Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Equal Time for Cows--Predicting Their Behavior

Grew up on a dairy/poultry farm.  I've already posted on hens today, so I thought I'd throw in this piece from MIT on a model to predict cows' behavior: specifically whether to stand or lie down.

I'm a little skeptical of Bostonians talking about cows, they're probably more familiar with shoes.  But I can't controvert anything said in the post.

Hens and Cages

From Farm Policy
Rod Smith reported yesterday at Feedstuffs Online that, “American consumers buy eggs from cage housing systems by a margin of more than 40 to one over eggs from cage-free systems, according to data from Information Resources Inc. (IRI), which tracks checkout scanner transactions from 34,000 grocery and other retail stores in the U.S.
“Furthermore, based on other research, Americans pay three times less for eggs than Europeans do. Also, more than half of Americans prefer that egg producers continue to use current cage housing or migrate to alternative systems such as aviary or colony cages, and 44% prefer cage-free housing.
I wonder how it came to be that Americans pay three times less for eggs? Is the European poultry industry less concentrated?  Is it not vertically integrated as ours is? Do we just profit by the bigger market?  Do Europeans prefer more what in wine they call "terroir", which are the mostly imaginary qualities which are supposedly associated with production in a specific area.

[Updated--decided to do a little Googling and found this about the French industry.:]

National egg consumption over the last three to four years is estimated at 248 eggs per person on average, compared with 251 a decade ago.
Of these 248 eggs, 172 (69%) are believed to be table eggs, while the remaining 76 (31%) are thought to be processed eggs. Household purchases represent 40% of total consumption, followed by yolk and albumen (31%) for the food industry, table eggs for the catering sector (20%), and poultry farmers’ personal consumption (9%). Supermarket sales amount to nearly 4 billion eggs, or around one third of total consumption. Organic, Label Rouge and free-range eggs account for 28% of eggs sold and 42% of supermarkets’ turnover from egg sales. [I suspect here's a big difference.] France remains one of the EU’s biggest egg consumers.
The French egg market is at a crossroads in a fast-changing regulatory, economic and sanitary environment. While production and consumption perspectives remain favourable at international level, growth is slower in France and the rest of Europe, with a slight decline in production over the last few years.
The sector’s outlook depends on the development of EU-wide regulations concerning animal welfare, human health and the environment. The forthcoming ban on conventional cages, which is due to come into force on 1st January 2012, is expected to result in the further diversification of rearing systems and the development of alternative rearing methods, the ITAVI forecasts. In addition, growing awareness among consumers of animal welfare, as well as health and environmental issues, is likely to shape the market and benefit the organic sector.
The French poultry industry faces the tough challenge of adapting its production structures and making strategic investment choices over the next 20 years. However, the heavy costs involved may result in the disappearance of a number of small poultry farms, says ITAVI deputy manager Jean Champagne. Future production methods will have to guarantee human health and animal welfare as well as offer competitive prices, all the more so as the EU market is likely to be opened to imports from third countries that are not subject to the same requirements.

The March of Progress--Phipps Declares Non-GM Corn Over

John Phipps says genetically modified corn has now swept the field, at least in the U.S., because there's no longer a premium to corn growers for growing non-GMO corn.  He's got a pdf essay which he links to from a blog post. 

Frailty, Thy Name Is Beginning Gardener

From a NY Times article on the fad for company gardens:


Still, what seems like a good idea in the conference room doesn’t always translate to the field. People don’t always follow through. It’s the same dynamic that fills the office refrigerator with old yogurt containers and moldy lunches.
At PepsiCo, most of the plots are still weedy and empty. The weather has been cool and so, gardeners say, has enthusiasm. Last year when the company first turned over a plot the size of two tennis courts to peppers and tomatoes, 200 of the 1,450 employees here signed up, mailroom workers and midlevel administrators alike. This year, the volunteers dwindled to about 75, and many of them have yet to ready their plots.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

A Blast from the Past--PIK Certificates and a Wrong Prediction

John Phipps must have been having a nostalgic moment because he threw in a mention of PIK in a recent post
with a link to an explanation  of "PIK and roll" from the 1987 Washington Monthly.

I remember the start of the PIK program, or at least the 1983 incarnation. I suspect there are many FSA employees who were hired back then and remember it with some mixed feelings.

At the end of the article, two long retired Senators, Boschwitz and Boren, discuss their proposal for "decoupling", for removing the link between the crop produced and what the program pays.  We moved towards that in the next two farm bills, with the 1996 Freedom to Farm incorporating it.  Here's what was said:
"A system of direct income support would make government dependency less easy for farmers to swallow. They could no longer kid themselves that the farm program merely provided them with a "fair price.' Many farm groups oppose the plan on the grounds that it would turn the farm program into welfare, to which Boschwitz replies: "Farmers are getting benefits now and they would get benefits under my plan. What's the difference? If they call my plan "welfare,' what do they call the current programs?'"
The prediction was wrong--farmers have had no problem at all of arguing to keep the DCP payments long after they were supposed to be phased out. The "fair price" argument may have faded into the pages of history but the argument for preserving farms remains.

Monday, May 10, 2010

The Final Word on Vertical Farms

One of my hobbyhorses is vertical farms, or rather the unfeasibility of vertical farms.  This post should put the final nail in this idea:
Although the concept has provided opportunities for architecture students and others to create innovative, sometimes beautiful building designs, it holds little practical potential for providing food. Even if vertical farming were feasible on a large scale, it would not solve the most pressing agricultural problems; rather, it would push the dependence of food production on industrial inputs to even greater heights. It would ensure that dependence by depriving crops not only of soil but also of the most plentiful and ecologically benign energy source of all: sunlight.

Deficit Commission Predictions

Obama's deficit commission has been holding hearings, as has the House Agriculture Committee on the 2012 farm bill. The deficit report is due after the fall elections.

I now take up my crystal ball.  I predict the commission will include in its recommendations an across-the-board cut on much discretionary spending.  My logic is: it is very difficult to end programs; usually there are good arguments, or at least reasonable ones, for the existence and the value of the program, particularly if you ignore the costs. So it's going to be very difficult for 14 of the 18 commissioners to agree on a hit list.  Politically it's much easier to impose a flat percentage cut.  That way everyone (at least everyone in the affected programs) shares the pain and the cuts seem more equitable.

For those with short memories, or short lives, there was much concern about deficits back in the Reagan administration; that was one reason Reagan ended up signing some tax raises. Back then Congress and the administration could reach agreement on an approach to cutting deficits; it was called the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act.  In 1986 it kicked in and we ended cutting deficiency payments (and other payments) by something like 4.6 percent. 

So my prediction is history will repeat itself--the commission will propose a percentage cut like we had in 1986.

Why the US Is Losing Its Preeminence

The Chicken Little position is well stated in this NYTimes article on a Chinese woman teaching Chinese to teens in Lawton, OK.   Interesting contrasts in culture:
“They party, they drink, they date,” [the teacher] added. “In China, we study and study and study.”
Note: I'm not much bothered by the prospect.  The only thing I can be sure of is the contrast will be different in 30 years.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Mother's Day URL's

Steve Hendrix in the Post magazine interviews people his mother taught in a gifted class many years ago, and finds it was a big influence in their lives.

Roger Rosenblatt in "Making Toast" paints a picture of a mother, his daughter, now dead and the family she left behind. Emotional because underwritten.

The Answer to Some Mysteries?

According to this post passing on a study, the more intelligent and dependable a child, the more likely she is to live longer.   

No mention of whether it applies to both sexes, or whether the result only explains why females live longer than males.  Assuming this has cross-cultural validity, it might answer why the average IQ rises each generation.