Problems of Locavore Agriculture

Obamafoodorama has a post on various ag issues, including the problems faced by a farm in the DC metro area.

Some challenges: Georgia and Zach lease their land, for a shockingly high amount of monthly rent. They’ve spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours boosting the quality of their soil with amendments in order to grow better vegetables—but when their lease is up, they’ll have to start over elsewhere. There’s a huge problem with deer eating their crops; the growing area is fenced, but better, deer-secure fencing is incredibly expensive. Figuring out better direct marketing techniques would help, too; Zach and Georgia could have a big local CSA project where they sold to near-by residents, instead of having to drive more than an hour to DC for farmers markets. Although DC is considered local in food speak, it’s not Georgia and Zach’s own community—so they’re “relocating” their wealth elsewhere, as well as spending money on gas—and contributing to greenhouse problems.

A Third Surprising Statistic

From the NY Times today in an article on the possible banning of smoking from New York City's parks.  Apparently after the Mayor got smoking banned in restaurants and pubs the smoking rate dropped from about 20 percent to about 16 percent.

Why Are We Fat--We're Capitalists

Cornell has a study out which says:

The study found that fathers who worked long hours or had non-standard schedules were more likely to use takeout meals, miss family meals, purchase prepared entrees and eat while working. Working mothers in the study who worked under similar conditions purchased restaurant meals or prepared entrees or missed breakfast significantly more often than other women. About a quarter of mothers and fathers said they did not have access to healthful, reasonably priced or good-tasting food at or near work.

One of the things celebrated about our economy is our flexibility and hard work, the idea that unlike France people can and do change locations and jobs, meaning the economy is more friendly to innovation and change.  But the quote suggests we pay a price for that on our waistline.

The Next Most Surprising Statistic Today--Fruits and Vegetable Consumption Increased

(After the teachers from the Philippines in the previous post), this quote surprised me:

While consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables has increased from about 192 pounds over the course of a year in 1970 to 280 pounds in 2008, the risk of food-borne diseases associated with fresh produce has also increased.

Importing Professionals

One thing which struck me in the papers this morning is a statistic from Baltimore--10 percent of its teachers now come from the Philippines.  (A while back the Post had an article about a teacher from there who worked in Prince Georges County, but I didn't realize the trend was exploding so fast.)

E-Gov at USDA/FSA

I've always been curious how many farmers actually make use of the e-government options on the USDA website. ("Always" = 1992, back in the old days with Infoshare, which was a pilot project initiated by the Republican administration. The project had lots of hype, but it wasn't clear how many farmers could take advantage.) Now I've seen an indication of the answer.  USDA has submitted for OMB a collection of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act for the USDA's e-authorization process, the means by which a USDA customer gets a login/password. Level 1 has minimal security requiresments; Level 2 permits doing business on-line, such as applying for benefits, but requires in-person verification.  The estimate of usage is 40,088 for level 1 and 18,088 for level 2.

That seems small, given the option has been available for a number of years. Why isn't the usage higher--my suspicions:"Build it and they will come" doesn't work  But that's probably what's happened in USDA--people have built different functions and put them out, but without any nurturing. The way FSA is organized there's no one in charge of e-government programs, no one to watch how much usage there is, to figure out where the problems are and what the fixes might be.  Conversely, FSA has 70+ years experience of trying to improve service through county offices.

It's also true these e-government options probably don't have great potential to benefit the farmer. Someone who farms in multiple counties might gain, but I doubt they'd gain much.  To see what I mean, look at a contrasting application, Treasury Direct:  If you want to buy a bond from the Treasury Department, you used to have to establish a paper account with an FRB.  Most peopel did their purchases through brokers, paying the service fee.  But with the Internet you can buy on-line without ever talking to a live body at Treasury or exchanging a piece of paper, or paying a transaction fee.

I think e-government won't advance much at FSA until either they reorganize to make it a focus on the program side and/or they're able to provide access to all of the farmer's information, particularly GIS data. Or maybe integrate FSA GIS with the farmer's own record keeping software?

Getting Out

The Times has a piece on the various measures we collectively call "bail-outs", including a discussion of the difficulty of getting out, of unwinding. It reminds me of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, an entity created under the Hoover administration which made loans for various purposes, over the years amounting to close to twice the annual government budget under Hoover.  It took until 1957 to wind down its affairs and close the doors. x

Grand Plans and Sad Realities

All too often people of my stripe get carried away by the brilliance of their own ideas. And sometimes they are able to convince others, convince enough others to get them implemented, at least in part. But when the idea meets the rude reality, the resulting heat is often enough to melt the best idea.

Prof. Negroponte of MIT had such an idea, a simple, tough laptop for the third world. Here's a progress report.

My Mind, What's Left, Is Blown

From the NYTimes:

Vietnam, for years a bitter foe of the United States, is now a friend. The clearest evidence of how far things have changed may be the Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail, a route that connects more than a half-dozen luxury golf courses and resorts. (Like its namesake, the golf trail runs north-south, but presumably the resemblance ends there.)

Who would have thought, when the Johnson administration was debating whether to bomb the Ho Chi Minh trail, they were really debating whether to help create sand traps and water hazards for wealthy golfers?

In Defense of Bureaucrats

Mr. Stier in the Washington Post writes an op-ed saying bureaucrats "...deserve better from their president. As the nation's leading public servant, you are their boss, and they take their cues from you." He's upset by Obama's references to government bureaucrats in the healthcare debate and ends "...you should avoid demoralizing those who are serving their country by portraying them as nameless, faceless "bureaucrats."

I think that's a lost cause--defaming bureaucrats is now too deeply engrained in the political psyche to reverse.  Our only comfort is knowing that while politicians come and go, the bureaucrat endures forever.