What's a "Big" Farmer?

From Farmgate, here's a possible definition of what a farmer is, so a big one would be bigger than this:

How much acreage or livestock does it take for you to earn a living on the farm? One farm business management group in MN offered its calculations based on its members:
1) 890 acres of corn, based on a net return of $84.03 per acre over a 5 year average.
2) 970 acres of beans, based on a net return of $77.15 per acre over a 5 year average.
3) 369 acres of hay, based on a net return of $202.77 per acre over a 5 year average.
4) 4,380 head of farrow to finish hogs, with $17.08 per head over a 5 year average.
5) 15,568 head of finish hogs, with a $4.51 net return per head over a 5 year average.
6) 831 head of feedlot calves, with a $89.98 net return per head over a 5 year average.
7) 127 head of dairy cows, with a $509.96 return per head over a 5 year average.

The biggest surprise to me was no. 3.

Frustrating Article on Russian Agriculture

Back in 1991, if I had been blogging, I would have predicted that grain prices would go through the floor because Russian agriculture would have flooded the market, finally having been freed of the constraints of the system. So much for my wisdom.

Today the NYTimes runs an interesting but frustrating article on Russian agriculture
from the beginning:

A decade after capitalism transformed Russian industry, an agricultural revolution is stirring the countryside, shaking up village life and sweeping aside the collective farms that resisted earlier reform efforts and remain the dominant form of agriculture.

The change is being driven by soaring global food prices (the price of wheat alone rose 77 percent last year) and a new reform allowing foreigners to own agricultural land. Together, they have created a land rush in rural Russia.

The article's frustrating because there's no real description of the current state of agriculture, just that big money people are buying land. There are two facts of interest: 16 percent cof Russia's arable land is idle, about 35 million hectares (maybe 80 million acres); and "[t]he average Russian grain yield is 1.85 tons a hectare — compared with 6.36 tons a hectare in the United States and 3.04 in Canada." That points to lots of potential (although if I recall my geography, Russia's closer to Canada in latitude than the U.S., albeit global warming is changing that.)

Ultra-Orthodox Jews and Sarah Palin

I suspect that may be the first time the words in the title have been used together.

In today's Post an article from Israel. Briefly, a Norwegian woman converted to Judaism 15 years ago to marry an Israeli Jew. Now she's looking for a divorce, but the Ultra-Orthodox control the religious establishment in Israel and they say her conversion process wasn't exhaustive enough, so she's not a Jew, and therefore was never married, and therefore her two kids aren't Jews. The article paints the issue as between those who believe in God's covenant with the Jewish people, who must observe his commandments strictly, and those who believe that Israel must, to survive, welcome converts.

That's the same issue faced by other organizations, from car companies to countries. What is your identity, and how do you maintain it, yet survive in the world? If you're an Asian car maker, do you focus on smaller, economical cars or try to move up-market into the luxury cars and SUV's and trucks. Toyota looked to be a winner doing the latter, an example followed by Hyundai, but with today's gas prices Honda, which retained more of a small car identity and focus, is doing better. If you're a country, do you limit immigrants and require those who come in to learn English, etc. in order to maintain the country's culture as it is now, or do you gamble on opening doors and going with the flow?

That's the issue for political parties, now. How does the Republican Party, and particularly their nominee, maintain an identity and yet attract voters? In that light, Ms. Palin seems a good choice. It's a maverick, anti-establishment, anti-Washington choice for McCain, but one which mends his fences with the social conservatives of the right wing, while simultaneously perhaps attracting women. It breaks with GWB's "compassionate conservatism" by picking someone who supported/was friendly to Pat Buchanan in the 2000 convention. [Updated--additional thoughts] Assuming that McCain has the pocketbook Republicans in his hip pocket, Palin reinforces the party's appeal to working class America.

Closing Prayer

Religion in America comments on and posts the closing prayer of the Dem's convention--the new evangelism.

Why Lecture Courses?

From Brad DeLong:
"

• Budget stringency: lectures are cheap for the university relative to seminars, and even if they are markedly less effective they do soak up students' time

• Alternative information channel: The ears are wired to the brain differently than the eyes, and there is value in not only reading something but also hearing something in producing the synaptic changes that we want to see happen in college.
• A self-discipline device: if people have to show up at a certain place at a certain time to accomplish a task or be disciplined, they are more likely to do so. Lecture as a way of solving our self-command and self-control problems.
  • But why not then just have a study hall? Everyone reads the book, and the monitor circulates and answers quetions?
• A sociological event: East African Plains Apes like to do things in groups that involve language--that is just who we are--and the lecture is just another example of this"

It's Diversity at Work

So now our national tickets include an African-American with an Indonesian-American half sister married to a Chinese Canadian, a woman with an Eskimo husband and a Downs child, two WASP codgers, and our Wheaties boxes celebrate a Russian-American gymnast and a Japanese-African-American decathlete.

Carbon Tax and Locavore

Kevin Drum comments on an NPR piece on the carbon footprint of food, observing a carbon tax would help, probably more than voluntary changes in diet.

Little League Causes Obesity?

Eugene Volokh blogged on the 9-year old who's been banned from Little League because he's too good. It got a lot of comments because it straddles some key issues: the right of an individual to try to excel, the safety of others, etc. I offered a comment remembering the old days before organized youth sports when you scraped together whatever kids in the neighborhood were available and willing, whatever the differences in age and ability.

I got to thinking, resulting in the question which is the title. In the old days, kids stayed in the neighborhood unless they could bike elsewhere (our rural roads weren't favorable for biking, even if I'd ever learned). They didn't rely on parents, particularly mothers, for transportation. Now it's different--mothers spend all their time transporting kids so they don't have time to cook, meaning they go for the fast food and carryouts, leading to our obesity epidemic.

So the solution is to ban Little League.

Analyses of Locavore and Organic

James McWilliams analyzes problems with locavore logic at Freakonomics, Stephanie Page Ogburn analyzes the problems with making a full-time living from organic gardening at Grist.

Both are valuable correctives to books such as Kingsolver's and McKibben's, which tend to play up the possibilities and play down the problems.

AIDS in Rural Areas

The Daily Yonder reports on increasing AIDS cases in rural areas. I've some reservations, because I assume the rural areas started with no AIDS (the whole country started with no AIDS) so we're talking about a percentage increase over a very small base. Of course, it's surprising to find AIDS outside the big cities because the propagation pattern for a virus would seem to require a concentrated population. So maybe the rise is in aging boomers moving to the sticks, a few of whom happen to have HIV/AIDS, as opposed to transmission in rural areas. Who knows?

[Updated--had a senior moment on the proper acronym for AIDS.]