This looks potentially troublesome...  

The newly announced possible link between corn insecticide treatments and bees is a cause for concern.

In Thursday’s issue of the journal Science, two teams of researchers published studies suggesting that low levels of a common pesticide can have significant effects on bee colonies. One experiment, conducted by French researchers, indicates that the chemicals fog honeybee brains, making it harder for them to find their way home. The other study, by scientists in Britain, suggests that they keep bumblebees from supplying their hives with enough food to produce new queens.

The authors of both studies contend that their results raise serious questions about the use of the pesticides, known as neonicotinoids. [More]

The reason I am going to watch this is the possible mechanism by which this occurs - a catalytic effect on fungicides given to the bees for other reasons.

Both Goulson and Mace Vaughn, pollinator program director at the Xerces Society, an invertebrate conservation group, said neonicotinoids won’t be the only cause of colony collapse disorder.
“If it was as simple as that, the answer would have been discovered a long time ago,” said Goulson. “I’m sure it’s a combination of things. I’m sure that disease is a part of it, and maybe the two interact.” He noted a study in which honeybees exposed to neonicotinoids were especially vulnerable to a common bee parasite. Another study found that neonicotinoids dramatically increase the toxicity of fungicides. [More]

That's the kind of complicated chain of events that has made the search for a cause of CCD so difficult. For that reason alone it strikes me as plausible.

Coupling that with issue with the planter-talc problem recently suggested, and you have the beginning of a complex theory of cause and delivery.

*****

 FWIW, we're planting. Central IL has made the drought map, as we have known for months now, and I worry about moisture levels dropping in worked ground faster than new roots can chase them. Also, we're running out of days for a frost, albeit historically, it could still happen, I know. There is no hint on any longer range forecast, however.


If the year turns out to be hot, I'd just as soon be pollinating in June. Soil temps at 4" are an astounding 68℉. If it weren't for the calendar, anyone would swear it was past time to plant.


With all those rationalizations, were going to put it in the ground. The idea of a significant Aug/Sep premium due to short supplies certainly seems possible after yesterday, too. If the season turns out to be great growing conditions, it might be the high for the crop.

Good listens...  

Haven't done this is a while, but I can vouch for and highly recommend the following Great Courses (which you can download as a podcast for planting season)

• Before 1776: The American Colonies:  Great info, good delivery, incredible voice.
• The American Revolution: all the war stuff, very little politics, superb delivery (although he gets a little weird with ll the "87th Foot, 79th Dragoons" detail) This guy loved this war!
• WW I: The Great War: Simply great. For Americans who have forgotten how this war shaped Europe, and why it was a really different war for Poland, Latvia, etc. Wonderful mix of detail and overview.
• The History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts: This was one of my favorites, and I now have about 6 dozen places I want to see in Merry Ol'.

Also I'm working on Lost Christianities: Christian Scripture and the Battles over Authentication. This is deeply troubling information delivered clearly by an authoritative biblical scholar. It makes you think about why and what you believe. 

The unexpected president, ctd...  

I'll let Josh Barro, whose conservative credentials are impeccable, say what I have struggled to comprehend about race and the right and this campaign:

There has been a clear strategic calculation here among Republican elites. Better to leverage or at least accept the racism of much of the Republican base than try to clean it up. I remember a moment in the 2008 campaign where John McCain argued with a voter who said that Obama was “an Arab.” This time around, either the candidates don’t care about standing up to racial misconceptions or have decided they can’t afford to.
And on a more substantive policy issue, you have Gingrich’s rejection of the idea that there is even a racial matter to discuss in the Martin case. You don’t have to assume that George Zimmerman is guilty of murder (Julian Sanchez has a good piece on this) to recognize that Trayvon Martin would likely to be alive today if he were white.
The question of what to do about that is complicated, but it’s clearly a public policy concern. Instead, Gingrich commits an error that is common on the Right—jumping from the fact that race relations have improved to a claim that black Americans no longer have special policy concerns worth discussing.
It’s disgraceful that Gingrich would call bringing up Trayvon Martin’s race disgraceful. It also undermines everything else that conservatives say about race, no matter how valid. How are Republicans supposed to be taken seriously when they say they understand black Americans’ policy needs when Newt Gingrich is spouting nonsense like this?
My challenge to conservatives who feel they get a bum rap on race is this. Stand up for yourself and your colleagues when you feel that a criticism is unfair. At the same time, criticize other conservatives who say racist things, cynically tolerate racism in the Republican base, or deny the mere existence of racial issues in America today. The conservative movement desperately needs self-policing on racial issues, if it ever hopes to have credibility on them. [More worth reading]

And at that, I'll let go of this thread.

