The Perfect Potato

Technology Review has a post on a British effort to engineer the perfect potato.  As far as I can tell from a quick read, it involves identifying potato varieties with the desired traits (blight resistance, etc.) and the genes involved, and combining them into one potato.  Apparently there are "genetically modified" varieties already, each with a desired trait, so it's a logical next step to combine them.

When they write "genetically modified", I'm assuming it's not inserting genes from one species into another, but rather moving the genes in the laboratory, not by cross-breeding.  It raises the question I've noted before: where do you draw the line in opposing GM-foods?  At one end of a continuum is a plant/animal which is different than any which lived before, because the combination of genes is new, but one created by normal sex/seed production.  Then you get into conventional breeding. Then moving genes in the lab, but still within the same species.  Then using CRSPR to edit genes out.  And finally adding genes across species lines. 

IMO you can make the same cautionary argument in each case--there might be harm to humans from this new combination of genes.  Obviously the likelihood grows as you move along the continuum. Again in my opinion I don't think there's much likelihood of harm at any point.

Comments on Actively Engaged

Chris Clayton at DTN has a summary of the comments on the proposed rule for actively engaged determinations. Here's Grassley's statement at the original publication.

What I'd Like: Move to Estonia

Via Marginal Revolution, this report on e-government in Estonia.  Through one user identity:

Today’s Estonian citizen can (though he or she does not have to):

• Identify themselves, via e-ID, an electronic identity system
• Vote (iVote, available since 2007)
• Complete tax returns (and make payments or receive refunds)
• Obtain and fulfil prescriptions (eHealth)
• Participate in census completion
• Review accumulated pension contributions and values
• Perform banking, including making and receiving payments
• Pay and interact with utilities (like water, gas and electricity)
• Interact with the education system (e-Education)
• Set up businesses
• Sign contracts
• And more.

Compare that with our government, where we're still struggling with USDA agencies providing such service.

The Receipt for Service II

I've got a problem with the Receipt for Service implementation. Just in terms of bureaucracy and system design, county employees are asked to dual-task, do the work to support what the customer wants or needs plus as a separate operation record the history of the encounter. The extra work isnot likely to please the employee and the fact it's separate increases the likelihood it won't get done, undermining the validity of the statistic

A separate problem arises when it's the producer/farmer herself going online to do the work, as for example the new NRCS process.  How are those transactions going to be tracked?

In Defense of Fast Food

A good long piece here defending "Culinary Modernism" (fast food etc.) against the snobbery of the food movement. "Rachel Laudan is a historian and philosopher of science and technology. She is the author of Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History. The following essay originally appeared in Gastronomica."

USDA "Receipt for Service" Initiative I

USDA's Office of Advocacy and Outreach published an FR notice of a June meeting on USDA's "Receipt for Service" initiative.

What is the initiative?  Damned if anyone could tell from the notice.  There's no description of what it is, beyond a reference to a paragraph in the 2008 farm bill, and an amendment in the 2014 farm bill.  No links, no nothing.

But I've belatedly discovered that one can highlight a phrase, right click, and get an option to use Google to search for the phrase.  So what did I discover?

Three years after the 2008 farm bill, in 2011, OCIO published a department reg requiring the field agencies to issue AD-2088 when requested.  In January 2012 FSA issued a notice on it, NRCS issued the equivalent, RD apparently didn't issue anything, at least unlike the first two they don't show up on the first page of Google results.  The AD-2088 basically provides blanks for a narrative description of what service the farmer requested, and what happened to the request.  Importantly, the 2008 provision only required the AD-2088 be issued if the farmer requested it. Also important--the Department reg didn't require any reports.  I suspect, without researching it, that reports were never required.

 Exploring further, it seems Congress, in their wisdom, in 2014 amended the 2008 provision to require issuing a receipt in all cases.  As a result, NRCS, FSA, and RD got together and did an on-line app, one which requires a 27-page manual: "Web Receipt for Service (webRFS) User’s Guide".  FSA issued a notice, CM-753, which includes a memo signed by the Food and Agriculture council, to the state directors plus the Q&A's for FSA. [Note to self: how'd I miss it last fall?]

