WTO failure and my farm...

Although some observers think negotiators will still pull an agreement out of the fire at the last minute, I am not as sanguine. I think the Doha Round is on life support, and more importantly, I think the WTO is in danger of slipping into irrelevancy.

The developing country giants like India are not going to be cowed by the wealth and power of the First World this time. Since few American producers evince care about the poor of the world, or if they do, fail to connect the dots between free trade and raising the lowest from poverty, the safest position for a low-population state Congressdude is protectionism.

It is also remarkably short-sighted.

Farmers often forget our dependence on government subsidy is not just about us and the US Treasury. This largess has been made possible by an economic boom of unprecedented measure - to which US agriculture contributed a little bit. I don't mean this as derisive, but look at the numbers - farms contribute less than 1% to our GDP.

To put it bluntly short-circuiting our national economy to protect agriculture would be killing the Golden Goose. And nothing represents a larger threat to our business future than the rise of protectionism in the world's fastest growing markets.

Furthermore, a collapse of the Doha Round would eviscerate the WTO as a meaningful arbiter of trade, in my view. No more teacher to take our schoolyard quarrels to - like EU hormone beef bans or Chinese corn export subsidies. In its place will arise a patchwork of bilateral trade agreements universally proclaimed less efficient compared to global accords.

Yet the most important issue is not the economic gains from success in these specific negotiations but the potentially devastating consequences of failure. For that might well undermine the WTO itself.

This would, in turn, carry at least three negative consequences; first, it would stimulate a further rush toward preferential trade agreements of all kinds, but particularly bilateral ones; second, this would increase the role of power in determining opportunities to trade, not least because hegemonic powers tend to create “hub and spoke” trade agreements with weaker partners; third, it would undermine a highly successful dispute settlement system, which has brought the rule of law into the heart of the world economy.

The WTO is no mere talking shop. It is far more potent than that. It has offered an outstanding example of successful global co-operation. The current generation of leaders do not have the right to throw away the legacy they inherited, particularly when the negotiating gaps between their countries is, in truth, modest.

[More here]

Add in our energy consumption and suddenly, without the ability to export our best products - services, hi-tech, entertainment, etc. we leave way too many dollars overseas. As they pile up, our dollar could weaken dramatically.

Whoopee! A weak dollar means increased ag exports, right? It might, but one thing for sure - it means sharply higher interest rates and slower growth. Besides we are slowly throwing in the towel on exports because we're all going to be growing fuel - remember?

The preservation of our Big 8 commodity programs would be a paltry gain for the enormous damage to the entire US economy. While I don't think many producers worry about much past the farm gate, indifference could land them in the worst of both worlds - fewer government dollars and closed export markets.

Good night and good luck...

More than a few things that may keep you awake tonight.

5 . An adult bedbug can survive up to one year without feeding.
10 . In 1964 17-year-old Randy Gardner stayed awake for 264 hours and 12 minutes, the world's record. He then slept for 15 hours—not a record, but not bad.

Sleep - it's not that easy.

Retirement Planning - Lesson 27...

How to win something in a claw machine.


You have to have a plan, people.

Good news for subsidy fans...

Tax receipts are sharply higher, surprising most analysts. Thanks to corporations and the very, very wealthy the deficit could fall below $300B even with the war and Katrina. While many on the right will point ot the fact that an enormous part (about 1/3) of our taxes is paid by the upper 1%, I can't help but think how lopsided income distribution has to be in order for that to be true.

Spending continues to grow faster of course, but this piece of data will inspire many election-anxious Congresshumans to put more shoats on feed for the upcoming Porkfest. Just in time for a new farm bill!

Jeez- I haven't used the word "shoat" for decades.

The future ain't what it used to be...

The FUTURE was for many of us Boomers captured remarkably well by Disney imagineers at EPCOT. No kidding - I bought into the the George Jetson future, flying cars, skin-tight jumpsuits, and of course - a MONORAIL.



You could not have a vision of the future without a monorail.

