A Locavore I Can Trust

Found this neat blog of a ranch/farm wife in Montana. She seems to be a "locavore", if only by necessity. (Taking 4 kids to the grocery store is not fun, and when it's an hour away you only go a couple times a month.) It's neat (a term from my childhood) because she writes with humor and style. Bill McKibben and Barbara Kingsolver have style, and occasionally humor, but they don't have Erin's wit. And they're trying to sell me something--the virtues of local food--while Erin is simply telling it as it is.

Lest I Forget

Stumbled across this following links (I'm not sure from where, perhaps starting with hnn.net). It's a reminder to an old geezer about being somewhat cautious about his memories. (Always liked Monty Python--this is the routine called "Four Yorkshiremen".)

Disaster Program

Here's an interesting article on the subject of disaster payments and the push for a permanent disaster fund. Author cites the EWG study on frequency of payments. I think I've commented before--one of my early assignments on the program side of ASCS was to follow up an OIG or GAO study on the disaster payments under the law in effect in the late 70's. They'd found recurring payments in some sample counties, so management agreed to do a review of the whole country.

Anyhow, the unanticipated consequences thing may be operating now.

At some point in the past (Freedom to Farm, maybe?) farm legislation started "freezing" the yields. There were two rationales: (1) allowing farmers to prove their actual yields (as they do under crop insurance) was encouragement to increase production and (2) freezing the yields saved money. (Apparently there was opportunity for a one-time change of yield under the 2002 farm bill.)

In the 1970's we could instruct counties to adjust the yields on farms that got recurrent disaster payments as part of the regular yearly process of adjusting yields. (Without getting into much detail, in theory the farm yields would weight back to the county yield, so a farm that got payments every year had its yield set too high.) But because of the freezing of payment yields for PFC and counter-cyclical payments, that process seems not to be available these days, which leaves FSA out on a limb in justifying/rationalizing the disaster payments.

Organic Wheat Farm in SD

Via Tom Philpott at Gristmill, Gourmet has an article describing a 4,000 acre family farm in Walworth County, SD. It's been in the family for generations, since 1880's. Not clear whether the family owns the 4,000 acres free and clear, but if they do it's a key to their survival. I think it's generally true that farm owner/operators, with luck and good management, can survive the bad times and prosper in the good times even if, as here, they occupy a niche market (organic wheat). As long as cash flow is positive (meaning no rent payments or mortgage payments) you can survive. (That's how my parents farmed on an uneconomic dairy/poultry farm.) Of course, if you're young you need to expand your acreage (to support the bigger and better equipment), so being able to buy wisely and timely is key. (Or else, you spend your winters rebuilding used stuff.) If you're old, you just carry on living off the depreciation of your old equipment and hope it lasts as long as you.

Without knowing more about the area and the economics, I wouldn't commit to the idea that the Stiegelmeiers are a viable example of how the Great Plains might be farmed. (A concept both Philpott and Prof. Dobbs, ag economist, float.)

Transparency in Congress

This Government Executive article describes the tribulations of those who want Congressional Research Service reports to be routinely available to the public. "Free the CRS data".

Sauce for the Goose

Listening to the discussion on PBS of Rev. Wright last night, I'm tempted to betray my liberal faith--while I understand all the points made in defense and extenuation of his sermons, and while I've listened to/read transcripts of at least a couple, and while I'm reading Sen. Obama's first book, I don't think we (i.e., liberals) are being even-handed. When Revs. Robertson and Falwell uttered some of their more notorious comments, they were also operating in the prophetic tradition, assailing the corruption of the society and the spiritual evils thereof and calling on the populace to repent and return to God.

Bottom line--if we cut Wright some slack, and we should, we also need to cut Falwell/Robertson some slack, which is a grievous penalty for my sins.

No One Understands Farm Commodities Markets

That's the news on the Times today. For some time now, the cash prices for corn and wheat and the closing price of a futures contract have differed greatly, when they should be the same, assuming the markets are operating correctly.

I don't know if there's a term like schadenfreude (sp?) for my feelings: amusement that reality is more complex than the mighty hidden hand of the economics profession.

I Quibble with Charlie Peters--Passport Flap

I've been reading Washington Monthly since it started, meaning I've been reading Charlie Peters, the founding editor. But today I disagree with him on the passport flap at State. Any long-time reader will not be surprised to see that I think the State passport system should send out an email anytime someone accesses a file. (If Abebooks can email me anytime some vendor offers a book I want, or Amazon do something similar, surely it's "technically feasible" (to use one of my favorite terms) to do so.

And the Saddest Words: About a Dozen Were Farmers

A phrase that can be taken many ways, from the Militant, on Pigford:

"Black farmers continue to face racial discrimination in loans and other services at offices of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). That was the view of many attending the 10th annual meeting of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA), held here February 15-17.

Farmers, faculty and researchers from historically Black agricultural colleges, environmental advocates, and officials of the USDA’s civil rights office were among the more than 60 participants. About a dozen were farmers."

Outsourcing Testing?

According to this piece, FSA let a $1.8 million contract for 2 years which is being satisfied by six staff members in the Kansas City area. Let's see--1.8 divided by 2 = $900,000, divided by six = $150,000 per person.

What's it for? "The work for the farm agency in Kansas City, Mo., will include stress testing of applications, Web and software development, application support and project management."

Something funny going on:

• back in the good old days, FSA did its software development in Kansas City and its testing, both using government employees. Then the IT types got moved into USDA IT (OCIO). I assumed IT was still doing the software testing.
• the contract seems to show some of the testing is being outsourced. I guess $150,000 is reasonable (subtract 33 percent for contractor overhead and another 30 percent of the remainder for fringe benefits and you're probably down to what a government employee would cost--maybe. We the taxpayer would be paying $50K for the right to fire the employee quickly (as in the recent flap over passport file access) and maybe for some expertise that's hard to develop in-house.) (I may be wrongly assuming the bulk of the contract is testing.)
  
• but the odd thing is that FSA is doing the contracting--seems as if it should be IT, just to make for cleaner responsibilities and reporting.

Oh, the mysteries.