FSA Still Wants the Bucks for MIDAS

From NextGov:

"No, it's not enough money," said Jim Gwinn, the agency's chief information officer...." "

Taitano said 60 percent of the stimulus funds will be used to stabilize the current systems and 40 percent will go toward the agency's modernization efforts. Farm Service is planning to pursue the rest of the modernization funds, about $200 million, through the appropriations process. Several lawmakers have expressed support for the additional funds.

USDA Deputy Secretary Merrigan

From this morning's Post:

"Kathleen A. Merrigan, former administrator of the agricultural marketing service at the Agriculture Department, was tapped to be the department's deputy secretary."

(Buried after discussion of the cars Obama's people drive.)

[Updated--Tom Philpott sings her praises.--Leahy, organic, Jim Hightower.]

School Nutrition Organization and Alice Waters

I was skeptical of the Alice Waters call for tripling the amount spent on school lunches. Here's what the School Nutrition Organization is calling for (apparently the people who work in the schools):

“Every school day school nutrition professionals must meet differing local, state and federal nutrition standards; provide quality, safe and healthful meals that kids enjoy; accommodate special dietary needs and food allergies of a diverse student body; all for less than $2.57 per meal,” said Dr. Katie WIlson, SNS, president of SNA. "The time has come to raise the meal reimbursement rate to an amount that reflects the true food, transportation, labor and benefits, training, equipment and indirect expenses necessary to provide a school meal."
The key legislative issues the School Nutrition Association (SNA) is advocating for as part of child nutrition reauthorization are to:

• Increase the per meal reimbursement by 35 cents for all meals in order to keep pace with rising costs and implementing the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
• Update the Federal reimbursement rates semi-annually to better reflect increasing costs.
• Expand the “free” meal category from 130% of poverty to 185%, consistent with the WIC income eligibility guidelines (eliminating the reduced price meal category).
• Provide 10 cents in USDA commodities for each school breakfast served.
• Grant the Secretary of Agriculture the statutory authority to regulate the sale of all foods and beverages on the school campus, consistent with the most recent edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (ending the “time and place rule”).
• Require the Department to implement a consistent, science-based national interpretation of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans for all school meals reimbursed by USDA.

Hypocrisy Watch

We're all hypocrites, but it's good to point out the failings of the high and mighty. Here in Slate Jack Shafer goes after Bill Moyer (for searching for homosexuals and planting questions while working for LBJ). Of course, we all grow up, sometime.

Titans Fight Over Money and Broadband

Today in the NYTimes Qualcom had an ad boasting their wireless broadband could reach over 90 percent of the population. Meanwhile there was a small news item describing IBM's quest for the broadband dollars in the stimulus package: broadband over power lines. They claimed it would work if there were 6 or so users per mile of line, although the speed of download was about 256K (as they point out, this might be 10 times the speed of a dial up modem).

Of course, if a farm has 1,000 acres in a block, it means it's more than 1 mile square (also known as a "section"), so I'm not sure how well IBM will do in the wide-open spaces.

USDA Caught Spinning

Not that USDA usually goes in circles, you understand, but Obama Foodorama caught Sec. Vilsack and NRCS out on their hyping of the garden.

(One comment on the idea of gardens at all USDA offices--mostly these facilities are rented, not government-owned, so USDA would need to get the landlord's permission. And I'm very skeptical of any top-down initiative like this--I've seen too many people full of enthusiasm for gardening in the spring, only to drop out by summer.)

Childless Amish Farmer

There is no such term findable by Google (until now).

USDA Fails to Meet Deadline

From Government Executive:

"Agencies have had mixed success at meeting one of the first deadlines related to the massive economic stimulus package: the goal of selecting by Feb. 13 a high-level official to oversee spending.

A number of agencies contacted by Government Executive have placed someone in charge of economic recovery act activities, as requested by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag in a Feb. 9 memorandum. But at least several others missed the Feb. 13 deadline."

One of those missing is USDA, presumably because only Vilsack has been named.

Definitions Matter: What Is a Farm

A former employee of USDA's Economic Research Service elucidates the definition of a "farm" in the 2007 Ag Census. It's a reminder that statistics are usually tricky to use, because the users aren't familiar with how the data was obtained and massaged.

Elsewhere he hits more strongly on the fact that farm prices increased dramatically between 2002 and 2007, which would affect farm numbers.

Score One for Obama

One of the worst features of the Bush administration was its dishonesty in accounting--using only the 5-year window, fudging on AMT, keeping the Iraq/Afghan war off budget in supplementals. Obama is, at least for now, promising to correct those errors according to this NYTimes piece. The last paragraph breaks new ground:

He will also budget $273 billion in that [10-year] period for natural disasters. Every year the government pays billions for disaster relief, but presidents and lawmakers have long ignored budget reformers’ calls for a contingency account to reflect that certainty.

I wonder whether they'll split it between FEMA and USDA? We'll see, but it's a good first step. We should also budget for California to split off and fall into the Pacific, but this is progress.