It turns out that predicting the future is pretty, well, predictable. It seems you fall into one of two camps:

1. Malthusians: doom, gloom and tomb - mankind eventually destroys the earth and life as we know it through venal short-sighted stupidity and voting Republican
2. Cornucopians: hi-tech saves the day. Thanks to people in white lab coats and code monkeys in cubicles, Science solves every problem we create just in time.

Allow me to suggest a third alternative vision:

The future will feel much like the present. Only later. It will look really different.

Technology can change our environs and will, but the human condition will be much the same. I think we will be able to understand our own minds better, but will not escape the responsibility for our own happiness.

I also think we will still be trying to find a reason to build a monorail somewhere.

Word from Da Other Man...

Ronald Bailey, science writer for Reason magazine can get "out there" at times. His book "Liberation Biology" is a heady mix of tight logic and hair-raising prediction. (See my review in Top Producer this fall). Nonetheless his unflinching defense of biotech comes from a rock-solid intellectual base - not a job with Monsanto. That earns my respect even when he is wrong (ie. disagrees with me)

Our old friend Jeremy Rifkin, political gadfly and perpetual science lightweight, slipped an editorial into the Washington Post recently. It is worth struggling through to catch the echo of the "intelligent design" strategy cooked up by pseudo-scientists to disguise a religious dogma. Rifkin attempts to use a new genetic technique - marker-assisted selection (MAS) to declare biotech outmoded.

Bailey's business-like dismantling of Rifkin's arguments is something all biotech users should read. Nor is Bailey alone in pointing out Rifkin's inaccuracies.

It is our responsibility as farmers to learn all we can about this tool - we are the tool-users.

Word from Da Man...

If you don't don't subscribe to Pro Farmer, you are missing the best source of political ag news in this arm of the galaxy:



Jim Weisemeyer

His latest scribble contains more insight on the upcoming farm bill debate than a dozen other newsletters. A sample:

Not so for the United States. I'm not sure who they all are, but I hope Bush administration and congressional leaders listen to different trade policy experts and lawyers than the ones who errantly advised that U.S. policies dealing with the Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) issues, and the Byrd amendment would hold up to WTO legal challenges. They did not.

I would link you to his wisdom, put it is "pay-per-view". Consider subscribing if you are in this business for keeps. At least mooch the free trial offer!

I will be countering his opinons tomorrow or Sunday with stray thoughts of my own.

A flying boat...



More fantasy-provoking photos here.

[via Neatorama]

Is everything I know wrong now?...

European weather, and especially winter is much milder than ours. The reason was obvious and widely accepted: the Gulf Stream carries tropical warmth northeast to temper the prevailing winds.



Wrong. In American Scientist, climate researcher Richard Seager teases out a more mundane cause-and-effect.

Because sea-surface temperatures vary less through the seasonal cycle than do land-surface temperatures, any place where the wind blows from off the ocean will have relatively mild winters and cool summers. Both the British Isles and the Pacific Northwest enjoy such "maritime" climates. Central Asia, the northern Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are classic examples of "continental" climates, which do not benefit from this moderating effect and thus experience bitterly cold winters and blazingly hot summers. The northeastern United States and eastern Canada fall somewhere in between. But because they are under the influence of prevailing winds that blow from west to east, their climate is considerably more continental than maritime.

This article is not a fun read. But I mention it because one of the global warming scenarios being lobbed about is a "reversal" of the Gulf Stream and serious implications for European weather.

This is not just an academic issue. The play that the doomsday scenario has gotten in the media—even from seemingly reputable outlets such as the British Broadcasting Corporation—could be dismissed as attention-grabbing sensationalism. But at root, it is the ignorance of how regional climates are determined that allows this misinformation to gain such traction. Maury should not be faulted; he could hardly have known better. The blame lies with modern-day climate scientists who either continue to promulgate the Gulf Stream-climate myth or who decline to clarify the relative roles of atmosphere and ocean in determining European climate. This abdication of responsibility leaves decades of folk wisdom unchallenged, still dominating the front pages, airwaves and Internet, ensuring that a well-worn piece of climatological nonsense will be passed down to yet another generation.

