Vilsack on FSA/Crop Insurance

Secretary Vilsack tells House Appropriations he's not discussed any move to use FSA to service crop insurance policies

A Puzzle: Crop Insurance and Big Farms

An excerpt from the executive summary of analysis of the changing farm structure recently completed by ERS:

A long-term shift in production to larger farms has contributed to a shift in the distribution of commodity-related Government program payments and Federal crop insurance indemnity payments toward larger farms, most of which are family farms. Since operators of larger farms tend to earn higher household incomes, this shift has in turn led to a shift in the distribution of commodity-related Government payments toward higher income farm households. Most commodity-related program payments now go to farms operated by households with annual incomes over $89,000—significantly higher incomes than the typical U.S. household. Federal crop insurance indemnity payments have also shifted toward farms operated by higher income households, although not as much as commodity related program payments.

 The last sentence puzzles me, because I would have expected the exact opposite.  Maybe I'm living in a dream world but I do expect the payment limitation provisions FSA administers to have some effect.  And since crop insurance doesn't have such limitations, I'd expect the indemnities be more correlated to farm size.

Not sure I have an explanation, which is why it's a puzzle.  Perhaps, just perhaps, the larger operations are able to self-insure? Or maybe the definition of "operation" varies across the agencies?  Who knows?

Congratulations FCIC

Yesterday was the birthday of FCIC.

When a Caddy Was the Cat's Pajamas

That's how old I am (actually not: "cats pajamas" dates to the 20's).  But seriously, when I was young the Cadillac was the epitome of class and excellence.  Maybe the Rolls Royce was competitive, but no one else.

Apparently Caddy is on the rebound, paving the way for the smart car, introducing "elements of autonomy to the car".  See this Technology Review piece.

NASCOE Versus Crop Insurance II

A followup to my Feb. 10 post: NASCOE has had their legislative position on crop insurance posted for several days.  They refer to a couple of GAO reports on crop insurance.  Essentially NASCOE is pressing the servicing end, not the sales end, of crop insurance.

Love Those Free Marketers

The incentives certainly work to inspire idiocy:

Jim Massery, the government sales manager for Pittsfield, Mass.-based Lenco, dismissed critics who wonder why a town with almost no crime would need a $300,000 armored truck. "I don't think there's any place in the country where you can say, 'That isn't a likely terrorist target,'" Massery said. "How would you know? We don' t know what the terrorists are thinking. No one predicted that terrorists would take over airplanes on Sept. 11. If a group of terrorists decide to shoot up a shopping mall in a town like Keene, wouldn't you rather be prepared?" From Ta-Nehisi Coates

 “‘However, with the enormous amount of risk farmers are about to undertake by planting a new soybean crop, now is exactly the wrong time to reduce support for the federal crop insurance program,  The American Soybean Association from Farm Policy

Based on the logic of these hucksters, we need a $300,000  armored truck in every town the size of Keene, N (23,000 +) H, or larger, or about 1300 places. And because soybean farmers plant a crop every year, and risk their investment in seed and fertilizer, we can never reduce crop insurance.

Women and Haying

I stumbled across a site, Hay in Art, which I recommend to all feminists who grew up on dairy farms.  I was searching for images of haying for another blog, and found this site which apparently has collected all the paintings showing haying. You'd be surprised how many there are (6700+).  A subset of the collection is women doing haying. The site owner, Alan Ritch, finds a pattern: women raked and men used forks.  And apparently it was common to ted the hay (i.e., turn the cut hay over so it would dry faster). Where I grew up in Broome County, NY that wasn't normal: the hay wasn't dense enough and the conditions moist enough to require it. 

The sheer number of pictures of women in the fields provides a different picture of what life was like in previous centuries.

My sister, who likes to brag about driving the team pulling the hay wagon and hay loader when she was maybe 13 or so, will be disappointed--I didn't see any such images in the database. 

I strongly recommend the site: it doesn't seem to have been updated recently, but it has all sorts of special essays, as Ritch calls them.  Unfortunately, the images are limited in size, and the type's a bit small for old eyes, but it's still fascinating.

Confusion: Minority Farmers and USDA

I'm confused by what's happening.

We have notice AO-1534  establishing a Minority farmer register using form AD-2035
We have notice CM-695, implementing departmental regulations using form AD-2106.

Reading between the lines, although quickly so I'm possibly missing something, the register is intended to collect data from and through  "outreach organizations", the data stays on paper, and goes to the Department.  The AD-2106 is just passed out to program applicants, presumably SCIMS is updated.  A question: can SCIMS reflect whether the race, ethnicity, sex category is based on customer input or is the old eyeball test?

Seems to me it would have been much better to have issued one notice covering the subject.

Looking at the USDA strategic plan it appears USDA believes its current data on customers is good enough for analysis (despite GAO's problems with it).

My own feelings on the subject I stated in these comments on the Federal Register notice the Department put out.

Surprising Factoid: Christmas Carol Didn't Sell

The Economist has a graph showing sales of Dickens books in his lifetime. Christmas Carol is third from the bottom.

Hattip: Marginal Revolution

How Can You Fight Miss America? NASCOE Loses

Technically she's an ex-Miss America, but I don't see NASCOE as being able to counter her.  See this Des Moines Register piece.