In a rather successful effort to get me all riled up, Brian DeVore of the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) details the blatant perversion of a livestock promotion program in Minnesota:

You can pass into law the greatest policy in the world, but in the end its success depends on good implementation. Exhibit A: When the “Livestock Investment Grants Program” was passed during the last legislative session, it showed that at least on paper Minnesota was serious about helping farmers of all types who need a little help tweaking their operations here and there in order to increase efficiency, profitability and environmental sustainability. LSP and other groups were even successful in making sure that farmers making improvements to grazing operations could obtain funds, and that low cost projects could qualify. But on July 1, when the Minnesota Department of Agriculture announced it was accepting applications, it became clear that this wasn’t your Legislature’s Livestock Investment Grants Program anymore. 

In short, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) has developed a points ranking system that blatantly favors applications from large-type CAFOs.  There is a good part of the ranking section that favors beginning farmers, but that's about it. 

Under the MDA's points system, the more animals you plan on adding, the more points you get.  Is adding more animals really any sort of indicator of environmental quality?  I think not.  The more technology you plan on using, the more points you get.  Since when has more technology improved the environment? 

Moreover, the most any one farm operation can receive is $500,000- an absurdly high number that theoretically allows MDA to dispense the entire $1 million budget with two checks, and almost certainly guarantees that this program will not serve nearly as many farmers and ranchers as it should.  As is definitely the case with USDA, we have no doubt MDA would prefer to write a few large checks instead a bunch of little ones (less administrative costs that way, you know).

I highly encourage reading the full blog post- a classic example of a decent program in the legislature getting screwed over during the implementation process.  It highlights how important it is to follow through on the implementation and regulatory, a point our pal Aimee Witteman made the other day over at Ethicurean.  Kudos to LSP for keeping an eye on this stuff, and hopefully some of this crap will be improved upon in the future.