Next I suppose they will discover there is no phlogiston.

One the positive side, it seems to take media hoopla like global warming arguments to trigger researcher brains and research $$. I think we can expect more startling announcements in the near future as these efforts hit pay dirt.

Engineers - ya gotta love 'em...

Abandoned railroad tracks in a desperately poor country. What to do? Massive foreign aid, IMF loans, government missions?

Nah - just get outta da way:



Ingenious entrepreneurs in Cambodia saw a need and a way to make a buck:

They have created their own rail service using little more than pieces of bamboo. The locals call the vehicles "noris", or "lorries", but overseas visitors know them as "bamboo trains".

A tiny electric generator engine provides the power, and the passenger accommodation is a bamboo platform that rests on top of two sets of wheels. A dried-grass mat to sit on counts as a luxury.

It would be a white-knuckle ride - if there were actually anything to hold on to.

The bamboo trains reach about 40km/h (25mph), with the track just a couple of inches below the passengers. Warped and broken rails make for a bone-shaking journey.

But the drivers insist it is a safe form of transport.

"We're very careful," said 18-year-old Sok Kimhor, a 10-year veteran of the bamboo trains. "We look out for children and animals running across the lines, and we have to slow down when other trains come along."

This is how you change the world.

No wonder I'm not a terrorist...

How do you stop young men from becoming terrorists?

Marry 'em off.

No kidding. In an experiment with violent PLO radicals, desperate peacemakers tried a new strategy:

So approximately a hundred of these beautiful young women were brought to Beirut. There, in a sort of PLO version of a college mixer, boy met girl, boy fell in love with girl, boy would, it was hoped, marry girl. There was an additional incentive, designed to facilitate not just amorous connections but long-lasting relationships. The hundred or so Black Septemberists were told that if they married these women, they would be paid $3,000; given an apartment in Beirut with a gas stove, a refrigerator, and a television; and employed by the PLO in some nonviolent capacity. Any of these couples that had a baby within a year would be rewarded with an additional $5,000.

The results were astonishing. And also a little depressing for those of us with X-chromosomes. How simple are we?

Another angle might be to give them a small business loan.

It has been said that when goods cross borders, armies don't. Today, China and India are the world's two largest countries racing toward entrepreneurial capitalism. They are the example and test of that thesis. Several decades ago, their armies clashed. Now no one talks of war, only of their economic emergence. Capitalism has promoted peace and, in China, better — though still inadequate — respect for rights.

Better yet, do both. How much time would you have to be a terrorist with 2 kids and a payment every month?

Let me know what you think...

At the bottom of this post, like all posts on this blog is a link for your comments. Let me make sure you understand what will happen should you click it.

• In order to publish your comment, you will have to sign on to blogger.com - the service which runs this blog. This is a matter of choosing a username and password. Once you have done this, I recommend you have your computer remember it to speed up further posts. I don't know what Google (the parent of blogger.com) does with your login information - but I'm not getting spammed or scanned since I stated using blogger.
  
• Your comments will appear here on John's World (in the comments section) immediately after you post. Use links to help us see where your information comes from. (This is very easy) Update - Actually you can’t use live links, so please spell out the URL, ex. agweb.com Shoot.
• Other readers may also contribute with opinions my original post or your comment.
• If you ask a question or make a point I find interesting, I will answer you as soon as possible. I will try really hard not to be argumentative or critical - and if I fail, you can join Jan in letting me know about it. I might even admit when I am wrong. (Don't hold your breath)
• Above all, I will not allow personal attacks, pointless ranting or profanity - the posts will be moderated.

Remember you can still use e-mail (click my name) to share your ideas, but posting your comment saves me cutting and pasting. Use a screen name if you like to provide some anonymity.

Thanks for reading John's World and I hope to see your comments soon!

HCFS and NYT - a real surprise...

Farmers for the most part have little use for the New York Times. It's a little, you know, liberal. But this Sunday it ran a story they might tolerate.