The president, ctd...  

Thanks for the great comments. I'll respond in this separate post, as linking is a bear in the comments.

First:

"From VA":
1. For most objectors I know, it is more about the appropriate role and size of government. Not withstanding the many previous encroachments, if Obamacare stands, there is nothing in my life that the feds cannot dictate. The concept of limited government is gone completely and many of us find this a travesty.

2, Your own source says "The number of significant federal rules, defined as those costing more than $100 million, has gone up under Obama, with 129 approved so far, compared with 90 for Bush, 115 for President Bill Clinton and 127 for the first President Bush over the same period in their first terms." This is more than a 40% increase in the most burdensome regulations. Also, for aggies, think GIPSA, dust, child labor, and TMDL. I very definite pattern of increasing regulation impacting agriculture.

3. I have witnessed this administration "vetting" of very routine, perfunctory, commodity board appointments where they have indeed used Chicago tactics, and have confronted the most minor appointee with their record of campaign contributions.

4.I agree, no jamming.

5. I think it is not Obama as a person many aggies find repugnant, but it is his view of government and his belief that government always knows best that most of us reject.

Okay, in similar order:

1. Your objection to the mandate as THE line in the governmental size stand is typical.  It has been nicknamed the "broccoli argument"  as it requires an affirmative commercial action. There are two answers to this. First, we said the same thing about Kelo and imminent domain. I thought that was dumb decision as it trampled private property rights, but so far we haven't seen cities, etc. seizing land will-nilly. Second,

 The law’s critics, for instance, do not challenge rulings like Wickard vs. Filburn, which allowed Congress to forbid a farmer from growing his own wheat that he did not plan to sell. Of course, growing wheat for personal consumption is an elemental act of human civilization, a definitive act of a person who wishes to provide for himself and be left alone. Not coincidentally, some of history’s most monstrous tyrannies denied individuals the right to grow their own food unmolested – think of Stalin’s Russia, inducing a famine among the productive farmers of the Ukraine, who were forbidden from using their own time to grow their own food.

Indeed, if we imagine a reverse situation – in which conservatives were conceding the government the right to regulate “inactivity” but not “activity” – their hyperventilations over the perilous state of freedom in America would be more persuasive. The line between the laws legitimized by Wickard and real communist tyranny is actually quite thin. Instead they have managed to whip themselves into a frenzy by painting fantastical, concocted stories about the government forcing people to eat broccoli – as if they truly cannot imagine a legal or philosophical principle that would allow the government to enforce a health care mandate (that conservatives invented!) and not allow the government to force-feed broccoli to its population. [More]

2. Note the source (thanks for reading the link, BTW) does not compute any benefits, only costs. What does preventing another well blow-out count? The EPA and other regulators tackled some hard problems like finance reform that have already cost us billions. We can complain regulations cost us but as ethanol supporters like to shout, "Look at all the benefits!"  Regardless, I simply disagree with the perception there has been a "tsunami" of regulation. More, perhaps, but it is a matter of degree.
3. I think those type of tactics are now pretty standard across both parties, Look at how slow the Senate has been to confirm appointees.
4. N/A
5. I'm glad you are on a different e-mail spam list than me, VA. You might visit ag talk blogs or listen to Rush. I appreciate your objection is based on policy, but after three years of bad jokes when with other farmers, my opinion is as I stated.

But a truly insightful comment with which I agree followed (albeit mislocated):

Ed Arndt Rich. Co ND said...
John,

On Obama. I didn't vote for Obama but was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I had hoped he would stop the shredding of the constitution started by George W. Bush with the Patriot Act. However,under Obama and his attorney general Eric Holder, the process has been accelerated. Under sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act the government can indefinitely detain terrorist suspects. The suspect has no right or opportunity to defend himself or make an attempt to refute the governments action. Are we to believe the government will never make a mistake? Think about that for a bit.

Now consider this. On Mar. 5th, in a speech at Northwestern University, Attorney General Eric Holder made the astounding statement (astounding to me at least)that the constitution guarantees due process of law, but it does not guarantee judicial process. For all of my adult life I had always believed that due process of law included a public trial before judge and jury. Not according to Holder. Under Holder's version due process becomes whatever the government says it is, not open to public or even congressional scrutiny. Holder's remarks were referring to the killing of Anwar al Awliki by drone strike, and various arguments can be made in defense of this action. However, the precedents set by Holder's speech are terrifying. How long until some other branch of government decides that it is not obligated to provide judicial process and instead provides whatever due process the government decides will suffice? Under this scenario, what we have commonly held to be constitutional guarantees become null and void.

