Grapefruit and Locavores

My college roommate was from Hawaii, so he stayed with my family for the Christmas holiday.  His mother shipped a crate of citrus from Hawaii, meaning I learned for the first time how grapefruit should taste.  Locavores are right: fresh fruit direct to the table are the best.

Regardless, I've regularly had grapefruit halves for breakfast over the last 50 years. Why?  Grapefruit from the Safeway taste good enough; they satisfice even if they aren't the platonic ideal of grapefruit. And that's the crack in the locavore armor.  Many people develop a taste for tropical and subtropical fruit: your citrus, bananas, etc.  which most Americans cannot grow locally but which we learned to value.  That simple fact breaks the connection between place and product, so we're willing to accept the idea of fruits and vegetables being transported to the store from further and further away.  (See the history of United Fruit for how far back this goes.)

The economists would tell us it's a balance of the utility of the produce, mostly the taste, and the cost and they'd predict, rightly, that the ability to put good-enough tasting produce on the shelves of the supermarket only increases with time.

My proof: some of the best blueberries I've tasted in a good while just came from the Safeway, grown in Chile.

Gloomy Geezer

Not me, John Phipps:

Otherwise, it looks like producers as a group are bound and determined to see how fast and often we can shoot ourselves in the foot. We are re-enacting the Tragedy of the Commons even with full knowledge of how the story will turn out.

(On farmers misuse of new technology, like failing to plant the required refuges when using GM corn.)

How Government Really Works

Two articles in today's Post show how government really works:

• one covers the implementation of the rules of 28 states on health insurance covering contraception.  Turns out the states have loopholes and vague provisions, and provisions which aren't really enforced, which means the Catholic organizations who were/are yelling about the Obama administration's requirements were able to live with what really happened at the local level.
• the other covers the implementation of the law requiring reservists to get their job back when they return from active duty.  Turns out some reservists don't get their job back, and sometimes it's the federal government which fails to follow the law.

Some points:

•  the way our government is designed, the multiple layers (local, state, federal) mean "liberty" is protected. (I put "liberty" in quotes because I could as easily write "disorder".)
• some laws are more signal than reality.  That was a lesson from my sociology prof who cited the case of laws against prostitution. There's still prostitutes.  Or speeding, there's still speeding.  
• no one doubts President Obama wants veterans looked after, but it's a big government so gaps between executive intent and actual execution can be great.

Improving FSA Customer Service

One of the issues for any big bureaucracy is how do the bureaucrats at the center/top of the organization monitor the success their operatives have in dealing with their customers/clients.  In the case of FSA there used to be a number of ways the DC people, even those in the ivory tower as Chet Adell used to call the Administration Building, which used to house the Administrator and deputies, kept up with the field:

• first of all there was the feedback up the chain of command, from county through district director, state office and state director to area director
• second there was the feedback through the politicians--the county committee members, state committee members, etc.
• third the correspondence and phone calls directly from the farmers to DC, whether the Administrator, Congresspeople, or President

I think implementing web applications which provides direct service to customers creates a problem--how do you get feedback from the customers?  The established channels don't work (I don't see farmer Jones telling Ms. Smith in the local county office of a problem he had with the FSA website a week ago), and I don't have much faith in the ability of canned surveys to gather useful information. 

Would it work for the county offices to use the same applications as their customers could access online?

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.