Agriculture Data and Statistics, Nerds, UNITE!
The 2022 Ag Census is here. And also--Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack does the "rural people are superior" and "total factor productivity" thing.
Alright, The Cocklebur readers. I know I already sent you something this morning that amounted to real published writing. With editors and everything, and websites that aren’t just made up by yours truly.
But I wanted to alert you about a coming story this Thursday that will break down the recent U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) release of the 2022 Ag Census. My long-time buddy and sometimes writing partner Jake Davis and I will be breaking down the 2022 Ag Census and giving you information about what it means. We will be comparing the 2022 digits with the 1997 Ag Census, since that was a transformative time for Farm Bills, the structure of agriculture, the rich getting richer, etc.
In the meantime, I was inspired by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s speech at the Ag Census release event. Secretary Vilsack went big with his golden oldies playlist of:
1.) We should keep worshiping at the Gospel of Farm Productivity,
and,
2.) Rural People are morally superior because they serve in the military at greater rates than Urban People.
If you’re interested in alternative point-of-views to these 2 topics, I’d ask you to read some Bryce Oates deep cuts that challenge Secretary Vilsack’s assumptions.
(NOTE—these 2 articles I’m sharing are highly opinionated and quite sarcastic and not-at-all written in the journalistic/reporter voice that I generally use in The Cocklebur. And, you’ll have to dig through some self-deprecation and wordy filler. Good luck with that.).
With regard to “Productivity in Agriculture,” I would urge you to read a Medium post I wrote back in 2020 that describes how productivity gains have been made by substituting fossil fuels for labor, etc. This one was written about former President Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, but if the shoe fits. . . . Check that out here:
With respect to Vilsack’s contention that rural people serve at higher percentages in the military because Rural People have an elevated “sense of service,” I have thoughts. I wrote about them for Farm Aid back in the middle 2010s and they got picked up by Mother Earth News as free content here:
I will be spending the next couple of days nerding out on Ag Census data. But I wanted to just take a minute to send you some reading material in case you , too, are interested in smart-assery and attempts at compelling data analysis. Thank you for reading, and we’ll be back with you Thursday.
-Bryce, Publisher of The Cocklebur.
The Cocklebur covers rural policy and politics from a progressive point-of-view. Our work focuses on a tangled rural political reality of dishonest debate, economic and racial disparities, corporate power over our democracy, and disinformation peddled by conservative media outlets. We aim to use facts, data, and science to inform our point-of-view. We wear our complicated love/WTF relationship with rural America on our sleeve.
Nice piece!