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March 22, 2011

Enter the USDA, to Rescue Americans From... Something

By Chuck Roger

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced an initiative of a type which has never succeeded in the history of civilization: centralized government planning. Espousing the unsubstantiated belief that CO2-induced "climate change" is already reducing food and lumber crop yields, the USDA now claims the ability to use central planning to guide farmers and foresters through problems stemming from said climate change.

According to Roger Beachy, head of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) within the USDA, regionally variable climate change will necessitate different crop growing adaptation strategies. Describing the new initiative, Beachy explains,

Climate change has already had an impact on agriculture production. Going forward agriculture producers need sound scientific information to plan and make decisions to ensure their economic viability. These projects ensure we have the best available tools to accurately measure the effects of climate change on agriculture, develop effective methods to sustain productivity in a changing environment and pass these resources on to the farmers and industry professionals who can put the research into practice.

So then, the public sector will show the private sector how to "sustain productivity?" The claim runs crosswise with humanity's cumulative experience with government and the private sector. And there are other problems with the NIFA plan. In fact, a clear thinker might ask five specific questions.
  1. Isn't "change" a normal feature of climate?
  2. Hasn't climate always changed differently in different regions?
  3. Haven't growers always adapted?
  4. What past results do we have that encourage us to trust government's ability to centrally plan anything?
  5. With the obvious answer to question #4, how much confidence should we have that government can successfully plan an entire society's navigation through an unpredictable phenomenon like climate change?
Honest answers to all five questions reveal the foolhardiness of believing that the USDA will do anything but screw up the food and lumber supplies, weakening the health and wealth of Americans in the process.

A particular aspect of the USDA plan typifies the height of liberal cluelessness that Americans have come to expect from the Obama administration. One of the projects under the new initiative aims to increase corn production. Who will lead this noble attempt to steer producers through times when the rain don't rain, or when the rain, she rain too much, or when the sun don't shine, or when the sun, he shine too much? With a $20 million budget, the corn project's leader will be Dr. Lois Wright Morton, an Iowa State University sociologist.


A writer, physicist, and former high tech executive, Chuck Rogér invites you to visit his website, http://www.chuckroger.com/. Email Chuck at swampcactus@chuckroger.com
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