These things have not been much reported in the mainstream media. Why? Is the media keeping it a secret? Or does the media think(I fear correctly) that the public is not interested?

You can google "Eric Holder's speech at Northwestern University" for background on this subject.

I was irate when habeus corpus was decimated under Bush, and am dumbfounded that Obama has doubled down on this insidious attack on personal liberty. What is more profoundly troubling is this is still not invasive enough for the Republican party excepting the sane voice of Ron Paul. They are cheering him [Obama] on!

This matter is far and away more devastating to me than Obamacare, but that is the issue that the public wants to debate. In fact, the public seems OK with killing suspected terrorists, even if they are American citizens, under the thinking I guess it wouldn't happen to someone named Phipps, of course.

Until you are targeted by the president to be killed (as just a suspect), I suppose.

The president we didn't expect...  

Obamacare (and yes, I guess that's what it will be called) has truly brought to light the myriad complaints of the right with his presidency. The comment below on a previous posts is helpful for my arguments about why these strong reactions exist.

 John, We sent them to Washington to repeal Obamacare and the massive Administrative regulations he put into effect day 1 along with being sickened by the Chicago tatics that HE brought to Wasington. I remember the "read it later" bills HE jamed thru w/o the "compromise" HE now wants. We are and will continue to pay for OBAMAS rotten leadership. He was the mistake.

Let me unpack this as evenly as I can, because "anon" shares a viewpoint I have heard frequently at farmer gatherings and in other conversations.

1. Repealing Obamacare: This remains the largest objection for most, I believe, yet it is rooted in remarkable confusion about what it does. Aside from the mandate, most of the major provisions - covering children until 26, guaranteed coverage, community rating, closing the "donut hole", comparison shopping, etc. - enjoy widespread popularity. The mandate itself will be very popular among health insurers should the law be upheld as it is one of the best ways to make make the other provisions affordable. The idea Obamacare is a government takeover is also unsupported by facts. It relies on private insurance but regulates how it will be packaged and sold. To the disappointment of many, there is no public option, which most associate with government intrusion.
2. There were no massive regulations passed on Day 1. At least, I can't find any. This is hyperbole that now passes for evidence. In fact, there is evidence the Obama administration is not keeping up with the regulations added by other administrations.   
3. Chicago tactics. Rep. Darrel Issa was widely expected to investigate every move by the White House to prove corruption, etc. He has struggled to make any news. Compared to previous administrations, this one does not stand out as remarkably worse, could even be rated better. There is no smoking gun despite unprecedented efforts by opponents. 
4. "Jamming through" legislation: I assume this means Obamacare, since it passed by one vote. First, this accusation is unfounded in reality. No president jams through legislation. Congress writes legislation in consultation with the White House, but even with a veto threat, the bills are Congressional products. If it passes by one vote in either house it is not jammed through - it is sent to the President like any other law. Many bills pass by the narrowest of margins. We call them laws. If the commenter refers to the party line nature of recent votes, I wonder if he/she would agree that no bill should pass without a vote from the other side, and propose an amendment to that effect. The 60-vote threshold (3/5) in the Senate is so hard to reach, it is very common for this to occur. As for pressure from leadership, this is normal practice and was used for Medicare D, the Iraq War, and other contentious bills like farm bills.
5. Finally, the tone of the comment, the capitalization of "HE", the argument by assertion rather than by fact or reason makes my point, I would suggest. It is Obama many despise, not his actions which have been surprisingly centrist.


Finally, it is no longer impossible to ignore the racist overtones in the opposition to Obama. It's out there. It is my belief that our nation was simply caught off-guard by a young, black President. He was not supposed to get the nomination and not supposed to be able to be elected, so when he arrived we had not prepared for the change.


For many it is a change too far. The second black President will be no big deal, but with the First, just like women at the Naval Academy, or Jackie Robinson, or countless other "firsts", we usually outlive the reaction. We don't adjust in real time or change many initial responses.


The commenter captures this "change weariness". As someone once remarked about globalization, "I don't have anything against it - it's just gone on too damn fast and too damn hard for too damn long". There is seldom a smooth pace to cultural shifts, but trying to pass off personalized animosity as well-reasoned policy arguments isn't working that well.

Graph of the Day...  

We've got the room.

 [More]

Tea regret...  

I have been mildly amazed at the anti-government ferocity in rural America, even while we were cashing many forms of government checks. I still think the majority of the virulent anti-Obama hatred (and that is a reluctant assessment) arises from who he is rather than his policies.

In fact, anyone could have seen how this would play out. With the Ryan budget, it has suddenly become undeniable.

