Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Big Ag
Organic Farm Rules Need to be Quickly Reviewed, Not Slowly Rewritten
Posted on June 11, 2021
Nearly everything about Francis and Susan Thicke’s southeastern Iowa, organic dairy farm whispers bucolic: a herd of Jersey cows and calves graze on rolling acres of green pastures amid fenced farm fields and acres and acres of tree-thick woods.
Even the farm’s name, Radiance Dairy, relays an easy calm.
But there’s nothing calm about the food fight the Thickes (pronounced […]
Managing Climate Risk is Good for Business and Good for the Future
Posted on May 13, 2021
With the wave of a wand, you’re the boss of the Farm Credit System (FCS). You manage a portfolio of 592,000 ag-related customers holding 946,119 loans totaling $315 billion—$113 billion in real estate debt alone—according to Dec. 2020 FCS data.
Those numbers keep most people up at night but you sleep like a baby because your staff […]
Global Meatpackers Filet U.S. Taxpayers Again and Again
Posted on April 29, 2021
Like many global meatpacking companies, JBS SA, the giant Brazilian meat and poultry packer with extensive operations in North and South America, Europe, and Australia, spent most of the last six months buying its way out of trouble with U.S. customers and the American government.
Even a cursory examination shows JBS spent $221.5 million in […]
Big Agbiz’s Big ‘Price Fixing’ Settlements Need Big Fix
Posted on April 21, 2021
In a now too-common story in U.S agriculture, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) last month agreed to pay farmers $45 million to settle what the March 13 Wall Street Journal described as “price-fixing allegations leveled at its peanut processing division.”
While $45 million is, indeed, peanuts to ADM—its estimated 2020 revenue will top $65 billion—this isn’t the first […]
AltEn: The Mess Gets Even Messier
Posted on April 21, 2021
On March 1, Nebraska’s attorney general threw the book at AltEn, alleging the 24-million-gallon-per year ethanol maker near Mead spent most of the last five years making an environmental mess of its biofuels plant and the surrounding rural community.
In a 97-page civil complaint, the state detailed 18 “causes of action” against AltEn ranging from […]
Figuring the Odds
Posted on April 21, 2021
If you’re a corn and soybean farmer or an ag commodity futures trader, one of the biggest make-or-break days of the year looms: On March 31, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will issue its Prospective Plantings report.
The much-anticipated report is the world’s first look at USDA’s best estimates for the upcoming year’s planted acreage of […]
‘Who do we blame for not farming the way we now know we should?’
Posted on March 25, 2021
The tree-lined streets of the University of Massachusetts (UMass) and hallowed hallways of Yale University are two places most farmers would not expect to find a hot debate over soil erosion.
And, yet, late this winter, staff at both campuses attacked agriculture’s ongoing failure to protect farmland. Don’t worry, no ivory tower was toppled. The […]
Rural America Shouldn’t Be a Dump Site for Corporate America
Posted on March 11, 2021
There’s a clear lesson in the chemical and ethical cloud now shrouding AltEn, a 25-million-gallon per year ethanol plant just south of Mead, NE.
In fact, there’s more than one lesson but the big one—how rural America is becoming a legal dumping ground for wastes created by corporate America—may be AltEn’s enduring legacy.
The plant, […]
The Best Way to Start is to Start
Posted on February 24, 2021
Forty years ago, two editors at Successful Farming magazine, Gene Johnston and Dean Houghton, won most major ag journalism awards with a story titled “Who will kill the hogs?”
The piece (not available online) tracked a new, potent shift just beginning to hit the 600,000 hog farmers in the U.S.: Local meatpackers were being squeezed for hogs […]
You’re in Charge of USDA; Where Do You Start?
Posted on February 17, 2021
The impossibly improbable has occurred and you’re now secretary of agriculture. What you think or say about farm and rural policy matters as much—and, often, more—than what other political and farm “leaders” think or say.
So what do you think about U.S. agriculture today?
You’re entering office with major grain markets on a bull run. Indeed, corn, soybeans, and wheat prices […]