Apparently webRFS is the front-end to a database, which is searchable, and presumably will support statistical reports.

Now, back to the meeting:  the material on the webRFS says that it's "Phase I" and that there will be an evaluation of the webRFS and the need for any additional action.

NRCS e-Site

From NRCS, part of their new site for farmers.

• Learn how to obtain a SCIMS record and eAuthentication Account to access Conservation Client Gateway

	Request technical assistance or advice for your conservation needs. Access technical information, such as the Web Soil Survey, the National Plants Database, and the National Conservation Practice Standards and Specifications to learn more about soils, plants, and conservation practices.
	Apply for conservation program financial assistance. Manage your applications, contracts, conservation plans and the associated documents through Conservation Client Gateway. Report practice completion and installation, and request information and modifications to your conservation plans and contracts.
	View, sign, and submit documents related to your conservation request. View and track the status of your requests for technical and financial assistance. View aerial maps of your property where you have requested technical or financial assistance.
	View and track the status of your financial assistance conservation program payments for completed conservation practices in your existing contracts.

I'm pleased to see the SCIMS and USDA login--one small step on the path to having a universal government login process. But I do wonder about the back end. Are the conservation plans and practices going to be layers in a USDA GIS.  Will the "aerial maps" of your property be displayed from such a GIS?

Be a Social Analyst

The Times has a post which is different.  We're used to taking a survey and having our results compared to the average of previous survey takers, but in this case you're asked to draw a graph.

Specifically, you're asked to plot the relationship between family income and probability of going to college.  They give a midpoint, and when you're finished compare your line to those of the previous takers and discuss the reasons for the result.  Like many people I drew an S curve, but it turns out the true graph is a straight line.  A straight line relationship is also true for some other social factors.

"Intriguingly, the relationship between parental-income rank and teen pregnancy is also quite linear, and some of the same forces are probably involved. So is the relationship between parental-income rank and a child’s future income rank.
Not every relevant relationship is linear, however. The chances that a student enrolls in the highest-quality colleges, as measured by their students’ future earnings, are a bit more complicated. These chances accelerate as incomes grow.
And enrolling is not everything. While rich children born around 1980 were nearly three times more likely to go to college than poor children, they were six times more likely to graduate, according to a study separate from the one we're showing here.

 

Comment on "Actively Engaged"

The Blog for Rural America criticizes the draft rule on "actively engaged". He may be picking up comments from the Coalition for Rural America, which I commented on here.The opportunity for the public to offer comments expired yesterday.

Why No Registry of Debts?

"Bad Paper" by Jake Halpern reads quickly, has a number of colorful characters, and tells a depressing story of brokering debts and debt collection in the days before the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued new rules.  It's not clear that CFPB will change the situation.  Basically banks and others who make loans to consumers, auto loans, credit card debt, etc. would try to collect delinquent debt.  Very quickly they would sell the obligations for cents on the dollar through brokers to debt collectors. The collectors would collect some of the debt and sell the unpaid obligations down the line.  At each level the collectors operate closer to the legal line, using tougher tactics.  Debt collecting turns out to be a good profession for ex-convicts whose criminal record keeps them out of other jobs.  Halpern devotes little attention to the debtors, just enough to evoke sympathy.

One of the problems in the system is that what's sold seems to be spreadsheets of debtors on flash drives, which can easily be copied/stolen.  The biggest problem is the whole system depends on trust and honesty but the reality is that the weak get the shaft.

Halpern uses the epilogue to argue that the Feds should implement a debt registry, which tracks a debt from issuance through resolution, no matter how many times ownership of the obligation changes hands. Makes sense to me.

Sidenote: I was surprised to learn that in a third of the states people can go to prison for unpaid debts.