It must have been a lot of fun to show up at meetings in the summer of 2010 and bash your sitting congressman or senator. No one knows how many video clips were shot of Tea Party members shouting down members of the U.S. House and Senate, some of whom had put their careers on the line for farmers.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost, so to speak, and, for the first time in decades farmers are faced with the very real possibility of not having a new farm bill or much chance of an extension of the current legislation when the 2008 law expires later this year.

By now, most of you have seen reports of the new federal budget proposed by Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee. The proposal would cut $33 billion from federal farm programs or about $10 billion more than the House and Senate Agriculture Committees proposed last fall.

Unlike previous years, this time the House of Representatives is filled with freshman members who have little or no sense of the purpose of farm programs or the stability they provide to agriculture. All most of them know is they think they have a mandate to cut federal spending. [More]

The curious thing for me is I am not alarmed by budget cuts to ag, so don't have a dog in this hunt, so to speak. But the Ryan budget is rapidly becoming the Republican budget, and as he is forced to fill in details, you can hear the gasps.

Of course, it is impossible to know what tax expenditures Ryan plans to eliminate; we can only guess. But it is worth knowing that just the top 6 tax expenditures account for more than half of the dollar cost of all tax expenditures. These include the exclusion for health insurance and the deduction for mortgage interest. Among those not in the top 6 are the deduction for charitable contributions and the deduction for state and local taxes.

In other words, it will be impossible to achieve Ryan’s revenue target without pretty much wiping the slate clean of every tax preference except for a handful of the most popular ones. This may be worth doing, but will be very difficult. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced tax expenditures by about 2.7 of GDP, according to the TPC. If it could be duplicated, that would only get Ryan to his absolute minimum level of revenues as a share of GDP. Getting to the upper end of his target range would require a tax reform one third larger.

In short, looking only at the tax side of Ryan’s plan, he is anticipating enactment of an extraordinarily ambitious tax reform on top of the most ambitious budget cutting effort ever enacted. He would sharply cut outlays for every major program except Social Security and national defense. Every governmental function one can think of would be virtually abolished except for Medicare, Social Security and defense. A key reason for the severity of these cuts, of course, is that Ryan would cut taxes at the same time he is cutting spending. To achieve balance with lower than projected revenues requires even larger cuts in spending. [More]

The harsh rhetoric of the last 3 years hasn't left the majority of farmers much room to maneuver on policy. These are THEIR representatives, whom they sent to Washington to mandate concealed carry, shut down the Fed, obstruct any compromise, and spot Muslims under every bush. And they may be about to send some more.

What did they expect?

There is some parallel here with raising pit bulls, but I won't go there.

Google to the rescue...  

This is about the tenth time this has happened in the last few years. I need a unique, particular device, tool or part, and after checking local sources, professionals, and dealers, I draw a blank.

The problem was attaching our JD 1770 planter to a Case MX315 tractor. We needed all 5 hydraulic outlets (including the mysterious "Power Beyond" set). Only they weren't regular 1/2", #8 BOSS O-ring tips. Cobbling NPT adapters and ORB fittings only slowed the leak to a dribble.

In desperation I googled "hydraulic hose fittings" and arrived promptly here: discounthydraulichose.com

The name alone made me laugh - how typical is that for the Internet age! But not only did they have exactly what I needed, but it was about half the price I could find comparable fittings - even after rush delivery.

This is what I mean by the oncoming productivity that will be boosting our bottom line via the "Borg Effect".  (I have trademarked that, BTW). This is the effortless ability to connect to information and resources that Aaron will use as second nature, and I am continually and happily surprised by.

From bizarre fasteners to appliance parts to unimagined services, my farm is much closer to the hub of the universe than ever before. In fact, we are slowly erasing all the social and cultural penalties for rural living.

Now if we can just get a rural water district...

Junkbox, Episode ILLINOT...  

Things are not going well in the Land of Lincoln

• We can't operate a land grant university
• We can't play college sports competitively
• We don't seem to grasp public finance
• We are missing needed rains
• Our one political moment in the sun was wiped out like an, ummm...

Multiple issues here on the farm, including working to get a rural water district started, speeches. field work, and the now-incredible complexity of hooking a green planter with a red tractor and third-party electronics. No excuse, but posting came in last.

The kids are home...  

Apparently to stay. Young people are not moving around much.

In the most startling behavioral change among young people since James Dean and Marlon Brando started mumbling, an increasing number of teenagers are not even bothering to get their driver’s licenses. Back in the early 1980s, 80 percent of 18-year-olds proudly strutted out of the D.M.V. with newly minted licenses, according to a study by researchers at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. By 2008 — even before the Great Recession — that number had dropped to 65 percent. Though it’s easy to blame the high cost of cars or gasoline, Comerica Bank’s Automobile Affordability Index shows that it takes fewer weeks of work income to buy a car today than in the early 1980s, and inflation-adjusted gasoline prices didn’t get out of line until a few years ago.

