.

Infighting--NRCS and FSA

Once again, there's infighting within the agricultural community. Apparently a version of the 2007 farm bill contains provisions NRCS and its supporting lobby don't like. So they're opposing, as stated here.

I'll have to check the draft to see what's proposed. But there's been conflict between the two agencies and the associated lobbies ever since the 1930's. Each agency has its own advantages in the fight.

Real Farming

George Buddy sends an article on "Farming for the fun of it". It's an interesting idea: would anyone write an article on "Bureaucrating for the fun of it". "Plumbing for the fun of it". We make avocations out of some vocations, but not others.

If you visit Oatlands, an old plantation house outside Leesburg, VA, they have a carriage house--full of carriages. At one time, maybe still, rich men liked "coaching", driving carriages instead of their hired help. If you can afford it, I suppose it's different strokes for different folks. But the bottom line, the one that makes the difference as to whether it's vocation or avocation, is whether your livelihood depends on it.

People Self-Justify

Shankar Vedantam has a piece in today's Post talking about social psychology. The idea is that, if I injure you, that's incompatible with my self-image, so I'll justify it by saying you weren't really hurt, not that bad, and you really deserved and you're really a bad person or maybe you'll learn from it. And, having worked the injurious act into a web of meaning, I'll soon forget it. Whereas, if you injure me, I'm going to remember it for a long time as something totally unjustified, that I didn't deserve, that shows you're mean, etc.

The psychologists are pushing the theory in connection with Bush (as in, he had to commute Libby's sentence because Libby is a good guy doing good work so couldn't deserve it).

I think it's a reasonable theory. I certainly remember the kids who taunted me in first grade about not being able to pronounce my "ch's", so my "chicken" came out "sh*tken", to the great delight of everyone except me. Showed me forever that people are no damn good. :-)

Lead and People

S. Vedantam had a piece yesterday on research into lead poisoning, specifically relating the presence of lead in the environment to crime rates. The theory being lead is a neurotoxin that causes impulsivity and aggression, so infants exposed to lead, either in lead paint or in the atmosphere from gas additives, grew up more apt to be criminals.

It sounds good in the writeup, as such pieces often do. Over at Freakonomics today , they are open to the idea, but aren't convinced (particularly because the proponent of the theory questioned their theory that legalized abortion might have impacted US crime rates. They include references to other researchers.

It's a little personal to me, since lead contributed to my existence. My father graduated from U of Minnesota in chemical engineering, went to work in a paint factory in St. Louis, became sick and was told to get into the fresh air or die.

We've Advanced, We Really Have

Just finished Walter Isaacson's biography of Einstein. I'd recommend it. But what was interesting was the discussion of the understanding of science in 1920's America, as shown by polls testing the average person's knowledge. As a footnote, Isaacson provides this, on page 299:

Governor Channing Cox had been thrust a version of the test earlier that week, and his first three responses were: "Where does shellac come from?" "From a can". "What is a monsoon?" "A funny-sounding word." "Where do we get prunes?" "Breakfast."

I think our current crop of politicians, even our President, is more knowledgeable.

Religion and Farming

This book review outlines some of the problems for farmers, dairy farmers, whose way of life is closely tied to their religion. The Virginians are members of the the Old German Baptist Brethern. It's an example of the persistence of culture, but also the challenges posed by free market capitalist society. Similar challenges are faced by the Amish.

Somewhere this week, on one of the economist blogs I frequent, there was an argument for greater use of the hormone that enhances milk production as a measure to reduce milk prices, which have risen recently. It's this tension between modernity and older values that's interesting (particularly if you're on the sidelines and have no personal stake in the matter--entirely different if it's your livelihood and your values.)

Today in FSA County Office

This piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch offers a refreshing change from the usual run of stories on farming and farm programs. Barb Burns is the county executive director (CED) in St. Clair county, and has her concerns: Land values, land being taken out of ag use, farmers signing up by computer versus the office (they're not), and handling pigheaded farmers.

(I remember visiting a county office in NC with a district director (responsible for oversight of about 10 county offices) way back in 1969 (tell it grandpa). After a week or so he decided he could trust me, even though I was a Yankee, presumably liberal and a troublemaker, as witness my long hair. He admitted to me he didn't really think that women should be in such positions as CED, because some of the farmers got pretty profane in the office. He resisted the idea of southern womenfolk being forced to deal with vulgarity. (He did admit, however, that the one woman in his district had no problem handling her farmers.)

Deja Vu, Warthogs, and Unmanned Aircraft

Government executive has an AP story on how the services are fighting over control of unmanned aircraft, both in Iraq and in the future. Brings back memories of reading Charles Peters' Washington Monthly in the 1970's and 1980's, which reported similar fights among the services. In fact, the struggle goes back to the 1920's--should each service: Navy, Army, Marine, have its own aviation or should it be centralized? The politicians thought and thought for many years, and came up with the only rational answer: Both.

Then, as the Monthly reported, there was fighting over tactical air and strategic air--the Army thought the AF was slighting tactical air in favor of the glamor of air superiority and strategic bombing. One area of controversy was the A-10 Warthog; a hideous plane designed never to appear in a Hollywood movie on the AF (but appears in movies on the ground forces as a modern version of the cavalry). It's slow, multiengined, armored to protect the pilot and designed for survivability and close ground support. During its development the Air Force tried to kill it repeatedly, only to have the Army and its Congressional supporters save it. Since its deployment the AF has tried to kill it, again to save money in the budget for more glamorous stuff.

So the fight over unmanned aircraft isn't new. How many services will fly them? Five (CIA plus the four service branches).