Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Rural America
Prepare for the Worst, Pray for the Best
Posted on April 17, 2020
Despite overwhelming evidence from literally every corner of the world, a farmer friend recently related to me that three—not one, not two, but three—rural acquaintances had assured him that “this whole virus thing is just a big hoax to bring down Trump.”
If so, worldwide there’s more than 25,000 graves, over a half million […]
“Behold the Fowls of the Air”
Posted on April 8, 2020
My father wasn’t stoic. Instead, his temperament was one of acceptance. He simply accepted the fact that he wasn’t in complete control of most things on the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth.
Sure, he was boss over everything in sight: hundreds of acres, 100 dairy cows, five farmhand sons, three hired men, and his unpredictable, […]
The Changing Geography of U.S. Farming and Food
Posted on March 13, 2020
Geography isn’t static. Rivers change course, mountains erode, and islands disappear under rising seas.
The geography of farming and food changes, too. For example, 180 years ago my home county was the castor bean and castor oil capital of the U.S. Both titles, however, slipped into irrelevance as a new resource, crude oil, rose […]
How Rural America Can Avoid “Another Century of Degraded Water”
Posted on March 4, 2020
Despite the presidential caucus debacle Iowa hosted Monday, Feb. 3, the too old, too-white, and too-rural (at least to pundits who drop by every Leap Year) Hawkeye State still finished its awful week with an act of political courage rarely seen in U.S. agriculture today.
On Feb. 7, the Des Moines Register published a clear, sharp […]
Home Sick? Try Mom or Grandma’s Cure-All
Posted on February 27, 2020
The onset of a deep chest cold recently pushed me to wander the aisles of rural America’s drug store, Dollar General, for any cure that might halt the hacking. Three days and three placebos later, my hack weakened to a wheeze. Time, and the lovely Catherine’s chicken soup, did the trick.
Had I been […]
Common Sense Rarely is the Common Denominator
Posted on January 30, 2020
Before the year loses its fresh, youthful promise, let’s look at some recent research to, hopefully, address a nagging problem carried over from 2019.
For months last year, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue defended three proposed rule changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that will remove an estimated 3.7 million recipients from […]
What We Know
Posted on January 30, 2020
The best way to begin a new year without feeling overwhelmed by what we don’t know is to start with what we do know.
For example, we know the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) December World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimate shows that about 14 percent, or one in seven bushels (bu.), of the 2019 […]
Milk Shake-Up Just Beginning with Dean’s Downfall
Posted on December 18, 2019
While many in the U.S. dairy sector focus on why the nation’s largest milk bottler, Dean Foods, filed for bankruptcy Nov. 12, the smart money—if there is any smart money left after four years of crushingly low milk prices—is focused on what’s next.
What’s next is what’s always next when your business is built on […]
We’re Not Crazy, The Times Are
Posted on December 18, 2019
Thanksgiving was the kickoff to a month of bookkeeping, depreciation schedules, and checkbook balancing for my parents on the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth. It culminated in an afternoon meeting, usually the week after Christmas, where my father would detail the farm’s annual performance to his three, city-dwelling partners and lay out his plans for […]
“It’s Going to be a Long Winter”
Posted on December 13, 2019
Mother Nature turned a colorful, late fall into a bitterly cold, early winter as if to prove—after a planting, growing, and harvest season marked by floods, drought, and mud—that she’s still in charge and still not happy.
Not happy about what? No one can say but almost every American from Montana’s Western Slope to Maryland’s […]