Perhaps young people are too happy at home checking Facebook. In a study of 15 countries, Michael Sivak, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute (who also contributed to the D.M.V. research), found that when young people spent more time on the Internet, they delayed getting their driver’s licenses. “More time on Facebook probably means less time on the road,” he said. That may mean safer roads, but it also means a bumpier, less vibrant economy.

All this turns American history on its head. We are a nation of movers and shakers. Pilgrims leapt onto leaky boats to get here. The Lost Generation chased Hemingway and Gertrude Stein to Paris. The Greatest Generation signed up to ship out to fight Nazis in Germany or the Japanese imperial forces in the Pacific. The ’60s kids joined the Peace Corps.

But Generation Y has become Generation Why Bother. The Great Recession and the still weak economy make the trend toward risk aversion worse. Children raised during recessions ultimately take fewer risks with their investments and their jobs. Even when the recession passes, they don’t strive as hard to find new jobs, and they hang on to lousy jobs longer. Research by the economist Lisa B. Kahn of the Yale School of Management shows that those who graduated from college during a poor economy experienced a relative wage loss even 15 years after entering the work force.

Perhaps more worrisome, kids who grow up during tough economic times also tend to believe that luck plays a bigger role in their success, which breeds complacency. “Young people raised during recessions end up less entrepreneurial and less willing to leave home because they believe that luck counts more than effort,” said Paola Giuliano, an economist at U.C.L.A.’s Anderson School of Management. A bad economy can boost a person’s weighting of luck by 20 percent, Ms. Giuliano found.

Notice how popular the word “random” has become among young people. A Disney TV show called “So Random!” has ranked first in the ratings among tweens. The word has morphed from a precise statistical term to an all-purpose phrase that stresses the illogic and coincidence of life. Unfortunately, societies that emphasize luck over logic are not likely to thrive. [More]

I'm not sure this is as big of a problem as the writer asserts, but it does bear contemplating.  If there is some cause-effect factor with the Internet, faster service and better gadgets will accelerate this trend. 

Regardless this does shed some light on the gasoline consumption drop, for one thing. It could be younger people will form a less intense consumer group, preferring experiences to stuff. 

Whatever the reason, the cultural impact will be considerable as Boomers loudly leave the stage.

Biological fodder...  

For your next casual conversation. A "Sheldon" factoid that will amaze your friends:

The vampire bat emerges from its cave at the darkest hour of night, after the moon has set. It flies low across the landscape, hunting by smell and sonar. Once the bat finds a victim—and it can feed on most warm-blooded animals, from songbirds to cattle—it starts stalking its prey. The bat lands silently a few feet away, then runs on its wings toward the sound of a pulsing vein. A pair of teeth sharper than a scalpel cut into the flesh. Blood leaks from the wound; the bat laps it up. Sometimes, the bat consumes its weight in blood during the night.
Although the vampire bat has traditionally been seen as a ghoulish predator, it interests biologists for a very different reason: it is deeply altruistic. The bats live in expansive colonies, with hundreds or thousands sharing the same dark cave. Bats must feed constantly—they starve to death within sixty hours—and this has led to the evolution of an unusual way of sharing food. If a vampire bat fails to find a victim during the night, it will begin licking the wings and lips of a chosen colony member. The animals then lock mouths, while the successful hunter starts vomiting warm blood. If such sharing did not take place, scientists estimate that more than eighty per cent of adult vampire bats would die of starvation every year. [More]

I almost starved to death in 60 hours once. Actually, it can happen between breakfast and lunch.

Junkbox, Episode CIVIC...  

How can I be behind already? It's March 6, fer Pete's sake!

• Your creepy for the day - a visit to the Uncanny Valley
• Thus could be The Next Big Thing for TV. (Once it's out of the courts and NYC)
• Big Syrup in Canada sets maple syrup prices
• Fancy financial derivatives finally undergo scrutiny: FAIL
• A less than convincing explanation why Mitt Romney pays so little income tax. From his own economist, oddly.
• Koch and Cato, best commentary IMHO.

Why can't we get SmartBox frames?  How much rootworm insecticide is going on this year?

Not all pennies are the same...  

A truly curious economic research finding: we react differently to a gas price increase when it is caused by taxes than when it is simply supply/demand driven. In fact, we cut consumption more for a penny increase in taxes compared to a penny in intrinsic gas price.

