Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Farm Policy
Ag Policy Was About Cultural Stability, Not Endless Market Growth
Posted on November 11, 2022
If you think U.S. politics are too polarized, too anger-driven, and too polluted by big money, take a quick look at the train wreck that United Kingdom politics has become to see what’s in store for us if we don’t regain our collective goodwill soon.
On July 7, the straw-haired, scandal-ridden Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned. […]
‘The Ceaseless Drive to Endless Increase…’
Posted on October 28, 2022
It usually goes without notice or comment, but three of the planet’s key elements–carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen–sit like ducks in row as Element Six, Seven, and Eight, respectively, on the Periodic Table.
None is more important than the others and yet, if there’s a first among equals, it would be nitrogen as a prescient report from […]
When Free Markets Hit the Frying Pan, Consumers Often Get Burned
Posted on October 28, 2022
On Nov. 6, 2018, 12 million Californians voted, by a 63-to-37-percent majority, to establish minimum welfare standards for livestock and poultry products–chiefly eggs, pork, and veal–sold in the nation’s most populous state.
The initiative, called Proposition 12 (Prop 12), was an emphatic endorsement of two previous actions (one by voters in 2008; the other by […]
Given What We Don’t Know, Why Do We Act Like We Do Know?
Posted on October 28, 2022
Most of American agriculture sees Africa as one vast nation and one vast market. It is, of course, neither.
Africa, in fact, has more nations (54), more languages (over 2,000), and more cultures (3,000-plus), than any other continent on Earth. It’s also the world’s second largest and second most populous continent with three times the people […]
Drought, War, Inflation, and Consumer Disconnect
Posted on October 28, 2022
By almost any measure, 2022 has been a tough year for most. Inflation, war, the growing consequences of climate change, and widening political divide are just a few of the compounding woes we continue to deal with as harvest and U.S. midterm elections loom.
In the middle of this chaos, however, U.S. farmers received remarkably good […]
A No-Ethanol Future Doesn’t Mean a No-Profit Future
Posted on September 28, 2022
It’s rare to find one Midwestern academic publicly questioning the economic and environmental impacts of ethanol.
It’s even rarer to find four academics–one from a corn state land grant university, three from a leading university in the leading corn-producing state–raising objections to the biofuel and its byproducts that will use one out of every three bushels […]
All Hats, No Cattle, and Little Chance
Posted on September 9, 2022
Two groups–one of South Dakota investors, the other tied to Texas cattle ranchers and feeders–are preparing to spend a collective $1.8 billion on two meatpacking plants that they say will be so innovative each will pay cattle suppliers more for their cattle and bison than any of today’s Big Four packers.
Most meatpacker pros, however, think […]
From Catalonia to California, It’s Been One Long, Hot Summer
Posted on September 9, 2022
Long ago when traveling through Europe, a friend developed what he called the “Alan Rule” since I never remembered the Celsius-to-Fahrenheit conversion math: 10 degrees Celsius, wear a coat; 20 degrees, a light jacket; 30 degrees, shirtsleeves.
There was no suggestion for 40 degrees because 40 degrees Celsius is a baking 104 degrees Fahrenheit (F), an […]
Forty Billion Reasons to Go Green
Posted on September 9, 2022
If American farmers and ranchers really want to live the oft-repeated boast that they are “the first environmentalists,” then, by golly, Joe Manchin and his Democratic Senate colleagues have the legislative vehicle to prove it.
Manchin, the chief monkeywrencher of Dem dreams for the last two years, shocked everyone when he and Senate Majority Leader Chuck […]
Our Money, Their Mouth, Your Choice
Posted on August 17, 2022
If the political polls are to be believed, November’s midterm election will sweep Democrats out of power in the U.S. House of Representatives and put Republicans back in charge.
If accurate, House Republicans will have a splendid opportunity to put your tax money where their collective mouth is by implementing their highly detailed, little-publicized “Blueprint to […]