More on ACRE

The ACRE program really makes me shudder, and this from farmgate doesn't help. Why? Because FSA had, and I think still has, a general "misaction/misinformation" provision. The idea being if a bureaucrat tells you something wrong and you act on it, or if the bureaucrat does something wrong which harms you, FSA should make you whole.

From a philosophical standpoint, it's interesting. (There's a certain parallel to the FISA debate going on--the bill that just passed the Senate which Obama and Clinton differed on holds the telecoms harmless/gives them immunity from suits for past acts taken in accord with instructions from the executive. To my mind it's much the same philosophy as misaction/misinformation.) Looked at one way, shouldn't the government expect its citizens to be knowledgeable and to look after their own interests? If so, if a bureaucrat misinforms you, why shouldn't we expect you to know better? To be pejorative, should the government be encouraging its citizens to rely on it? (Conservatives/libertarians can do a great riff on this.)

The political reality is that we have the misaction/misinformation law--write your Congressperson with a grievance and one of the first questions the FSA person who handles the correspondence is going to ask is, was there misaction or misinformation? And, in my experience, the agency will often lean towards saying "yes". If the farmer goes out the door confused, it was the FSA person who confused him. (All farmers are smart, just as all children are above average.)

So, under a brand-new program like ACRE we're particularly likely to have confusion both within FSA and in the agricultural community. We're also particularly likely to see people regretting their choice after a year or two and that's when the claim of "you misinformed me" is likely to be made.

Who Says Bureaucrats Don't Listen

The Director of the Congressional Budget Office listens to David Brooks, and has poetry in his soul, or at least footnote 47 of his testimony.

I Was Wrong, Perhaps [Updated]

I've commented at both Marginal Revolution and John Phipps on posts reporting the existence of a World Bank report that blames biofuel initiatives in Europe and US for 75 percent of a 140 percent increase in food costs over the last 6 years. My comments boil down to: not credible as reported

But the devil's in the details. And people fall into traps of snap judgments. So I might well be wrong for the following reasons:

• the definition of "food". It can mean the costs to the consumer of articles in the supermarket in the U.S. Or it could mean the prices of basic commodities: rice, wheat, corn, etc. averaged over 6.7 billion people. The impact using the first definition is much less than the second, and there could obviously be variations and permutations of the definition.
• the definition of cause--which straw broke the camel's back? If you start with 2002 and look at all the changes in production and demand since, there are many things which impact price.
  

I need to remember the basic economics of agriculture, demand is inelastic and supply is inelastic--changes in supply can cause big changes in price. But so can changes in demand. So a change like biofuels which is new can cause big price hikes. And a new demand is going to seem more significant than a change in old parameters, like the levels of imports by India and China.

Having said all the above, and knowing we still haven't seen the actual study, I still expect the World Bank study to end up at one extreme of the argument, but I can't dismiss it as cavalierly as I did before.

[Update: See here for an update. Via Farm Policy.com]

True Sentence

"If members of Congress could get away with never voting on anything, they'd probably do it."

Kevin Drum, on a new War Powers Act

Coral, Algae, and Culture

The NY Times had an interesting article on coral and algae that hits the slow food and cultural markers as well. Carrageenan comes from algae and is used in industrial food (i.e., ice cream). But the algae that were brought into Pacific areas to be farmed are now endangering the coral reefs. And solving the problem is hard:

"Then there are cultural factors. Some Pacific countries, like Kiribati, are populated by what ethnologists call nonconsumers: people who need just a little cash to get by and once that need is met, prefer to spend time with their family, go fishing or sleep.[instead of gathering algae]

There is also “pubusi,” (pronounced poo-boo-SEE) the local tradition in which one person can ask another for pretty much anything, using the magic word, and the other person has to hand it over or face public opprobrium.

“What’s the point of making money if you have to pubusi it all away?” says Kevin Rouatu, a stocky, cheerful former banker who runs the Atoll Seaweed Company in Kiribati."

The conflict between market and non-market thinking/culture exists not only in Amish communities in the U.S. but in Kiribati.

Foolish Optimism from Michael Gerson

Who says in today's column in the Post that:
"Chevrolet and Toyota are only a couple of years away from offering plug-in hybrids that could average hundreds of miles to the gallon. [enphasis added]"

The column segues from fuel economy to hunger to insufficient food stamp funds.

I Never Rode a Bike, But Like the Tour de France

And this feature of Google Maps (offering a bike-level view of the Tour), via the Monkey Cage, is cool.

EU Fights Fat by Free Food

The EU is proposing to provide free fruits and vegetables to kids 6-10 to fight obesity.

A Different School System

Dirk Beauregard on the French system, now 200 years old:

"For better or worse, the Baccalauréat works, and is still a reasonable indicator of educational excellence, furthermore the Baccalauréat is national and nationalised. Candidates sit the same papers in the same subject at the same time all over France. There are no private exam boards. State education mobilises thousands of teachers to get everything marked within ten days, and all candidates get their results in the first week of July. There is no single Baccalauréat that is easier than another. There is no exam board reputed to be more difficult or better than another. It is true educational equality, and it works. Why reform it, other than the fact it is 200 years old and therefore has to be modernised in the name of fashionable progress.

So, all the candidates, for better or worse, have their results, and this week they are signing on at university. Come Friday, everything will be sorted for the start of the new university year, and France can go on holiday. Kids in Britain will get their results in late August and spend the rest of their summer trying to get a place at university. Seems a bit late to me."

For someone with no children, it's probably easy for me to overestimate the fragmentation (that may not be the right word) of the US education system. I know we have the SAT's and I assume the National Merit exams and the application process to college is being standardized and No Child Left Behind has forced some uniformity. But I'm still amazed at the difference between our system and the Europeans.

Best SEntence Today

"Sex and food — that's what NYT readers care about the most."

(From a discussion of the long article on Rush Limbaugh in the Sunday magazine and NYT's readers reaction.)