That's from a new NBER working paper by Shanjun Li, Joshua Linn, and Erich Meuhlegger. As the authors note, this has some interesting implications. It suggests, first, that estimations of the revenue that can be raised from petrol tax increases that are based on elasticities with respect to petrol prices will overstate assumed revenue gains. On the other hand, it means that reductions in consumption driven by tax changes should be less painful than those driven by movements in the price of oil. If America is interested in cutting its dependence on oil, then weaning consumers off petrol via tax rises will be easier on the economy than simply letting market-price variation do the work.
The paper suggests that more work is needed to understand the causation, but they point toward one logical factor: consumers may be more likely to read tax changes as permanent. A household that observes what looks like a permanent increase in petrol costs due to tax rises will quickly adjust its behaviour to minimise the burden—by driving less or purchasing more efficient vehicles. The household may delay such action when market movements send prices up as it waits to see how persistent the change will be. That delay represents more profit for producers and more of a hit to other household consumption than we'd get with a straightforward tax hike. [More]

Regardless, I think we are learning we will cut consumption when the cost increases. In fact, between Boomers slowing down, young people driving less and later, and better cars we may surprise ourselves how low we can go.

On the other hand, that's not good news for volume based gas taxes, unless we raise them commensurately.

This seems harsh...  

But pretty close to reality.

Moral of the story: the internet makes dumb people dumber and smart people smarter. If you don't know how to use it, or don't have the background to ask the right questions, you'll end up with a head full of nonsense. But if you do know how to use it, it's an endless wealth of information. Just as globalization and de-unionization have been major drivers of the growth of income inequality over the past few decades, the internet is now a major driver of the growth of cognitive inequality. Caveat emptor. [More]

Ryan Avent adds his two cents.

The question is: is this an iron rule of innovation in information technology—that the cheaper information becomes and the easier it becomes to manipulate it the greater will be the gap, productive and otherwise, between the informationally capable and the rest?
That's certainly possible, and there's little in recent history to convince us otherwise. It is not, however, a given. We might well be in an intial phase of the information age in which technology amplifies cognitive gaps which gives way to a period in which technology mutes those gaps. Mr Drum's line is taken from a post concerning the utility of search returns given search-box inputs; smart people are probably going to be better able to formulate search queries that return desired results. But who among us imagines that search technology and the interface between human and database won't substantially improve over time. Just take iPhone's Siri, for example, which applies voice-recognition and automated search technologies unimaginable not long ago. [More]

I think both have a point, but down here on the farm it plays out against the constraints of the zero-sum rule: technology like the Internet makes smart people smarter faster than it does dumb people (I'm not fond of the latter adjective, but we'll stick with their designations). The result is fast adapters crowd out - usually permanently those slower to understand and utilize.

For example, it doesn't matter if smart phones eventually lift every user's capabilities as they flow down the food chain. The biggest rewards will already have been claimed, and in our world there are only so many.

How unusual was February?...  

Cool new site to check extreme weather records.

 

No wonder...  

Farmers don't buy into climate change. We'd rather manage by crisis.

Glyphosate has failed on the driver weeds due to lack of diversity in our weed management programs and the fact nobody has been willing to change programs until it was too late.

Now we have the LibertyLink, which is excellent technology. Preserving the effectiveness of glufosinate (Liberty or Ignite) and the LibertyLink technology is critical to weed control for the near future. What are doing with that technology? Essentially everything we can do drive it off the cliff before we get a chance to find out how really good it is. We are only switching to this technology after glyphosate has stopped working, continuing our pattern of using up one technology and going to Plan B. And first-year users often struggle because they try to use it like they used glyphosate in Roundup Ready crops —with no diversity in the program.

How long will the technology last under these circumstances? My fear is not long enough. We cannot seem to get to the next step — switching systems, adding diversity or switching cultural practices in fields where what you are doing is still working fine. Once the first signs of resistance appear it is a snowball effect from there.

In Arkansas and across the Midwest, growers tell me what they are doing and that it is working fine. I politely just say, “Then please change your program now.” If you are in to farming for the long haul, that is where you have to get to.

It so critical to preserve glufosinate, because that is what we have now as far as anything new. In the next five years or so there are three rounds left in the chamber. Traits for three herbicide groups (dicamba, 2,4-D and the HPPD inhibitors) are being developed. Hard work is going into all of them. We need all three to be successful. It remains to be seen if they can be intercropped or grown together on the same farms or in the same areas. If not, we continue down the road of using up one technology at the time. There were presentations at the meeting on waterhemp resistance to 2,4-D and to the HPPD inhibitors and the technologies are not even here yet.

