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World Census of Agriculture

University of North Carolina Greensboro: The Cobb Douglas Production Function

Much like its role as a discoverer of new knowledge and as a large consumer in the energy sector, education communities have a significant role in food security research and as a consumer in its school lunch programs, dormitory, athletic facility and healthcare enterprises.  Accordingly — in much the same way we follow the US Census Bureau’s monthly construction activity report — we follow a data point provided by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) as one of our stars to steer by.

The World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates  is a monthly report published by the USDA that provides comprehensive forecast of supply and demand for major crops (global and United States) and livestock (U.S. only). The report provides an analysis of the fundamental condition of the agricultural commodity markets for the use of farmers, governments and other market participants.

 

World Agricultural Supply & Demand Estimates | August 12, 2025

 

 

 

We maintain the WASDE report on our periodic Nourriture colloquia.   See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone

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Morrill Land-Grant Act

Family of Mr. Schoenfeldt | Sheridan County, Kansas
Source: Farm Security Administration Russell Lee photographer

Cold Brew

University of Miami: Condensed Statement of Financial Position 2023 ($7.02B)

Florida: Municipal Securities Issuers

https://youtu.be/p9_zQUVbwn0?si=JsBMJLZyq4S0aF7ttwo guys talking

The Border, DEI, Trump, Islam, BLM & the Misinterpretation of Data

Standards Florida

Coffee

Dogs and Agriculture

Dogs have been bred for a variety of purposes throughout history, including as working animals to support agriculture. Dogs have been bred for specific traits that make them well-suited to work on farms, such as intelligence, obedience, strength, and endurance*.

History and Architecture | University of Oxford Estates Services

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Here are a few examples of how dogs were bred to support agriculture:

Herding dogs: Dogs such as the Border Collie, Australian Cattle Dog, and German Shepherd were bred to help farmers manage livestock by herding them from one place to another. These dogs have a natural instinct to gather and control herds of animals, and they can be trained to respond to a farmer’s commands.

Hunting dogs: Many breeds of dogs, such as the Labrador Retriever, were originally bred as hunting dogs to assist farmers with hunting game for food. These dogs have a keen sense of smell and are skilled at tracking and retrieving prey.

Guard dogs: Certain breeds of dogs, such as the Great Pyrenees, were bred to protect livestock from predators such as wolves and bears. These dogs are fiercely protective of their flock and will guard them from any perceived threat.

Draft dogs: Some large breeds of dogs, such as the Bernese Mountain Dog and the Saint Bernard, were bred to pull carts and wagons on farms. These dogs are strong and muscular and can move heavy loads across long distances.

Overall, dogs have been bred for centuries to support agriculture in a variety of ways. Their intelligence, loyalty, and hardworking nature have made them invaluable assets to farmers and have helped to shape the course of human history.

Technical Requirements for Weighing & Measuring Devices

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How Do You Measure the Percentage of Alcohol in Beer, Wine and Other Beverages?

Why You Need Standards

Date & Time: Representations For Information Interchange

“A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery” | Joseph Wright (1766)

Most nations follow the day/month/year format (07/01/19 for January 7, 2019, for example), but the United States adheres to its own format of month/day/year (1/7/19 or 1/7/2019).   The potential for misinterpreting dates across national boundaries is the logic for ISO 8601:2019 – Data Elements And Interchange Formats – Information Interchange – Representation Of Dates And Times, the ISO format for dates represents year, month, and day from the largest unit to the smallest, most specific unit of time.  The ISO date format is the date format used in SQL and is the default date setting on many computers.

ISO 8601-1:2019 Date And Time – Representations For Information Interchange – Part 1: Basic Rules

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Time and Date

How the ISO Date Format Tells Today

ISO Date Format

Date and time formats used in HTML

Making Greenwich the centre of the world

United States Standards System

Essential Requirements
Your 2025 Guide to ANSI’s Community Resources

S. Joe Bhatia at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business | ANSI Company Member Forum, May 2016

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With many non-profit organizations also challenged by the pandemic we are likely to see fewer experts at technology, finance and management gatherings where leading practice is discovered and promulgated.  That does not mean that many gatherings will not be offloaded onto the internet but, with fewer paid experts involved, one wonders whether there will be fewer unpaid experts — or will there be more unpaid experts?  We shall see.

Since the United States federal government can print money it is likely that more decision-making will be drawn back to Washington D.C.  — where the money is.  The likelihood that we shall see greater federal control over education facility industry originating at the federal level inspires a revisit of the United States standards system.   The National Institute of Standards and Technology is the oversight agency and the American National Standards Institute is the private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States.

To understand ideal balance in the US standards system See § 2.3 ANSI Essential Requirements: Due process requirements for American National Standards

 

FROM OUR ARCHIVE:

Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent

Department of Justice | June 24, 2004

The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague.

In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior.

The volume of federal crimes in recent decades has increased well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, handing federal prosecutors an additional trove of vague and exceedingly complex and technical prohibitions to stick on their hapless targets.

