Amish Take Over Farming

The Post had an article on the surging Amish population a few days ago. Professor Kraybill estimates a gain of 84 percent in 16 years. Keep that up, and pretty soon the Amish will accomplish what the locavores and organic farming types want.

Short-Lived Small Farms

Pardon the cynicism of a codger, but this post at Musings of a Stonehead confirms me:

"It turns out that, in his [the local attorney] experience, most incomers buying crofts and smallholdings in the area last about three years before giving up and moving back to a “more manageable” house and garden.

Food Co-ops

Stephanie Pierce blogs at Ethicurean about food co-ops she and her husband saw driving across America. Some good generalizations there, but I think she misses the most important element to a good co-op: finding a structure and a niche which ensures survival over the medium term. There were lots of producer and consumer co-ops in the 1920's and 30's, and again in the 1960's, but history tells us most of them failed or were bought out. A single smart, persistent, hard working person can initiate a co-op, attracting enough others to make it work for a while, but it's very hard to institutionalize that into a continuing organization which can outlive the founder (or her enthusiasm).

Polish Agriculture

From Grist and Erik Hoffner:

That's what I'd read in the New York Times this spring, in a story which reported that interest in buying local is thin, and the market for organic is even thinner. And this is largely what I saw there -- people preferred to buy vegetables from Germany, and farms I visited were wondering what their market would be in the future. Ironically, most of these farms were already organic because of the prohibitive cost of chemical amendments, but hadn't bothered with the paperwork. Most small farmers don't sell at all, but consume what they grow -- pure subsistence.

In my high school biology class, many years ago, we were taught something that's now discredited: "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"--meaning the development of the individual retraces the steps by which the phylum developed, hence the presence of gills at one stage of the fetal development. I wonder whether that's sort of true for economies--an agricultural economy which the Michael Pollan's of the world regard as ideal must necessarily transform into an industrialized agriculture before, perhaps, and this remains to be seen, developing post-industrial crunchy green characteristics.

How Legislation Is Implemented II

Government Executive has a long post about the problems of implementing the "bailout": problems of designing the problem, getting the expertise, handling ethical and conflict-of-interest problems, oversight, enforcement, and the looming transition.

Best Blog Post Title in a While

Is here.

How Legislation Is Implemented

This post picks up the story of implementation--in this case the Biomass Crop Assistance Program included in the farm bill. It's not on a fast-track--requiring both an environmental impact assessment and regulations to be developed, likely it will take 18 months or so to implement.

The unknown not cited in the article is staffing. Someone in USDA has to be assigned to write the regs and do the assessments, or someone has to be hired (assuming the funding covers administrative costs). Hiring takes a long while, up to 6 months while moving someone from job A to job X often means getting a turkey. (Big boss says: I need a body from your staff to work on BCAP, small boss: says Jane Doe isn't busy now, I'll give her to you. Left unsaid, the reason Jane Doe isn't busy is that she tends to screw up what she does unless closely supervised. And because Big boss knows nothing about BCAP, and cares less, she's not going to give Jane much guidance..)

Some unsolicited advice for lobbyists: once you get a program in the law, you need to have a sponsor within the bureaucracy with the interest in the program and the clout to be sure it gets capable bureaucrats assigned to it. Alternatively, you can take to dropping by the office regularly to help the poor sucker (i.e., Jane Doe) figure out what needs to be done.

I'm Feeling Mean

Greg Mankiw, the Harvard economist, posted last week about the odds on which economist would win the Nobel. You'd think, if economists were wise, this is surely a field where their predictions would be good. To the contrary, Paul Krugman wasn't even mentioned.


As one gets old, one loses faith in all sorts of authority figures.



[yes, I realize I'm using bad logic in my second sentence.]

The Latest News from 1783

Via Manan Ahmed at Cliopatria, a recommendation to view the Onion.

I agree, a must-read for any one with an interest in our history.

"Energy Experts"?

"Energy experts believe prices could go even lower."

A line from an article on oil prices dropping below $78. Seems as if only yesterdaythey were predicting higher prices.