We continue failing to demonstrate that we can be smarter than weeds. There is no one answer. The answer is crop diversity, tillage diversity, herbicide diversity, trait diversity and soil seedbank management in every field starting now. [More][My emphasis]

Whoa - I thought I was blunt, even cynical, about farmer attitudes of apparent lack of long-term responsibility in our profession.

Maybe I was understating the case.

Junkbox, Episode IM...  

Maybe it's a lull before the calm...

• Desperate governments, desperate measures
• Another member of the NASS Non-fan Club
• Never plan a brainstorming session for your group
• Another member of the Former-conservative Club?
• What gas price spike?
• Not everybody loved the "talkies"

We have many friends/family struggling with person and health problems. We're trying to help as well as prepare for what we think will be a very early planting season. Hence the slow posting.

Thanks for reading.

Babysitters cause babies...  

Or at least, higher fertility rates in populations.

Conventional wisdom suggests that in developed countries income and fertility are negatively correlated. We present new evidence that between 2001 and 2009 the cross-sectional relationship between fertility and women's education in the U.S. is U-shaped. At the same time, average hours worked increase monotonically with women's education. This pattern is true for all women and mothers to newborns regardless of marital status. In this paper, we advance the marketization hypothesis for explaining the positive correlation between fertility and female labor supply along the educational gradient. In our model, raising children and home-making require parents' time, which could be substituted by services bought in the market such as baby-sitting and housekeeping. Highly educated women substitute a significant part of their own time for market services to raise children and run their households, which enables them to have more children and work longer hours. Finally, we use our model to shed light on differences between the U.S. and Western Europe in fertility and women's time allocated to labor supply and home production. We argue that higher inequality in the U.S. lowers the cost of baby-sitting and housekeeping services and enables U.S. women to have more children, spend less time on home production and work more than their European counterparts.  [More] [My emphasis]

Whoa - this complicates matters, but the data seem to support this hypothesis.


The implications are considerable.

Peak people will be an age when jobs compete for workers rather than vice versa. The cheapest labour will vanish. We’re already seeing this: Because China is ageing very fast, its dwindling working-age population is turning down the lowest-paid jobs and pushing up the minimum wage sharply, as well as the once-minimal costs of social services: Stuff from China will stop being cheap, because the Chinese aren’t young.
This can have larger consequences than we imagine. For example, the United States appeared to be escaping the worst of the ageing trend because it has an unusually high fertility rate (averaging almost 2.1 children per family, half a child more than Canada and Europe). Most analysts assumed that this was the result of American religion or prosperity. But an important new study by economists Moshe Hazan and Hosny Zoabi has found that the real reason for larger families is the unusually large supply of low-cost babysitters and child-care workers in the US – - mainly due to immigration, much of it “illegal,” from Latin America. But those Central American countries and Mexico are themselves ageing fast, which will soon choke off that cheap labour supply and drive up the cost of having extra kids – which will cause the US to become less fertile and more elderly.
Peak people will also be an age when countries will be competing for immigrants rather than trying to limit them. Immigration has spared Canada from the worst of ageing, but immigrants adopt host-country family sizes very quickly, so they’re a temporary fix. And if their home countries are competing to keep them, then we’ll have a harder time finding young people who want to come. It will require nimble and clever policies to prevent us from becoming old and lonely. [More]

People of a certain age like myself may never be able to get over our "population is a burden" thanks to Malthusian overexposure early in life, as well as our industry's fascination with the always looming "food shortage".

I have considerable confidence we, and our professional counterparts around the globe will find enough ways to grow calories to support all the people comfortably. The diets/crops may change, but we do that all the time.

And we always have ethanol acres in reserve.

Another fearless prediction...  

Since Philip Tetlock has shown that predictions from famous people are essentially...crap, to use the scientific term, my predictions could be right occasionally.

So here goes.

Soon we will have guaranteed health insurability and community rating, which will be the very hardest parts of the ACA to dislodge - not to mention political napalm. While I can't understand how right-wingers who thought up these ideas now justify opposing them - other than their disaffection for Obama - the consequences of these new rules may accelerate a profound change in our workforce.

Already, we are seeing an explosion of self-employed.