The dangers spelled out in Three Felonies a Day do not apply solely to “white collar criminals,” state and local politicians, and professionals. No social class or profession is safe from this troubling form of social control by the executive branch, and nothing less than the integrity of our constitutional democracy hangs in the balance.

Preview

Related:

Have you been certified to do that work?

15 USC 4301: Definitions Text contains those laws in effect on February 9, 2025: From Title 15-COMMERCE AND TRADECHAPTER 69-COOPERATIVE RESEARCH

See Also: Cato Institute

Credegrees

Model School Food Standard

I-Code Group B Committee Action Results

Code Development Schedule

Complete Monograph (2630 Pages)

Voting Results

IBC Rebuttal on G153-25 Performance Electrical Design

(response with hyperlinks to supporting research)

 

Partial listing.  We have until July 15th to comment on committee action

Our proposal G153-25: Page 754

Michigan Modular G195-25: Page 859

“Clinical Need” definition for enhanced security: Page 765

“Electric Vehicle Charger” definition by the  National Parking Association/Parking Consultant’s Council: Page 457

“EV Charging Space” definition: Page 458

“EV Supply Equipment” definition: Page 460

ADM20-25 Authority of building official in natural disasters and high hazard regions, p141

ASM3-25 Electrical equipment re-use, p195

G2-25.  New definition for Animal Housing Facilities, p438

S57-25.  Quite a bit of back and forth on wind and PV “farms, p1053, et. al (“Wind and solar farms are different from animal and produce farms” — Mike Anthony)

G143-25 Lighting Section 1204L remote rooms, windowless rooms, University of Texas Austin student accommodation costs, p. 737-

PM31-25 Housekeeping and sanitation in owned property as law, p1794

PM50-25, Sleeping units to be private, p.1829

RB146-25.  Energy storage systems installed in garages, requirements for physical protection, p. 2195

RB144-25, Load capacity ratings and compliance with NFPA 855, p. 2186

RB143-25, Working roof walking access around solar panels, p. 2180

SP1-25 New definition of base flood elevation for purpose of correlating requirements for electrical safety, et. al, p. 2578

Landing Page for Group B 2025

cdpACCESS 

Link to Track 1 and Track 2 Webcast

Performance-Based Electrical Power Chain Design

Food Safety

Overdoor, France, ca. 1825; | Smithsonian Design Museum

Education communities have significant food safety responsibilities.  Risk gets pushed around global food service counterparties; a drama in itself and one that requires coverage in a separate blog post.*

Since 2013 we have been following the development of food safety standards; among them ANSI/NSF 2: Food Equipment one of a constellation of NSF food safety titles whose provisions cover bakery, cafeteria, kitchen, and pantry units and other food handling and processing equipment such as tables and components, counters, hoods, shelves, and sinks.  The purpose of this Standard is to establish minimum food protection and sanitation requirements for the materials, design, fabrication, construction, and performance of food handling and processing equipment.

It is a relatively stable standard; developed to support conformance revenue for products.  A new landing page seems to have emerged in recent months:

https://www.nsf.org/testing/food

You may be enlightened by the concepts running through this standard as can be seen on a past, pre-pandemic agenda:

NSF 2 Food Safety 2019 Meeting Packet – Final Draft

NSF 2 Food Safety 2019 Meeting Summary – August 21-22 Ann Arbor NSF Headquarters

NSF 2 Food Equipment Fabrication Agenda – FEF – TG – 2021-01-12

Not trivial agendas with concepts that cut across several disciplines involving product manufacture, installation, operation and maintenance.  We find a very strong influence of organizations such as Aramark and Sodexo.   More on that in a separate post.

Ranchview High School Cafeteria / Irving, Texas

This committee – along with several other joint committees –meets frequently online.  If you wish to participate, and receive access to documents that explain the scope and scale of NSF food safety standards, please contact Allan Rose, (734) 827-3817, arose@nsf.org.   NSF International welcomes guests/observers to nearly all of its standards-setting technical committees.   We expect another online meeting hosted by this committee any day now.

Keep in mind that all NSF International titles are on the standing agenda of our Nourriture (Food) colloquia; open to everyone.  See our CALENDAR for the next meeting.

University of Indiana

Issue: [13-113] [15-126]

Category: Facility Asset Management, Healthcare, Residence Hall, Athletics

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Tracey Artley, Keith Koster, Richard Robben

*See “Food Safety Risk Management: Evidence-Informed Policies and Decisions, Considering Multiple Factors, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations”

LEARN MORE:

ANSI Blog | Changes to NSF 2 Food Safety Equipment Standard

NSF International Food Safety 2018 Meeting Summary – 2018-08-22 – Final Draft

2017 Food Code | US Food & Drug Administration

Hygiene Requirements For The Design Of Meat And Poultry Processing Equipment

ARCHIVE: NSF 2 Food Safety

 

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