20 Percent of Farmers Have Their Rear Hanging Out

That's the message I take from this Illinois extension piece on crop insurance coverage in IL.  It will be a big test: can politicians resist the pleas of the 20 percent uninsured for some federal help.

Billions and Billions and...

That's not Carl Sagan and stars (though he didn't really say that), it's Stu Ellis and crop insurance indemnities in this Farmgate piece.

Price Loss Coverage II

Still too lazy to read the text of the bill, but I got to thinking on my way to the garden.  When I moved to the production adjustment side of ASCS, we had programs which limited the planted acreage to some figure.  I'm not sure when that changed and how drastically it did.

Assume with me that since 1997 FSA hasn't been enforcing any acreage limitations--that may be true, may not be.  Back in the day we had "measurement variance", which recognized the ways we determined acreages were not 100 percent accurate.  If you ran the planimeter on your aerial photography, you might be off a tad.  And we also had a "tolerance" figure, which recognized the farmer might be trying to limit her planted acreage to the exact figure, but wouldn't have the tools to be exact.  Roughly speaking, if the farmer were supposed to plant only 100 acres of corn and he planted 103 acres, he was probably "within tolerance" and in full compliance with the program.

Finally we had "failure to fully comply". If you the farmer planted more than you were supposed to by more than the tolerance (say 106 acres), then the county committee had to determine whether you were acting in "good faith".  If you were, the payment would be reduced.  If you weren't, you were ineligible.

I recite these provisions first because they fascinated me as I tried to figure them out. My co-workers had all come from county offices so they had absorbed the provisions; I had to figure out their logic and how they related.

The provisions are interesting because, if there is no limit, as there hasn't been for a while (think I'm safe in saying that), they all go away.  But if the Price Loss Coverage program, which seems to reinstate a limit, the situation may change.

Damn, I really need to read the bill's language.
[Updated: this may be interesting as history, but probably inapplicable to the proposed program.  More to follow]

Price Loss Coverage

Been lazy so haven't looked up the actual provisions of this program as included in the House farm bill.  Looks like a target price/counter cyclical type program, but based on planted (and prevented planted) acreage and with updated yields.  If I get ambitious I'll do some research.  It strikes me though that such a program will have problems with WTO rules--farm programs aren't supposed to encourage plantings.

Flashback Time

Ann Althouse links to a 1984 post-election piece by the Times.  I was struck by these paragraphs:

As Mr. Reagan watched tallies of the vote on television, reporters asked him about the possibility of a summit meeting with the Soviet Union.
''Yes,'' he said, ''it's time for us to get together and talk about a great many things and try to clear the air and suspicions between us so we can get down to the business of reducing, particularly, nuclear weapons.''

I guess he did foreshadow the summit meeting at which he proposed doing away with such weapons entirely.  Not something most conservatives like to remember.

Farm Bill Progresses?

House Agriculture has passed its version of the 2012 farm bill, but speculation provided by Keith Good at Farm Policy suggests it may not get to the floor.  Instead there'd be a temporary extension of current legislation and action later, after the election.  Sounds likely to me--Good quotes an expert on how seldom the new farm bill is passed on time. 

The problem for FSA is they don't know what to prepare to implement, the House version, the Senate version or something new which the conference committee comes up with.  As the time gets tighter, the less we know.

Gee, I'm glad I'm retired.

From Favor to Process: USDA Disaster Designation

Here's yesterday's USDA press release about changes in the process for designating disaster process. One change is automatic designation for counties which are drought-affected for 8 weeks according to U.S. Drought Monitor, and the governors do not have to initiate the request.

That's one small step on the way to taking the life out of politics.  In the good old days governors could make a big show of standing up for the home folks by bragging about his request for designation and blasting the Washington bureaucrats for delays in approving it.  It's also a small step towards de-bureaucratization.  In the bad old days the paper request from the state went to bureaucrats in the northwest corner of the South Building, the offices with the great view of the Mall, the Washington Monument, and the White House. There could be back and forth between the bureaucrats and the states, particularly when the governor's aides weren't familiar with the process.  Then the paperwork would go up the line, some stopping at the Secretary's office, some going to the White House.  Of course those offices could also grandstand about how they were acting to help needy, hardworking folks.

So, if I'm feeling cynical, the Obama administration cashed in a long term asset for politicians for maximal gain in this presidential election year.  If I'm feeling idealistic, the administration rationalized the process and made the government more efficient and less bureaucratic.  Take your pick.

Child Labor on the Farm

Here's a piece on the hazards of having children work on the family farm.  As I often am, I'm of two minds.   One thing not emphasized in the article is a recognition of the hazards of farm work. Last I knew farming was one of the more hazardous occupations in the U.S.  Of course, there aren't many occupations other than farming where a child can reasonably make a contribution.  I suppose a family-owned grocery or restaurant would be another, but the point remains.

And what's the value to the child of having made a contribution?  I think it's great, though perhaps it's easy to romanticize.  The fact that I could drive tractor, carry feed bags, or clean hen houses didn't really build my confidence in dealing with strangers.  Still, it's better to know you're capable at something than not know whether you can do anything.

How good are parents at bringing children into farm work, as claimed by one person quoted?  It's easy to romanticize parents, but everyone has blind spots, and it's hard to resist the wishes of a child.  I might ask how good are parents at bringing children into driving cars?  I think everyone would agree there's a lot of variation. 

The article notes a big reduction in injuries in this century.  I wonder how much is the better job farmers are doing, and how much relates to the prosperity on the farms during the 2000's, meaning old equipment has been replaced by newer, safer equipment.  Look at the picture of the kid driving a 40-year old tractor.  There's no roll bar to protect the driver if the tractor flips backward--it's very scary when the front wheels start lifting off the ground, though I never flipped ours.

How protective do we want society to be?  I'm a firm believer in helmet laws for motorcyclists, and seat belt laws for drivers. I want off-road vehicles to be safe and regulated. And I support the child-labor laws of the last century. So I understand why people want to extend the laws, but at least today I think it's a bridge too far.  At least in some contexts I believe in tradeoffs, and in this case incurring a  few preventable accidents are the price I'm willing to pay for retaining child labor on the farm.

On Violence and Wealth

Got involved in a comment thread at Ta-Nehesi Coates' blog yesterday, particularly with a commenter who argued wealth was the key factor in whether a neighborhood was violent or not.  Since the thread has dwindled to an end, I thought I'd post a thought experiment here:

Consider all the professional athletes in the US, many are in the top 1 percent of income, most of the rest would be in the top 5 percent.  The athletes come from varied backgrounds, but few come from parents who themselves were in the top 5 percent.  I'd love to see a sociologist determine the violent crime rate among such athletes with the crime rate in enclaves of the 5 percent, and the average background of the athletes (say 30th percentile?).  I suspect, but don't know, that the rate of the athletes would be closer to the 5 percent rate than to  the rate of the 30th percentile, which would be the influence of wealth, but there would still be a significant difference, which would be the influence of culture/society and other factors.

Drought Speculations

A couple weeks ago I started but did not finish apost on the possibility of a drought in the Midwest--then it was a topic restricted to the ag media.  Today the drought has reached the top of the news pages and news broadcasts.  Two things will be happening in parallel: the drought will progress and Congress will be working, or not working, on the new farm bill.  Presumably there will a temptation to patch holes in the 2012 safety net with provisions of the bill, perhaps the adverse impact on pork, beef, and chicken producers. The extent to which crop insurance can handle the impacts on crop producers will also be interesting.  My impression is they did well with the drought last year which occurred in Texas.  We shall see. (I guess that's a last sentence I can use on most of my posts.)