The Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service report on Data Development Initiatives issues the findings of a study commissioned to establish and/or improve methods of data collection used to assess the effectiveness of government-sponsored food assistance programs like the Food Stamp and WIC programs (among others). To read the report, one immediately appreciates the explosion of methods for data collection, or "mining," and the ways they can be marshaled to ensure that public resources are allocated appropriately and efficiently to intended recipients. Resources considered by the study are an array of new technologies (e.g., GIS and POS monitors) and older ones that could be linked to already existing databases of food assistance recipients (e.g., linking WIC and food stamp databases to Medicaid and vital statistics logs to ensure benefits remain in the hands of their intended recipients).