Actively Engaged

Another chapter in the saga of "actively engaged"--from Farm Policy's report on the Senate Ag hearings:

Sen. Stabenow: “And finally, Mr. Chairman, one of the things I’m concerned about is that we’re hearing that the USDA feels constrained when defining actively engaged on the farm. I know this is a very challenging issue going forward. But I just want to clarify that the lead negotiators, those of us in the House and the Senate, understood the existing authority and discretion of the department, and want to work with you on this.
“When we look at the fact that CBO is estimating that the PLC and marketing loan programs could pay out as much as 16 billion more than we anticipated, it’s very important we have accountability, and [those go] actually to those who are farming. And so it is very important.
“I would just urge you that in our bill, nothing in the farm bill is preventing the USDA from exercising existing authorities or discretion to make the definition as clear and strong as possible. And I think for the effectiveness and the integrity of the programs it’s really important that the department move forward on this, and look forward to working with you on that.”
Sec. Vilsack: “The way in which the farm bill was crafted strongly suggests that whatever we do does not specifically apply directly to family farming operations. Also, with reference to family farm corporations, the limitation of one management exemption applies. So what we are focusing on are the general partnerships and limited partnerships that have often been the source of concerns.
“And that is where our jurisdiction, I think, is relative to actively engaged, and that’s what we’re focused on. And we will definitely come up with hopefully a more concrete and more specific definition so that folks understand precisely what applies and what doesn’t apply. But I think it is important to point out that it’s primarily focused on partnerships, limited and general partnerships.

Aerial Photography and Drones

Farm Policy reports that NRCS got questioned over the possible use of drones for their work:

Rep. Sanford Bishop: “Can you tell us if you have any plans to utilize drones to assist in the collection of information, because you do a lot of photography, put a lot of contracts out to take pictures, and there’s a tremendous amount of interest in the use of drones in agriculture, particularly in assisting the optimal design and layout of fields for water assessments and other related issues.
“Have you looked at this issue? Are there any current interagency discussions with FAA or other agencies concerning the growth in the use of drones? Obviously there are some security issues involved, but there’s also a great deal of interest for commercializing that practice and using it in agriculture.”
Mr. Jason Weller: “Absolutely. It’s a new technology, but we also have to be careful because folks do have privacy concerns. The FAA also had safety concerns. So in part NRCS, we sort of said full stop, let’s wait for FAA to actually come out with a rule.
“Now that the rule has been issued, we’re trying to figure out how the NRCS can work within that to do remote sensing, but in a way that protects privacy, assure landowners who are not there there’s a regulatory component, because I know folks have some concerns when the federal government starts flying drones over their property. So we just need to make sure NRCS is doing this technology in a way that’s appropriate, that’s sensitive to landowners’ concerns, but also then helps us do a better job of managing resources.”

 The question may be whether the use of drones by USDA agencies evolves from the field/bubbles up or is top-down, or some mixture.  My guess is there will be more experimentation at the local office level than WDC is expecting or will realize.  Drones are too cheap for it to be otherwise.

Fraud in SNAP and Crop Insurance

EWG is not a particularly impartial source of commentary on modern agriculture and the USDA.  However, they're worth following.  They've a post comparing the fraud rates in food stamps and crop insurance:

The USDA Inspector General’s audit, released last year, estimated that the crop insurance program’s error rate for improper payments was at least 5.23 percent in 2013 and could be higher. The 2013 error rate was significantly higher than the 2012 error rate of 4.08 percent.

Earlier this month, USDA’s Risk Management Agency reported that the improper payment rate for crop insurance rose to 5.58 last year and was expected to stay above 5 percent through 2016...

By contrast, the error rate for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the formal name of the food stamp program. fell to an all-time low of 3.2 percent in 2013, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The Rule-Making Process

The FCC just changed its rules on regulating the Internet--they're going to treat it as a public utility.  A post at Vox takes them to task for being slow and untransparent in their rule-making process.  While the process for regulatory commissions like the FCC is a bit different than for agencies like FSA, I have to agree that everyone could gain by revising their process to take account of the Internet.  It's a forlorn hope, however--things don't change fast, particularly when you've got lawyers involved.