In the news media and on myriad Web sites, high-fructose corn syrup has been labeled "the Devil's candy," a "sinister invention," "the crack of sweeteners" and "crud." Many scientific articles and news reports have noted that since 1980, obesity rates have climbed at a rate remarkably similar to that of high-fructose corn syrup consumption. A distant derivative of corn, the highly processed syrup was created in the late 1960's and has become a hard-to-avoid staple of the American diet over the last 25 years. It spooks foodies, parents and nutritionists alike. But is it really that bad?

Many scientists say that there is little data to back up the demonization of high-fructose corn syrup, and that links between the crystalline goop and obesity are based upon misperceptions and unproved theories, or are simply coincidental.

"There's no substantial evidence to support the idea that high-fructose corn syrup is somehow responsible for obesity," said Dr. Walter Willett, the chairman of the nutrition department of the Harvard School of Public Health and a prominent proponent of healthy diets. "If there was no high-fructose corn syrup, I don't think we would see a change in anything important. I think there's this overreaction."

There has been a simmering debate about whether high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contributes unduly to obesity by being metabolized differently than cane sugar. Another argument is that by lowering the cost of sweetened foods, pop especially, it makes carb/calorie overload easier.

Maybe neither assertion is right. This link to the Reason blog is worth reading;

For me, the clincher was that even the head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Michael Jacobson, who rarely misses an opportunity to spread alarm about the food Americans consume, "never supported the notion that high-fructose corn syrup was a unique contributor to obesity."

Scan the comments. This blog has some of the sharpest writing and analysis I have read, but the ignorance of commodity pricing in the readers is considerable. Nobody connects the dots between a sugar policy that chokes off imports and raises the price of cane sugar 200% above world prices and the adoption of HFCS by the food industry.

When you put it that way...

This astonishing post from the Brainstorm 2006 Conference just concluded in Aspen:

The USA: future deadbeat

In this morning's breakfast discussion on U.S. indebtedness (where economist David Li also made some interesting remarks), former Goldman Sachs Asia vice chairman Kenneth Courtis offered this rhetorical question:

"When the current administration leaves office, the U.S. will have an external debt of $6.5 trillion," Courtis said. "Is anyone in this room naive enough to believe the U.S. will ever pay that back?"

No one spoke up.

Also some great remarks from Sen. John McCain.

It could have been even faster without the handlebar streamers and playing card in the spokes...

In the quest for the first successful effort to drive a human-powered vehicle 90 km. in one hour (56 righteous miles), the 2006 Dempsey-MacCready One Hour Record Attempts were held last weekend in cool crisp Arizona.

While athleticism is an essential component, the key to these astounding records are the highly streamlined aerodynamic shells that encase the “speedbike”.

Fabricated from lightweight composite materials these amazingly efficient vehicles are able to sustain highway speeds on a scant few hundred watts of power, a mere fraction of the energy used by the average blow dryer!

Low frontal area is enhanced by bullet like body styling with the riders in a recumbent position creating the most efficient land transportation ever seen. HPVA founder Chet Kyle said recently “ If these vehicles were burning gasoline they would be getting about 3000 miles per gallon!”

The winner - Fred Markham - set a new record of 85.4 km.



No word yet on the drug tests. The French are investigating.

[via Slashdot]

A great way of life?...

Farming for the vast majority of producers is an occupation of last resort - not a passionate fulfillment of a dream. Call me soft, but when I read accounts like this of a farm "suicide belt", I struggle to figure out why producers like me need to be "protected" by tariffs and subsidies from wretched fellow farmers like Gosavi Pawar.

Yeah, yeah , I know. Eliminating our subsidies won't help guys like him much, according to studies cited by the cotton industry. But good grief, it sure isn't helping him! And anyway, it's those darn Chinese peasants who are messing up the world market.

Oxfam continues to drag out estimates from old studies that have been refuted or substantially discounted, while failing to report results from recent studies by FAO and the International Monetary Fund. These recent reports show the estimated cumulative impacts of all subsidies by all countries producing cotton only contribute a 2.5% to 3% reduction in average world prices.

