Potatoes

Elizabeth Rosenthal has an article on the potato as an answer to the question of how to feed the world. Because it's hard to store and transport, it's more or less a locavore food. No, I haven't done the figures, but potatoes are likely more distributed in growth than any grain and probably more than any vegetable.

Of course, as the Irish discovered 160 years ago, local isn't always better.

The Explanation for This Post Is...

Sex. According to columnist Kathleen Parker (don't know her) in the Post, men like McCain (and I?) don't have good judgment when faced with an attractive woman like Sarah Palin.

So, when I claim that I always felt Palin was important, my claim should be dismissed. :-(

However, Lois Romano's article on Palin as a new kind of feminist, also in the Post, deserves reading. I'd summarize it as saying Palin stretches the envelope for female politicians, showing one can attract support by combining feminism without pro-choice positions. I think she'll turn out to be a more important candidate than Ferraro was in '84, and hopefully have more effect on her party than Ferraro did on the Dems.

(I hasten to add, as a confirmed Dem, I'm glad she's making political history, but apparently without helping the Reps to win the White House.)

Contra Michael Pollan--Farmers Comment

I'd like to note some comments on Michael Pollan's recent NY Times mag piece, mostly from self-identified farmers or farm-raised people

Marcie

Shana

Rp, a farmer from Canada

Allen Hurlburt, CA

Fred Schumacher, MN and here

Overtaken by Events

From an April 17, 2008 Treehugger:

"Oil is setting record high prices. People are rioting over the price of food in Haiti, Egypt, parts of West Africa and the Philippines. Since March 2007 the price of soybeans is up 87%, and the price of wheat has risen 130%. Global grain stores are at the lowest levels on record. Amid this turmoil the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) released its report this week on the state of agriculture.

From farmpolicy today:

“The Midwest faces plunging crop prices [December corn futures, November soybean futures, December wheat futures] and stubbornly high production costs. Corn prices have dropped from $7.54 a bushel around July Fourth in central Iowa to just $3.81 a bushel on Tuesday. But growers are hearing from suppliers that fertilizer and seed costs could rise by more than 40% each for next spring’s plantings.”

Civil Rights in USDA

GAO has a report out criticizing USDA. See here for Post story and here for House Ag.

Those Brits Are Good

From Agweb:

There’s little doubt that farming breeds a competitive spirit. Take for example, the latest world record breaking harvest times coming out of England.

The record for bushels of wheat harvested in a single eight-hour time frame was contested and triumphed twice in two weeks. Early in September, a team using a New Holland CR9090 (Class 9 machine) harvested 16,571 bu.

On September 16, a team near Nottingham, United Kingdom, set the current world record with a Claas Lexion 580 Terra Trac (Europe’s version of the Lexion 595R). The Lexion 580 harvested 19,533 bu. of wheat in eight hours. This harvest stretched across six fields.

Sometimes You Don't Want to Lie to FSA

From the Moultrie Observer:

In addition [to a $5 million fraud charge], McKinnon was charged separately in the indictment with defrauding the United States Department of Agriculture and Farm Services Agency by dividing his farming operation into six separate entities in order to receive six subsidy payments when he was entitled to only one.

In addition to the prison sentence, McKinnon was ordered to pay $4 million restitution to United Agri Products. He also was ordered to pay $1.357 million to USDA Farm Services Agency in Douglas.

Crop Insurance Programs for Revenue

FCIC was initiating the revenue crop insurance programs just before I left USDA. Farmgate has an interesting piece on the current prospects for indemnity checks under them. What's most bothersome is this:

One of the uncontrollable issues is what the USDA’s Risk Management Agency does with the yield expectations. If your county yield is set too low, GRIP will never pay off. If it is set too high, GRIP is guaranteed income. Additionally, RMA's crop insurance ratings for some counties are not actuarially sound, and in some counties farmers will almost always get a payment and in others they almost always will never get a payment.

Too much chance for screwups here--hopefully this pessimistic picture is overdrawn.

Some People Are Born Romantics

Most romantics find their satisfaction in praising nature, but some people (like thecottonwife) have an expansive spirit which finds beauty in other things:

"And if the drying shed is close enough to the house (and it is to ours) it provides you with the best sleep you’ve ever gotten. That peanut smell… the sound of the fan… a clear star-filled sky… the windows open… there is no better sleep on earth. I can practically hear my mom and my grandma sighing at the memory of that right now."

Personally, I remember sleeping on the sleeping porch after a late summer thunderstorm, with the rain drops still falling from the leaves of the big maple tree.

Costly Fruits and Vegetables?

One of the recurring themes of critics of the current food system is that calories are cheap, while fruits and vegetables are costly. I stumbled over this factoid from ERS while researching something else:

"How Much Do Americans Pay for Fruits and Vegetables?—One argument for not consuming fruits and vegetables is that they are too expensive, especially when fresh. Yet among 154 forms of fruits and vegetables priced using ACNeilsen Homescan data, more than half were estimated to cost 25 cents or less per serving. Consumers can meet the recommendation of three servings of fruits and four servings of vegetables daily for 64 cents. The related data product is a collection of spreadsheets that contain all the data used in the report and are presented to show exactly how ERS arrived at the costs per serving figures."

I didn't dig into it, but it's a reminder things are more complex than we imagine.