The Rise of the Pods

A post here on America's coffee habits.

When I was a child, I could get a little tea in my glass of milk, but couldn't have coffee, as it was bad for kids.  Of course that made me more determined to drink coffee, which I've indulged ever since I grew of age (maybe 15 or so?). Back then instant coffee was new, and the family gradually switched from the percolator pot to instant.  During my working life I usually had a coffee cup on my desk, filled from the big coffee maker (12 cup maybe?).  Who would refill the coffee pot and buy the 3 lb cans of coffee were often big issues among the office staff.

Now I'm addicted to Starbucks, using it as my big incentive to get out of the house and take some exercise.  I've discovered to my surprise that the jars of instant coffee are no longer stocked at the local Safeway; they have the envelopes of instant instead, but mostly the "pods" for something called a Keurig.  Which brings me to the post I started with.  Apparently using a spoonful of instant coffee and boiling the water were too burdensome for modern Americans; instead we have the self-contained appliance.

How Many Insurance Companies Do We Need

From Farm Policy a quote from Vilsack testifying before Congress:

"“And I’m pleased with the fact that we’ve had a net increase in the number of companies writing crop insurance in the last 12 to 24 months. We’ve lost a couple, but we’ve gained four, so that the net is two, so I think it’s an indication that this is still an industry that can continue to expand [appropriately] and financially. We expect and anticipate roughly $8 billion plus to be invested by taxpayers in this system over the course of the next several years. And the payouts in the last time since I’ve been Secretary equal $55 billion, so it’s obviously an important program.”

 The administration thinks crop insurance costs can be cut; the crop insurance industry says not. What's the right answer?    Seems to me simple economics, the only kind I halfway understand, says that if an industry is profitable, and costs of entry are reasonable, you'll have more firms entering.  Conversely, if the industry is under stress, the weaker firms will fail or withdraw from the market.  So since the number of companies is increasing, that says to me the administration's position is more nearly right.  Maybe we ought to have a target for the number of companies: maybe five or six (in the good old days we had about six car companies and six computer (mainframe) companies, so six sounds like a good round figure. 

How about it?  :-)

When Less Is More

Fairlife is less than whole raw mil--the question is whether the manipulation of the "natural whole milk" into something which might better suit some people will pass the scrutiny of the food movement.

Signup and Registers

The idea of a "register" has long been established in FSA/ASCS--I suspect it goes back to AAA.

Still works, according to this (Vilsack in front of Senate Ag):

"But, according to one of the farmers the committee invited to testify about the farm bill, local Farm Service Agency administrators have concerns about a last-minute rush of landowners deciding on changes to base acres and yields by the deadline this Friday.
Roberts asked Vilsack if it’s still correct that USDA won’t extend the deadline and will rely instead on a registry at local offices. Using a registry allows anyone who shows up before the deadline to get on a list of appointments to return later to finish the paperwork.
“I think it’s incumbent on us to continue to monitor the situation,” said Vilsack, who is now getting daily reports on signup progress. He was monitoring signup progress weekly."

(The committee heard praise from farmers for their local FSA offices, BTW.)

Monarchs in Hawaii--Who Knew?

A reminder that it's all too easy for the media and its audience to become focused on certain undeniable truths, so narrowly focused that the larger truth is completely obscured.  Such is the case with monarch butterflies.  We know they're endangered, put at risk because farmers use herbicides and eliminate the field boundaries where milkweeds used to grow.  We know they're beautiful, and anything beautiful and endangered must be rescued.

But this column by an entomologist in today's Post reveals that monarchs are in Hawaii, Tahiti, Australia and New Zealand. It's the monarchs migrating to and from Mexico which are stressed,  but apparently millions winter in California. 

Sensationalist Headlines

The BBC website has a post on a "alien star" having "buzzed" the sun.  Apparently 70,000 years ago it may have come within 1 light year of the sun.  Now that's real close, after all Pluto is all of 13.5 light hours from the sun.  So it's exactly like this foreign star has buzzed an airfield (from WWII movies I recall buzzing as coming close enough to the control tower to aggravate the officer on duty).