Fact of the Day: Indonesians on Facebook

The third leading nation in use of Facebook is Indonesia, with 22.7 million account. From NYTimes article

Why I Love the Democratic Party

As Will Rogers said, I'm not a member of any organized party, I'm a Democrat.

At a time when respected political observers predict the Dems will lose the House this fall, and possibly, a number of Dems are running against the Blue Dogs from the left (in North Carolina they're even organizing a new party). Too many Dems are lost in the euphoria of 2008, not the realities of 2010.

Master Gardeners and Extension--Musings

In the last couple days the extension.org website has had a number of posts on various aspects of the "Master Gardener" program (also a bunch on swine).  (Briefly, this is a program where Extension trains people in gardener, then they go out and train ordinary, run of the mill gardeners, novices, etc.) See here.

I recently posted on the cuts in extension in Illinois.  I think in a rational world we would probably rethink and redo the structure of the extension service.  Currently it's tied to the land grant colleges, one per state.  Traditionally it had one or more agents in each county, though that's changed over the years.  But in a world of modern communication, is it really rational for each New England state to have its own setup?  I wonder how much duplication one could find in the work of the different colleges.  (I suspect there are efforts at coordination, but my cynicism is strong enough that I doubt the results.)

Transparency in government is good, and reaching out to the grassroots is good, so master gardeners are good. But I wonder.  Part of my wondering is due to the fact that the Reston library used to have master gardeners in attendance on Saturdays, they got some business, but I haven't seen them for a couple years.  I wonder how effective the program has been.

Does Organic Pay?

Just to state my position up front:
I don't believe organic cropping can match commercial/industrial farming on a per acre basis for a given crop over a period of years. The problem is that organic operations have to rotate crops.  Over a 10-year period a commercial producer in a corn/soybean rotation will produce more corn and beans than an organic one in a corn/soybean/alfalfa (maybe small grain) rotation.  That's assuming average weather. 

I do believe organic cropping is more productive if the weather is variable or extreme--more tolerance for droughts.

With that position, it's no surprise that I should appreciate this Purdue study. Their bottom line is that, if you do things right, organic can be as profitable or more profitable than commercial farming. The summary from farmgate:

When net returns per acre are written in four digit numbers, it does not take much imagination to realize that organic production can be profitable. However, getting there takes time and patience. After suffering through the transition period without price premiums, and taking the yield penalty, organic crops can become profitable with the help of higher prices and lower production cost. Key factors to success are timing of your crop rotation and finding a market for your crop.

In other words, as long as organic is a market niche commanding price premiums, it can be profitable once you make the transition.  But if it becomes mainstream, it won't be profitable.

The Volcano and Modern Agriculture

Strikes me that the effect of the Icelandic volcano, whose name I will not bother with, on air travel might be a metaphor for disasters and modern agriculture.  Perhaps I'm super sensitive to agriculture's vulnerability because I've been reading some about the Irish potato famine of the 1840's, but here's my comparison:

First air:

• Modern society has evolved to become dependent on air travel and air freight, which assumes an absence of volcanic ash in the atmosphere
• it's a system which works very well, connecting people and products from different countries and continents.
• the overall effect is greatly to improve the standard of living globally
• the system is vulnerable to disruption by volcanic eruptions, grounding air travel

Now commodities:

• modern agriculture has evolved to become dependent on a small number of varieties for each major crop
• it's a system which works very well, maximizing the return from inputs of fertilizer and water and providing uniform outputs
• the overall effect is greatly to improve the standard of living globally
• the system is vulnerable to disruption by plant diseases which attack the varieties in use.

Extension Cuts--What Other Cuts?

From Farmgate

Illinois is the latest state to rework its Extension system. After radical changes in states like Iowa and Minnesota, Illinois will be eliminating 15 regional offices over time and regional educators will shift to county offices. However, 76 county offices will be cut to only 30, with each office serving multiple counties. Staff members will be reduced also, which results from a reduction in state financial support for Extension and 4-H.

I wonder what other areas of infrastructure for agriculture will suffer cuts?  FSA offices, NRCS offices, crop insurance agents?  Does anyone have a census of how many crop insurance agents there are?

Corruption and Congress

Barking Up the Wrong Tree excerpts from a study on Congressional corruption, in which they tried to compare increases in wealth among members of Congress with increases in wealth among other occupations:

We thus conclude that representatives report accumulating wealth at a rate consistent with similar non-representatives, potentially suggesting that corruption in Congress is not widespread.

Finding myself to be feeling cynical today, I'd suggest maybe a better conclusion is: members of Congress are just as corrupt as other sectors of the society.

Those Socialist Scandinavians and Their High Taxes

From the News from 1930 blog:

The old saying "Nothing is sure but death and taxes" takes on new meaning in Denmark. "A recently compiled list of the various taxes made on Danes includes state, county, capital, income, house, ground, church, water, dog, business, radio, beer, alcohol, automobile, document, benzine, snow, inheritance, road, chimney, calendar, movie and legitimate theatres, dancing, amusement and bachelors."

It's obvious from this list that over the next 80 years Denmark must have regressed to being a poor and backward country.

Seriously, for almost all of my rather long life I've heard that high taxes and lots of government is bad for a nation. And the miracle of compound interest is supposed to make small differences grow into large ones.  Yet I don't recognize these theories as having been proved by events in Europe or China, or elsewhere.  Life is, I think, more complicated than the ideologues are likely to admit.  At least it seems so on a beautiful April day.

If Somalialand Has It, Can Any Self-Respecting Nation Be Without?

One of Bill Clinton's most enduring contributions to American life is his insistence that definitions matter:

The Economist has an interesting article on the definition and attributes of a nation.

Somaliland, has met this standard with increasing impressiveness since it declared independence in 1991. It has a currency, car registrations and even biometric passports.

And Who Is Your State Senator?

Reading David Remnick's bio of Obama.  He pulls a neat trick, stepping outside the flow of the narrative to ask the reader at the appropriate point: "who is your state senator?"  (Not the US senator from your state.)  Here I am, a self-professed political junkie, lived in the same place for 34 years, and I couldn't say.  (Turns out it's Janet Howell, sorry Janet.)  His point, of course, was the utter insignificance of Obama when he won his first election.  Remnick is a good writer.