Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
About Alan
Alan Guebert is an award-winning agricultural journalist and expert who was raised on an 720-acre, 100-cow southern Illinois dairy farm. After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1980, he worked as a writer and senior editor at Professional Farmers of America and Successful Farming magazine. In 1984, Guebert returned to Illinois to establish his freelance writing business and to serve as a contributing editor to Farm Journal magazine.
He began the syndicated agriculture column “The Farm and Food File” in 1993 and it now appears weekly in more than 60 newspapers throughout the United States and Canada.
Guebert previously wrote ”Letter from America,” a monthly perspective on U.S. farm and food policy for European and Asian publications. “Letter from America” ran from 1995 through 2007.
Throughout his career, Guebert has won numerous awards and accolades for his magazine and newspaper work. In 1997, the American Agricultural Editors’ Association honored him with its highest awards, Writer of the Year and Master Writer.
Alan resides with his wife, Catherine, a social worker, in rural central Illinois. Their son Paul, an attorney and lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Reserves, lives in the Chicago area with his wife, Anamaria, and their two children. Alan’s daughter/editor Mary Grace and her husband Andrew Foxwell co-direct the social media advisory firm Foxwell Digital in Madison, Wisconsin, where they advise companies and non-profits on digital marketing strategy.
Alan and Mary Grace collaborated and co-wrote The Land of Milk and Uncle Honey: Memories from the Farm of My Youth. Published in May 2015 by the University of Illinois Press, it is available for purchase online and at bookstores nationwide. Alan and Mary Grace held over 75 book events with farmers, foodies, and friends across the country.
Latest from Alan
Writers Write, Readers Read, and, Often, Readers Write
Posted on July 17, 2019
Writers write and readers read and, always to this writer’s pleasant surprise, readers often write. Most letters and emails are either complimentary or inquisitive. More than a few, however, come nowhere near complimentary and some, in fact, are quite, ah, declarative.
For example, 2019 was just three days old when the editor of an Indiana […]
Ag Has Bigger Problems Than Weather, Trade, Bailouts…
Posted on July 10, 2019
When you’ve been in the ag journalism game for almost 40 years, few things surprise you. Floods, droughts, market crack-ups, political crockery, price fixing: none of it is shocking anymore.
And, yet, on June 21, the Washington Post published a farm-based story that made even this graybeard marvel at how tone deaf and superior-sounding rural politics has […]
The Bum’s Rush, USDA Style
Posted on July 10, 2019
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue doesn’t need to hit the road this summer to find more than enough messy problems to keep him busy through harvest.
There’s the Chinese trade mess, the NAFTA 2.0 trade mess, the European Union trade mess, and the Japanese trade mess.
Also, there’s the mess Mother Nature made […]
Welcome to Paradise, er, Paradox
Posted on June 27, 2019
There’s an interesting paradox occurring in today’s commodity and financial markets. Maybe you’ve noticed it; market watchers certainly have. Here’s what they’ve seen:
Every time President Donald J. Trump takes to Twitter to threaten a nation with import tariffs—most recently, Mexico—the U.S. stock market shoots higher.
Paradoxically, however, every time U.S. Secretary of Agriculture […]
“A Lick and a Promise” Aren’t Enough
Posted on June 20, 2019
Most American farmers spent the last week of May and the first week of June either driving through mud or stuck in it. Their two farming partners, Mother Nature and Uncle Sam, were little help; one brought threats of more rain and mud, the other threats of more tariffs and bailouts.
Farmers in my […]
Follow Alan on Twitter
Int’l Trade Comm numbers @SenJoniErnst, say it’s tiny: $2.2B boost in ag exports while ag imports up $3.1B (over 15 yrs!) In fact, new NAFTA ag sales won’t cover export sales lost to Trump tariffs & aren’t 1/10 tariff subsidies farmers will get. Both are, in a word, HUGE. https://t.co/s5NQhAPH5U
And that’s with China in a.) the middle of an economic slowdown and b.) buying every Brazilian soybean it can find. Yeah, wow. https://t.co/fZk1r7SDMC
The realities of rural vs. puffy political chatter. Spot on. https://t.co/CnriZY3QhG
Politico explains it as *legislation to give USDA authority over agricultural guest workers and eliminate minimum wages for those farm workers set by the Labor Department each year.* If so, all farm wages would go down. You forgot to mention that, SecSonny. https://t.co/IGSvk6Dh1l
It’s worse than that, @TimothyAWise: the author is decades-long former DC lobbyist for AmFarmBureau, a bona fide member of Big Ag’s *permanent govt.* This is why US farm policy rarely changes: its peddlers rarely change. https://t.co/nowc27rJpe