Farming the (Hydro)ponic

“I went to conventional lenders and I was turned down by all of them,” said Villari, who had little farming experience outside of helping her father raise livestock. “Then I turned to the Farm Service Agency (FSA). They took a chance on me when no one else would. They not only made the loan process easy, they also provided me with a lot of support and information once the loan was closed.”
Villari received U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) FSA farm ownership and operating loans to help get Fresh Water Greens off of the ground. FSA financing provided the assistance needed to build a facility and begin production. It was the first hydroponic operation funded by New Jersey FSA.

From the USDA blog 

Is this "mission creep" in programs or adapting to new realities?

Caro and Moses

Via Marginal Revolution, Robert Moses response to Caro's The Power Broker.

It's a long response, in which the author paints a picture of himself.  The defense is basically the defense of any bureaucrat/government official: I did my best in the circumstances and criticism is second-guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking.

Local Food Is Not Organic,Necessarily

The New York Times had an article the other day on a "vertical farming" project in Newark, NJ.  An excerpt:

Unlike urban vegetable gardens of the past that took advantage of empty lots or evolved in rooftop greenhouses, AeroFarms employs so-called aeroponics and stacks its produce vertically, meaning plants are arrayed not in long rows but upward. Because the farming is completely indoors, it relies on LED bulbs, with crops growing in cloth and fed with a nutrient mist.

 I've been critical of some vertical farming concepts, particularly the ones which rely on sunshine and ignore shade, or use fluorescent lights.  LED's are more efficient than fluorescents so it's possible that such setups are energy-efficient when you add in the energy savings on transporting produce to market.

Meanwhile Sec. Vilsack is pushing local food:

Local food gives consumers a chance to know the farmers producing their food, to access fresher food and an opportunity to keep food dollars in the local economy, he said. In short, “local and regional food systems create a better connection between people who produce and people who eat.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/agriculture-secretary-tom-vilsack-locally-grown-food-116830.html#ixzz3X2JkLXKm

 But the organic types have reservations:

A definition for local would help organic farmers make the case for why their often more expensive produce is worth the cost, argues Laura Batcha, director of the Organic Trade Association.
“There is definitely an issue with the public differentiating between local and organic,” Batcha said. “In many cases, both things happen together … but the public, I think, assumes that local is organic.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/agriculture-secretary-tom-vilsack-locally-grown-food-116830.html#ixzz3X2K3LQGQ

Illinois on "Actively Engaged" Proposals

Illinois Ext. has posted an analysis of FSA's proposed rule on "actively engaged" in farming.

After summarizing the background and some of the egregious cases in the past, their own analysis includess:

"By limiting the use of farm managers to multiply payments, the proposed changes appear to address many of the concerns with the current rules. A few notable issues remain and are briefly discussed here for the reader's consideration. As an initial matter, the differential treatment of entity types when it comes to payments is not addressed here because it is provided for in the statute and may need Congressional action to change it. [by definition--my comment] The proposed changes create differential treatment for farm managers without much explanation or justification. USDA could provide more clarity on how the changes apply to the first farm manager. USDA may also want to explain or justify exempting the first farm manager from the new definitions applied only to the additional managers.

A similar issue arises with the recordkeeping requirement. Again, the proposed rule provides different treatment for the first farm manager than for additional managers. In addition to reconsidering treating all farm managers the same, USDA might also want to consider whether this recordkeeping should also come with a reporting requirement. The long-standing concerns about this issue would seem to counsel verification of compliance with the regulation."

Forms

As a bureaucrat I like forms, mostly.  Not this application to the KKK though.

The nicely printed form shows that the organization was big and/or had a good bureaucrat involved at the higher levels. 

GE Security Systems Violates Law

I really shouldn't use my blog this way, but I'm grumpy.  Got a recorded solicitation which claimed to be from "GE Security" (apparently an old General Electric division which got sold off from GE) offering a deal on security systems because of criminal activity in my area.

First, I'm not aware of any uptick in Reston crime.

Second, we're on the FCC's Do Not Call list, and it's a violation to call the number.

The Good Old Days

Brad DeLong gets Laura Ingalls Wilder's thoughts on the advantages of modernity, circa 1911.  "Oil stoves" (I assume kerosene) instead of wood/coal, gasoline engines enabling inside water supply, and rural free delivery of news were all having an impact.

This was just after TR's Country Life Commission had issued its report describing problems of country life.

Thank You Keith Good--End of Farm Policy

Over the years I've blogged on a lot of pieces from the Farm Polcy daily summary of agricultural news item.  But Keith Good has had to shut it down, with this his last post.

Adulterating the Milk: Then and Now

In the 19th century adulterating milk was common, leading to Henry David Thoreau's quote: "some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk".

Today though it's human milk which is adulterated, as described in this story.

White House Garden Coverage or Lack Thereof

Apparently Eddie Gehman Kohan has shut down the obamafoodorama blog and instead is solely tweeting (https://twitter.com/obamafoodorama).  She notes that March 20 was the anniversary of the initiation of the project in 2009, but a quick search doesn't reveal any recent coverage of it. The last news item I find is from last fall.  Now that Sam Kass has left, I suppose Barack is worried about his legacy, and the family is worried about colleges, it may be running on bureaucratic inertia.   If so, that's the usual fate of initiatives of outsiders who come into the bureaucracy with great ideas.