Oxfam Says "Ho-Hum" to Program Cuts

Via Farm Policy, here's Oxfam's blog with a big ho-hum at the idea of cutting farm program payments.  The writer focuses on the direct payments, which WTO doesn't consider market-distorting, and thus don't hurt developing countries (which is Oxfam's concern).

Discrimination Study at USDA

The Post reports USDA got the results of an $8 million study of discrimination yesterday.

The study, which officials described as voluminous, was not distributed. Among its more than 200 recommendations, which were released Tuesday, were suggestions that the agency’s chief diversity officer monitor hiring, that farm service officials be required to “thoroughly” explain reasons for denying loans to minorities and women, and that the USDA mount public relations efforts to change the agency’s reputation by emphasizing its focus on diversity.

I hope the study is better than that paragraph suggests:  I'd think we'd want all loan applicants to understand why their application was denied.

I checked the USDA website--nothing on the report.  I notebut forbear commenting on the fact there have been no FY2010 civil rights reports posted here.  Whatever the Obama administration is doing, they aren't being transparent with those reports.

Executive Bureaucrats More Accurate Than Congressional Ones

Via Project on Government Oversight, Roll Call has a piece describing a very high error rate on Congressional financial disclosure forms.

Changing Direct Payment Program

It's sounding more and more as if the direct payment program will be eliminated or drastically changed in the new farm bill.  The wheat and corn people like crop insurance, but not the cotton and rice people. Of course, the number of cotton and rice farmers is down, and only a fraction of the wheat and corn.  I'm not sure though how many wheat, corn, and soybean farmers in the South there are who don't grow cotton or rice and who might be satisfied with crop insurance.  That is, whether the problem the South sees with the actuarials for crop insurance is limited only to cotton and rice.

The Doha round of negotiations appears to have fizzled out.  I'm not sure whether or not that makes it easier to move money from the direct payment program, which complies with the WTO restrictions, to something else which is less compliant.

[Farm Policy cites an ERS study:

Meanwhile, an update from USDA’s Economic Research Service yesterday explained that, “While the Direct and Counter-cyclical Program and Federal crop insurance are both part of the farm safety net, they do not necessarily serve the same farmers. Looking at counties that received at least $20 in direct payments per cropland acre in 2008, or $20 in crop insurance indemnity payments averaged over 2007 to 2009, clear geographic patterns emerge [see graphical illustration here]. Direct payments tend to be higher in the Corn Belt (corn and soybeans), Mississippi Delta (cotton and rice), and the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast (cotton and rice). They are also high in Arizona (cotton), California (cotton and rice), and parts of the Southern Atlantic Seaboard. Crop insurance indemnity payments tend to be higher in the wheat-growing regions in the Northern Plains and parts of the Southern Plains, as well as North and South Carolina. Both programs are high in the Texas Panhandle (cotton and wheat) and across Alabama and Georgia (cotton and peanuts).”
 ]

The Story Behind the Forest Service Sale of Warehouses

I was fiddling around, resting from some landscaping efforts (these days I work a half hour and rest for 1 1/2) and found the Forest Service has a bunch of warehouses for sale in Illinois. They're listed on the White House's website for sales of surplus government property.  Now I don't think of the Forest Service as having a lot of action in the East so I was curious.  What seems to have happened is this: the Army surplused (presumably through a BRAC) the Joliet Ammunition plant which covered 20,000 acres near Joliet. They had to do an environmental clean up of the land.  The Forest Service picked up some of it, or maybe all of it.  They say:

The Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie was established in 1996 on the former Joliet Arsenal. It is the first national tallgrass prairie in the country and one of the newest units of the National Forest System.   Midewin represents a major effort to restore 20,000 acres of farmland and industrial land to a unique American landscape and the complex ecology of the prairie. Its mission also includes providing education and recreation opportunities. All of Midewin’s programs and progress are thanks to the support of hundreds of volunteers and partner agencies, businesses, and organizations. Midewin Tall Grass Prairie site

So the 10 pages of warehouses  and other buildings, including some as small as 26 square feet, FS lists for sale are really storage buildings associated with the old Army Arsenal.

[Updated:  Turns out almost all of the 175 buildings in Maryland are at the Beltsville location of the Agricultural Research Service.  Wonder if the building my uncle once worked in is included.]

Turnover at FSA

Chris Clayton noted the turnover at USDA, including FSA.  One acting administrator has returned to California so another comes in from Montana. It's an undesirable situation.  The administrator may or may not be a great leader, but it's for sure that no acting administrator will be great.  The best you can say will be: "for an acting admin, he's pretty good". 

Mr.Beauregarde on Victory in Europe Day

A post on the remembrance of VE day in middle France, where no ministers or priests participate in the marches, where the headquarters of the Gestapo is still there, now used as an adult education centre, where the boundary of Vichy France is just 5 minutes away, and where a 15-year old identifies Hitler as an actor.

Am I Playing With House Money?

George Will and I don't normally see eye-to-eye, but his post on reaching 70, a tad after I did, is something I can mostly agree with.

He cites the end of racial segregation, the emancipation of women, the end of the Cold War, the advance of medicine, as major milestones he's seen.  Doesn't mention gay rights or the emancipation of the mind, AKA the Internet, or the liberation of the aged and their  by extending Social Security and creating Medicare.  But that's nitpicking, which I'm good at. 

Kids on the Farm

The Cotton Wife has a picture of a cute redhead.  New Yorker has a piece on Ree Drummond, also a cute redhead, who apparently is the biggest blogger of farm/ranch life (unfortunately just an abstract), but her blog is here. (Might as well add to her audience.) One common thread: kids learn to drive young on farms.

Am I a Hybrid

David Roberts at Grist has a post discussing a piece by a couple of military types, thinking about the future in the 21st century. He includes this paragraph to support his claim the military men are liberal:

"The most comprehensive review of personality and political orientation to date is a 2003 meta-analysis of 88 prior studies involving 22,000 participants. The researchers—John Jost of NYU, Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland, and Jack Glaser and Frank Sulloway of Berkeley—found that conservatives have a greater desire to reach a decision quickly and stick to it, and are higher on conscientiousness, which includes neatness, orderliness, duty, and rule-following. Liberals are higher on openness, which includes intellectual curiosity, excitement-seeking, novelty, creativity for its own sake, and a craving for stimulation like travel, color, art, music, and literature.

Sounds to me like I'm something of a hybrid: I think I'd rate well on conscientiousness, but I don't like fast decisions (i.e., I'm indecisive); I have intellectual curiosity, but I don't do well on stimulation: change is bad at the personal level.