But if we're going to pay twice for our cotton here in the US, why don't we at least keep it to ourselves instead of pushing it on the world market? How can you not subvert the marketplace with a scheme like that?

By comparison, the market value of America's cotton crop in 2001 was about $3 billion. "In an economic arrangement bizarrely reminiscent of Soviet state planning principles," Oxfam noted, "the value of subsidies provided by American taxpayers to the cotton barons of Texas and elsewhere in 2001 exceeded the market value of output by around 30 percent."

What really surprises me is the argument from cotton producers that if they don't have a cotton program, they will start growing soybeans, threatening us here in the Midwest. Looky, guys, if you can grow beans more efficiently than me, good on ya. I think you may find it slightly trickier than cashing checks from the cotton program.

Either way, you do your best and I'll do mine - and customers and producers will both be winners.

I've got a bad feeling this could be the new name for biodiesel...

The view on illegal immigration from the south just got fuzzier...

It looks like the conservative (in relative terms) Pan candidate, Felipe Calderon has eked out a slim victory (not to be confused with a majority) in our southern neighbor.

The preliminary results issued by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) gave Mr Calderon 36.38% of the vote compared with 35.34% for Mr Lopez Obrador.

It will be interesting to see if this type of Gore-Bush non-mandate will go down as poorly as our version did in 2000. At least they have a paper trail to document results, unlike our current "virtual" votes.

"It's going to be very difficult to have a Florida here," said Alejandro Trelles, an IFE adviser, referring to the protracted Bush-Gore legal battle in 2000. "The election was impeccable--no serious incidents, no elements to impugn." Unlike in Florida, Mexicans just mark ballots with an "x."

What this election does not mean is much change in direction for Mexican attitudes towards illegal US immigrants. The tricky part here is keeping in mind our friends to the south have more influence on our oil prices that Saudi Arabia. Of course, we are their only customer, but they still control how fast and much oil is pumped. So strong words from Washington will likely be laughed off south of the border. I mean, whadda we gonna do - bomb them?

In fact, the presumption of Mexican politicians of immunity from US unilateral actions is so strong they are thinking of making the US another Mexican voting district.

AMLO has also proposed that the Mexican Congress be enlarged to include legislators who specifically represent Mexicans living in the United States. This idea has been proposed before, and would establish a sixth circunscripcion. Mexico is currently divided into five electoral super-districts, each called a circunscripcion” or constituency subdivision. The proposal would add a sixth - the U.S.A. Mexicans living in the United States would vote by absentee ballots in Mexican elections - not for Members of Congress of a Mexican state such as Chiapas or Chihuahua, but for congresspersons specifically representing Mexicans in the United States.

Boy - the idea of a "nation" is undergoing some remodeling in this century!

Great British shop names...


(More here)

I think the worst over here are all the hair salons with "shear" and "mane" wordplay.

[via Presurfer]

The other side of ethanol numbers...

While I am merely trying to be sensible in my expectations for ethanol, some critics are arising that have hard-to-answer numbers describing biofuel limitations. The key quote for me put the "Brazilian success story" in perspective:

Recently, there has been lots of excitement and media coverage about how Brazil produces ethanol for its automobile fuel and talk that America should follow its lead. But Brazil consumes only 10 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel annually, compared with America's 170 billion. There are almost 4 million miles of paved roads in America -- Brazil has 60,000. And Brazil is the leading producer of sugar cane -- more than 300 million tons annually -- so it has lots of agricultural waste to make ethanol.

Whle Brazil may be a bigger ag producer than the US soon it is a tiny consumer. Citing Brazil as a path we should follow is not realistic. Our oil consumption, like the federal budget, is a number too big for many of us to grapple with.

And I still can't figure out how any practical amount of ethanol will lower our dependence on Arab oil.

Let's face it - ethanol for farmers is 95% about farm income. We'd lobby for mandates for any usage that offered a glimmer of $3 corn.

[Thanks, Dan]