Score One for USDA: FOIA

Government Executive reports on a study which says USDA is tops in responding to FOIA requests, and it improved by 10 points from last year.  It's not clear to me whether they just reviewed the Departmental effort, or looked at the agencies as well; I suspect the former.

I might note, however, that USDA got the lowest score for its FOIA website of any of the departments, which may be an indication that efficiency in handling requests has little to do with effective on-line system design.  A thorough-going cynic might offer other comments, but enough for one day.

When the GMO Is a Human, What Then for Anti-GMOism?

No, I don't think we have genetically engineered a human yet, though one could perhaps argue the point. But the Times today reports on this experiment:

By delivering synthetic genes into the muscles of the monkeys, the scientists are essentially re-engineering the animals to resist disease. Researchers are testing this novel approach not just against H.I.V., but also Ebola, malaria, influenza and hepatitis.

Granted, this approach does not alter the genotype, the genes of the recipient, but if it works wouldn't that be the next step?  And if you take that step, do you have much basis for resisting GMO's in crops?

The De-Skilling of the Workforce: Taxi Drivers

NY Times reports that the exam for aspiring NY taxi drivers has been changed to deemphasize the importance of knowing the city's geography, recognizing that with GPS such knowledge in wetware is no longer that important.  It's just one more instance of humans outsourcing skills to machines, devaluing the worth of the old time-tested knowledge and the importance of the people who know it. 

In other words, it's part of the march of progress, of being better today than we were yesterday, of freeing humans from mindless routine in order to be better people.


Do you think I'm ambivalent on the subject? :-)

Mankind the Litterer

Mount Everest has a sanitation problem, and we're starting on the moon.  In a Vox post on what we've left on the moon so far (400,000 pounds), the first item is, guess what.

Iowa, Farm Issues, and the Republican Candidates

Today is a big confab in Iowa with a number of potential Republican candidates attending with the subject: agriculture.

As Politico describes it, the big issue is the renewable fuel standard (ethanol), which has long been shibboleth in Iowa.  I vaguely remember some candidates (McCain?) getting credit from the chattering classes for refusing to support it. We'll see who takes what position and who has decided not to compete in the Iowa caucuses.

There's other issues, like immigration reform, which is big in agriculture but which isn't supported by most Republicans, and trade with Cuba, which Republicans also tend to oppose.   All of which means that this first step on the road to the White House in 2016 may whet the appetite of followers of politics.

FSA Outreach?

Was at the agriculture.com website the other day, reading comments on the extension of the time to allocate base/update yields.  Saw one comment, part of which I was almost able to answer (possible combination of two farms--a recon). Got me to wondering--if any government agencies are active on such sites.   In this case, an authoritative comment could have resolved a problem, educated some people, and enhanced the image of the FSA bureaucracy.  On the other hand, finding someone who could be authoritative on a number of different issues would be difficult and there would be the continual temptation to be either defensive or engage too much.

Clinton's Email Problem

I'm resisting the temptation to defend Hillary on her use of a private email account.  I'd observe that the chickens are coming home to roost based on NARA's failure over 20 years to deal effectively with emails and even more critically management's (i.e. President and Congress) failure to worry about such issues.  Records management was never a priority, not since the 70's.  I'm not impressed by the current commentary, such as the NYTimes piece here.  The number of historians who will ever read 30,000 pieces of email can be counted on one hand. I don't have an answer, but no one else does either.

Food Movement and China

One advantage of community-supported agriculture is the idea that the customer knows the source of her food.  But this Times article on China shows there's another way for the customer to know the history of her food, by using technology.  Because China has a bigger problem with adulterated food (ie. the communist state is weaker in regulation than our free enterprise government is), there's a greater incentive to come up with innovative solutions to the problem--at least that's my take on the situation.

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.