Back
row (L to R): Stephen Peterson, Paul Westcott,
Richard Reeder, Jan Lewandrowski, Marvin Duncan, Andrea Cattaneo,
Kevin Ingram.
Middle row (L to R): Ralph Heimlich,
Paul Heisey, Roger Claassen, Joy Harwood, Mary Reardon, Kelly
Day-Rubenstein, Lewrene Glaser, David Hopkins, Michael Price.
Front row (L to R): Anne Effland, Ronald
Trostle, Adrie Custer, Ed Young, Letricia Womack, Steven Koenig,
Marca Weinberg. Not pictured: Margaret Andrews, Dwight
Gadsby, Daniel Hellerstein, David Johnson, Kathleen Kassel,
Cassandra Klotz-Ingram
The new Farm Bill was just 9 days old when the Economic Research
Service posted a unique resource on the web, comparing key
provisions of old and new legislation in a side-by-side format, for each of the
bill’s 11 titles. In addition, this new web subsite provided
preliminary economic analysis of selected provisions of the new law—the
Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002. Response was
instantaneous, with over 52,000 hits on May 22, the day of the launch, climbing
to 61,000 daily in the following week.
The relatively swift and seemingly effortless appearance of this
time-saving reference on the ERS website was the work of a team
of 29 analysts, writers, and editors, including a web designer,
that was supported by dozens of other ERS analysts. The team’s
expertise spanned program areas covering commodities, trade, conservation,
nutrition, rural development, and research. “Timing was everything,”
commented senior economist Ed Young, who directed the endeavor and
wrote a large share of the content. “We wanted to make this
resource available to the public as quickly as possible after the
bill passed.” In the months before passage of the bill, team
members closely monitored its progress and drafted early summaries
and analyses. The anticipatory work, along with policy analysis
ERS had developed over several years, laid the groundwork for relatively
rapid completion of the Farm Bill
site once the new legislation was signed into law.
The ERS Farm Bill summary and overview included a glossary, plus
links to ERS and USDA material to help put the legislation in
perspective. The ERS product was a linchpin in USDA’s suite of Farm Bill
resources—all available on the web shortly after passage of
the bill.
The ERS web pages continue to attract users searching for concise
information on the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill site tallied more than
170,000 visits by the end of 2002, and over 30,000 this year. Says
Ralph Heimlich, who directs policy analysis in the agency’s
Resource Economics Division: “This group effort is a prime
example of how government agencies are harnessing web technology
to improve service to large and diverse audiences.”