But the real drivers of the increase, Camden said, were the massive corporate layoffs that forced many Americans to find a new way to make money — whether they liked it or not.
Vera Pell, 58, has been laid off five times over the past decade. After the last time, the Oklahoma resident said, she simply gave up looking for another job.
“I finally decided that my life would be better if I had more control over it,” Pell said. “No more red tape and politics. No more giving away my skills so I could keep a job.”
Pell started a consulting firm, Evergreen Learning Designs, and began charging three times her former hourly wage. Her first contract was from a company that had laid her off.
She said her former employers think: “What about Vera? Can we get her to come back and do this?”
According to a survey by Staffing Industry Analysts, a research firm, businesses plan to increase the amount of temporary labor they use by 26 percent over the next two years. Jon Osborne, the group’s vice president of research, said the model is about 8 percent cheaper than hiring permanent employees, because most temporary workers do not receive benefits.
Camden said the cost of health care is the main deterrent for workers who would otherwise seek to join the contingent labor force. And it is a major reason that many workers hope temporary employment is just a pit stop on the way to something permanent. [More]

With the dream of a fat company pension dissipating like a fog in the morning sun, there will be fewer benefit monopolies companies can use to tie the rowers to the benches.

Just like we in ag enjoy our employment freedom (once the little woman has a group health-providing job, of course), it is not hard to imagine professionals of all kinds setting up little companies.

This strikes me as a big step forward for both workers and productivity. It also will change the corporate culture significantly as retention of talent becomes more difficult.

Not helping...  

I have long been uncomfortable with "bragvocacy" simply because it violates a standard of public conduct based on humility, which in turn derives from honest self-assessment. I mean, I have a pretty good idea whether I'm better than others morally. [Thanks to all of you who happily chime in from time to time to keep me reminded of my manifold flaws]

One of the most grating claims is we are the "first" environmentalists. That may be historically true, simply because we are one of the oldest professions. But even if we were first, we seem to be trying for worst as well.

Monsanto Co. and other seed makers reported a threefold increase last year in U.S. farmers caught violating requirements for planting genetically modified corn.

The data relates to farmers planting seeds that are genetically modified to produce a toxin derived from Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a natural insecticide. The Environmental Protection Agency requires the growers to plant an adjacent area -- a so-called refuge -- of non-Bt corn so that bugs don’t become immune.

About 41 percent of 3,053 farmers inspected in 2011 failed to fully comply with the refuge requirement, according to data from the Agricultural Biotechnology Stewardship Technical Committee, which Monsanto provided today in an e-mail. [More]

This is not going to end well.  And I suspect the biotech boom may be at least peaking. Thanks to such irresponsible farming practices, we're triggering the possible dissipation of both RR and Bt technology.

I look at our farm. We're using Liberty on all our corn to get the marestails, waterhemp, and ragweed. We're also using full-rate residuals in some fields. When it comes to RR resistance, we believe.

But the clue for the future for me was a visit to the Amvac booth in Louisville. Aaron bought a bigger planter and needed 4 more SmartBoxes to size up. Only we couldn't seem to get them.

It turns out they can't make them fast enough, even with 50% higher production in their plant. In fact, if you haven't ordered by now, it likely cannot get there in time. Meanwhile try finding the Aztec or Force to fill them. (We've located some used untis which should work fine, and our CPS fertilizer guy had ordered our Aztec for us, since we plant considerable non-GM specialty corn)

According to the Amvac rep, the demand is coming from north of I-80 - which surprised me. I thought is was likely from the eastern Corn Belt where "refuge corn" have been the best yielders for the past few seasons. (I theorize we are drowning what few larvae are hatching from depleted adult numbers thanks to Bt corn, but this is purely amateur entomology).

It seems the continuous corn is taking big hits from resistant rootworms in northern fields, so the plan seems to be plant multiple traits AND apply full rate insecticide. This strategy is a good one if you are over 55 and won't be farming ten years from now.

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 another issue, we just attended meetings where rootworm resistance to the Cry3Bb1 gene that was discovered in the central Midwest was discussed among researchers, extension specialists, and the various seed companies.  So far, resistance has not been seen with any of the other gene proteins.  Of primary concern was how to handle corn plantings in future years in those areas where resistance developed.  Resistance has NOT been found in Ohio rootworm populations.  However, of importance to Ohio growers is to remind them of the continued potential for resistance to develop, and what we need to do to help prevent it from occurring in our state. 
As discussed last August in the C.O.R.N. 2011-26 issue, growers should
1) rotate to another crop such as soybean (albeit keeping an eye out for the western corn rootworm variant),
2) ALWAYS PLANT THE REFUGE (remember that this is a requirement, which will automatically be planted if you use an RIB, or refuge in the bag, product),
3) if deciding to plant continuous corn, rotate among other rootworm management tactics such as using a soil insecticide, and
4) if wanting to continue to plant a rootworm Bt hybrid to control rootworm larvae, use a pyramided gene product such as SmartStax or rotate to a single gene product not containing the Cry3Bb1 gene. [More]

I find myself thinking this is just a hiccup and we're a long way from full-blown rootworm multiple trait resistance.

And then I look back ten years and see what I said about RR resistance.