A Failure of Understanding?

In an oldish article on Grist, Debbie Barker writes:

It’s an industry-generated myth that ecologically-safe organic agriculture yields less than conventional agriculture. In fact, a comprehensive study comparing 293 crops from industrial and organic growers demonstrates that organic farm yields are roughly comparable to industrial farms in developed countries; and result in much higher yields in the developing world.

But this says

The performance of organic agriculture on production depends on the previous agricultural management system. An over-simplification of the impact of conversion to organic agriculture on yields indicates that:

• In industrial countries, organic systems decrease yields; the range depends on the intensity of external input use before conversion;
• In the so-called Green Revolution areas (irrigated lands), conversion to organic agriculture usually leads to almost identical yields;
• In traditional rain-fed agriculture (with low-input external inputs), organic agriculture has the potential to increase yields.

To be fair, the FAO says: organic agriculture has the potential to feed the world, under the right circumstances.

My point: "decrease yields" is not the same as "roughly comparable"

Stunt Vegetables?

Obamafoodorama has a  couple posts on a small tempest--it seems Food Network had some sort of cooking challenge between teams of chefs who supposedly were cooking with vegetables from the White House garden.  Except that the show taped the vegetables being harvested one week and being cooked a week later, so it was revealed the actual vegetables cooked weren't the actual vegetables grown in the actual soil of the White House grounds.  Unless and until someone shows the White House has stretched the truth on the kind and volume of harvests from the garden, this strikes me as a non-issue, but it does yield the nice term "stunt vegetables".

The Disaster Learning Curve

If we have enough disasters, we may learn, but we're still low on the curve, coordination-wise:

Technology Review and the Clinton/Bush site point to this site. It 's GIS based with different data layers.

Google has a People finder site and the two ought to be at least cross-linked.





And of course the Red Cross is doing its thing.

As a side note, I see Dan Snyder's private plane was reportedly being use to convey people to Haiti--don't know if it was one of the planes which the FAA had to order back because there was no traffic control at Port-au-Prince and no fuel on the ground. 

Bottomline, everyone likes to rush into action, it will take some more disasters to climb a bit further up the curve.

How Congress Works

From FarmPolicy, concerning Senator Lincoln of Arkansas:

“‘Many farmers had major damage to crops, and the need for help is immediate since banks will begin making crop loans in a couple of weeks,’ Lincoln said Wednesday.”
The article pointed out that, “Chad Pitillo of Simmons First National Bank said last week the bank had already begun making crop loans and that some farmers would not have enough equity to continue into next season if financial assistance is not provided very soon.
“Lincoln, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, joined Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) to introduce legislation in mid-November that would provide quick damage assistance. In early December Rep. Marion Berry (D-Ark.) and Rep. Travis Childers (D-Miss.) introduced a companion bill in the House.
“‘It will be important that we find a bill that we can attach it to that can pass quickly,’ Lincoln said. ‘Since we are not in session, I don’t know what bill that will be yet, but it is a high priority and I am focused on getting assistance to farmers as quickly as possible.’”

If she attaches her provision to a must-pass bill, it bypasses the authorization process of the agriculture committees. It could, I think, be subject to a point of order that it doesn't conform to pay-go rules, but that assumes someone is willing to be the skunk at the garden party (Sen. Coburn, perhaps).

A Great Anniversary for Bureaucrats

Today's the anniversary of the signing of the Pendleton Act, which established the Civil Service Commission, and thereby the "civil service".  (This was after the assassination of a President by a job seeker.)

A couple of the lesser-known provisions:

Third, appointments to the public service aforesaid in the departments at Washington shall be apportioned among the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia upon the basis of population as ascertained at the last preceding census. Every application for an examination shall contain, among other things, a statement, under oath, setting forth his or her actual bona fide residence at the time of making the application, as well as how long he or she has been a resident of such place...

SEC. 8. That no person habitually using intoxicating beverages to excess shall be appointed to, or retained in, any office, appointment, or employment to which the provisions of this act are applicable.

SEC. 9. That whenever there are already two or more members of a family in the public service in the grades covered by this act, no other member of such family shall be eligible to appointment to any of said grades.

The first provision was still in effect when I was hired, at least as far as the identification of my state. I think they'd given up on the actual apportionment but it was still technically in place.

What Do You Know About the Founders?

Everyone knows the Founding Fathers worked closely together, first winning independence, then creating the Constitution, and finally getting the government up and running before partisan politics reared its ugly head.

So, to win the grand prize, answer two questions:

1. How many documents are known to have the signatures of Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison?
2. Name one document?

See this link for the answers.

The Blessing of the Phones

Michael Nielson includes a link on a British canon who blessed the cell phones:

On this day, the first Monday after Twelfth Night, farm labourers would bring a plough to the door of the church to be blessed… Men and women coming to [the modern] church no longer used ploughs; their tools were their laptops, their iPhones and their BlackBerries. So he wrote a blessing and [delivered] it before a congregation of 80, the white heat of technology shining from his every pronouncement. “I invite you to have your mobile phone out … though I would like you to put it on silent,” he said.

"No One Goes to the Barricades for Efficiency"

That's Robin Hanson yesterday.  (I like the post because he mentions my favorite movie, Kelly's Heroes.)  Sadly it appears that Obama is ready to apply the Vt. Senator's prescription for Vietnam to health care (was it Aiken, I think it was Aiken): "declare victory and leave".  At least that's the sad message I take away from this NY Times piece by David Leonhardt which describes all the problems bureaucrats will have implementing health care reform and notes Obama has yet to nominate anyone to run the process.  A big, black mark against his administration.
 

Vertical Farming

Picked up a comment from Charlie on my vertical farming post.  As I responded in comments, I still am skeptical, but I welcome descriptions of experience with such things (even trying to grow lettuce on windowsills, which I've never done but could be relevant in this context.

Two Sides of an Issue--Growing Your School Lunch

Mr. Freese at Grist takes on an article by Ms Flanagan in the Atlantic which is critical of the Berkeley and now California effort, inspired by Alice Waters, to have school kids grow gardens. She sees it as a fad which distracts from basic education.

The tone of the article is demonstrated here:

This notion—that it is agreeably possible to do good (school gardens!) and live well (guinea hens!)—bears the hallmark of contemporary progressivism, a kind of win-win, “let them eat tarte tatin” approach to the world and one’s place in it that is prompting an improbable alliance of school reformers, volunteers, movie stars, politicians’ wives, and agricultural concerns (the California Fertilizer Foundation is a big friend of school gardens) to insert its values into the schools.

As you might expect, Mr. Freese is not happy with the article. He makes some points.  I'm not sure that 1.5 hours a week is all that significant.  And the logic for blaming gardening for poor test scores at the original school isn't particularly good. But on the whole I'm more on Flanagan's side than Freese's.  There's also a post at Yale Sustainable Foods attacking Flanagan, with links to a couple other sites with attacks, and lots of comments.

Bottomline: while I concede gardening could serve as a way to teach lots of stuff, I very much doubt it's done that way in very many cases.  What you're asking for is a teacher who not only knows the academic material, but is also a good and committed gardener. We don't have a surplus of the former, and there's sure to be a shortage of the combination. So, any teacher who wants to do gardening as a teaching method, fine, more power to her/him, but not as a requirement in the curriculum.