Unintended Consequences of Green

From Farmgate, a discussion of corn and soybean outlook:

1) Projections of corn use for ethanol continue to climb upward, putting pressure on corn prices, encouraging acreage shifts, and resulting in reduced supplies of other crops.
2) Higher US prices are encouraging crop production expansion in South America and elsewhere, with an impact on livestock production and the price of meat.

Of course, the expansion in South America is changing tropical forest into monocultural land. As Robert Heinlein wrote, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Whole Foods and True Organics

Tom Philpott worries about Whole Food, its proposed merger, and the inroads of big "organic" farming. (I own shares in Whole Food). I think it's the inevitable result of the free market--we're going to see the food market differentiate into lots of different categories: cheap, "industrial" food from the old-line Krafts and Safeways; ethnic foods (possibly organic) through ethnic food markets, Latino chains, and aisles in the Safeways; big "organic" (meaning herbicide/pesticide free, but not grown in an idyllic small farm environment) food in the Safeway aisle and Whole Foods; small "organic" sold through niche shops, farmers markets, and community supported ag; and organic food in restaurants. It's the result of enough people having enough money and locating closely together enough to support these specialty tastes.

Rural School Population II

I've now corresponded with one of the authors of the report on which I posted yesterday. I'm still not totally convinced, but I'll accept the concept that rural areas have had a big increase in school population, mostly minority and immigrant.

The Things You Find in Garbage, Er "Miscellaneous"

The Miscellaneous Title of legislation often contains some "good" stuff--earmarks, the pet ideas of various legislators and staffers, etc. Here's an interesting bit from the Senate farm bill (appears to be the report language, rather than the actual bill):

Sec. 11068. Prevention and investigation of payment and fraud and error.
This section would amend the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978 to require financial institutions to disclose the financial records of any customer to any government authority that certifies, disburses, or collects payments, when the disclosure of such information is necessary to verify the identity of any person in connection with the issuance of a federal payment or collection of funds, or the investigation or recovery of an improper federal payment of collection of funds.

No idea of the background for this.

Rural School Population

I'm totally surprised by this report on rural areas--I've bought into the idea that rural population is aging and declining. But not so, at least not in some areas:

"Between 2002-03 and 2004-05, enrollment in schools located in communities of fewer than 2,500 increased by 1,339,000 (or 15%)," write Jerry Johnson and Marty Strange, policy analysts for the non-profit Rural School and Community Trust. School enrollment in larger communities (populations over 2,500) fell by 2% in this same period.

The study calls "most startling" its finding that the number of minority students increased 55% in rural schools, "with some states experiencing increases of over 100%." Rural schools in the Southeast and Southwest are the most ethnically diverse in the nation.

[Update--When I noted this to my sister, a former teacher, I looked at the figures and said, they can't be right. It didn't seem right that rural areas would have roughly 10 million students. I'm not sure what's going on, but this table from the Department of Education seems to show less than 1 million students in rural areas (plus towns under 2,500) in 2002. It might be the authors just slipped a zero somewhere. Or it might be I don't understand at all.]

Keith Collins on Agriculture

Keith Collins, the chief USDA economist, testified before House Ag last week. Lots of interesting overview stuff, including a graph showing that farmland values have tripled in the last 20 years. So is there a bubble there?

Bureaucratic Turf War Sprouting

Government Executive reports on the Air Force's plans to handle cyber warfare. There's no discussion of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps' plans, but I'm sure they won't be left behind and have good arguments for why they should be the front line of defense. Indeed, if I weren't rushing to catch up in my personal life, I might devote some time to imagining what arguments they might use.

Anyhow, it's a beauty of a turf war that sprouting right before our eyes.

Is a Farmer a Farmer a Farmer?

Gertrude Stein is famous for saying: "a rose is a rose is a rose". It's sometimes taken to mean that differences among things are trivial. But when it comes to farm programs, who a farmer is does make a difference. Personally, having grown up on a dairy/poultry farm, I have my reservations about whether field crop farmers (corn, cotton, etc.) really qualify as farmers. But, seriously, personal situations, crops, etc. all make a difference. Crops are obvious--cotton versus cows, carrots versus corn get you into different commitments of time, capital, labor, different markets. But even within the same crop a farmer of 75 who owns his land is in a very different position than a 25-year old renting hers. Their appetite for risk and vulnerabilities differ.

All of which is to say, when someone talks of the opinions of farmers, as here, [updated--I think it's an honest discussion, but often they aren't] take a grain of salt.

The Way the Media Works

I think I've blogged before on this, but via Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy, Al Qaeda people are mad at Al jazeera for reporting on conflicts within the ranks.

What it means is that the institutional incentives are at work: anyone who wants attention has to have a good story, and conflict makes a hell of a better story than communion. (That's why blogs like mine have low readership--there's no conflict.)

Your NRCS at Work

Washington Post has an article on the problems of working with Mennonite dairy farmers to reduce pollution of waterways. A reminder of the variety and complexity of the nation.