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
“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 […]
Mitigation Money Should Fuel the Market; Not the Trade War
Posted on June 12, 2019
The month of May left as it arrived: riding in a rowboat from flooded farm field to flooded farm field across the Midwest. Worse, June is sloshing in with more rain, more mud, and more worry.
Complicating an already complicated spring, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced a broad, new scheme that could pay U.S. farmers up […]
Talkin’ About My Generation
Posted on June 5, 2019
It’s a truism in American agriculture that food-growing technology undergoes an industry-shaking metamorphosis every generation.
When Grandpa (both yours and mine) farmed, hybrid seed corn came in and oat-eating horsepower went out. His sons, our fathers, were early adopters of anhydrous ammonia, 2,4-D, and, whoa, combines.
Twenty-five years later, our generational farm-changing moment arrived with […]
“It Was Like Watching a Train Wreck Happen”
Posted on May 30, 2019
No one I know has ever witnessed a train wreck as it happened. As such, when a friend or colleague says or writes that an event “was like watching a train wreck happen,” I’m pretty sure it wasn’t like watching a train wreck happen.
Until Sunday, May 5, that is, when President Donald J. Twitter […]
Stand Up or Step Aside
Posted on May 30, 2019
Sanford Bishop and Sonny Perdue go way back.
So far back that Bishop, now a 14-term, Democratic congressman from south Georgia, remembers when Perdue, now the Secretary of Agriculture under President Donald J. Trump, was a Democrat.
Their friendship, however, was tested April 9 when Perdue appeared before the House Appropriations ag subcommittee to […]
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Read the story, then click on *reader comments* to see just how angry people are w/ today’s farmers for what they see as blue state billions supporting red state farmers. Many border on fury. https://t.co/LoeoIgOfhW
With all due respect, @ScottIrwinUI, yesterday no one could hay or graze prevented plant acres until Nov. 1. A day is a long time when USDA rewrites rules at the drop of a seed corn hat. https://t.co/Ub0B1K7A4z
Come on... has there ever been a USDA program that hasn’t skinned or scammed taxpayers? This announcement (read the string) is only hours old and the game is already on. https://t.co/TJegvilfxU
Memo to SecSonny: If you’re going to bend facts & make up math to blindly support bad White House politics, don’t do it against former ERS administrators who actually know facts and do math. https://t.co/2QCb5IMoFH
Stay away from the generals-General Mills, General Dynamics, General Motors, General Electric... They write the rules they then use to tell you they’re right. No thanks. https://t.co/Q2v4u8SO0N
This is a solution in search of problem greased by taxpayer money and a vengeful Administration that cares as little about *customers* as it does science and, now, the law. Let’s solve ag’s real problems before making fake ones. https://t.co/GLA8m8OyHJ