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 and his daughter Mary Grace Foxwell collaborated and co-wrote The Land of Milk and Uncle Honey: Memories from the Farm of My Youth. Their book was published in May 2015 by the University of Illinois Press and the pair held 75 book events with farmers, foodies, and friends across the country. Their book is available for purchase online and at bookstores nationwide.
Latest from Alan
Tyson Foods: Meatpacking Isn’t For Chickens
Posted on January 3, 2022
People have strange hobbies.
For example, a Great Plains friend of mine once trained a chicken to play dead. Remarkably, on command, his chicken would take a whole-body flop that could have taught Steve Martin a thing or two about physical comedy.
Another friend, a retired professor, is (unsurprisingly, really) even more iconoclastic: he reads Securities and Exchange Commission […]
Pod Save the American Farm
Posted on January 3, 2022
It’s an ever more uncomfortable fact for journalists like me that 67 percent of today’s media-consuming Americans do not have one paid-for subscription to anything.
Even more striking, 87 percent of the Baby Boomer generation–we of gray hair and paid subscriptions–use free, electronic media like Facebook, Twitter, and podcasts everyday. Only Gen Z, the 18-to-25 year-old youngsters who actually remember […]
The Smartest Person in the Room
Posted on December 10, 2021
We all know a few people who think of themselves as the smartest person in the room. We also know a handful of people who actually are the smartest person in the room.
Neil Harl was the latter; he was the smartest person in the room wherever he went and everyone either already knew it or quickly discovered […]
Lost Angeles and Long Beached
Posted on December 10, 2021
Not many people or events lead both the New York Times and CBS’s 60 Minutes television broadcast on the same day. The still-building mess at many American ports, however, pulled off that rare feat Sunday, Nov. 14, by simply being the biggest rat’s nest anyone in port management, railroading, trucking, or the West Coast ag exporting business has ever […]
Too Much Money, Too Much Drift, Too Much Grift
Posted on November 26, 2021
The federal government can spend more money in 10 minutes than Congress, its watchdog, can track in 10 years. Still, Congressional oversight–as late and limited as it often is–remains a vital element of government.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis proved just how vital in two reports released in October: Tens of millions in […]
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Deep dive into when ‘transformative food system change’ means neither transformative nor change. Not really news to farmers and ranchers but good to see ‘science’ finally catching up to reality. https://t.co/3ir3e6ugdh
This has aged well. Essential truth always does. Thread. https://t.co/DS3jVv9408
The honest, angry, simple truth: USDA fails both the public and farmers when it serves as handmaiden to Big Ag. To the Bigs, ‘voluntary’ anything is just a bigger gov’t-issued license to grab more market power. Thread. https://t.co/tHLrWeKkUP
Just as there’s no shortage of gold, clean water, Bitcoin, political access, Maseratis, mansions, higher education or clean air if you have enough money. Little wonder many in the world view US ag as elitist and amoral. https://t.co/Dp8jb5Nmf7