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
Sometimes the Hardest Thing to Do is Nothing; Let’s Do it
Posted on July 29, 2020
Mid-July was always summer’s sweet spot on the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth.
With June’s rush of sweaty work—wheat harvest, straw baling, laying corn by, cultivating soybeans, and weed spraying—finally complete and before another cutting of alfalfa was ready, mid-July slipped in with treats like fresh peaches, sweet corn, and juicy garden tomatoes.
Mid-July also […]
Public Investment Needs to Return Public Good
Posted on July 23, 2020
If the ill-tempered and deadly first half of 2020 had been a first-calf heifer on the dairy farm of my youth, my father would have ticketed it for the freezer a month ago.
His yardstick of heifer potential was short: If she lived up to her breeding, she was a “keeper;” if she “put more on […]
“I Should’ve Known You Were a Partisan Hack”
Posted on July 23, 2020
One of the oldest sayings in journalism reminds readers and writers alike that “It’s hard to argue with facts.”
True, but readers of this weekly effort often rise to the challenge in their letters and emails to me. Most mix “new” or “alternative” (thank you, Kellyanne) facts with their opinion to point out the […]
No One Ever Loves the Umpire
Posted on July 20, 2020
While the coronavirus pandemic was hammering global trade earlier this year, the various U.S. bureaucracies devoted to trade barely skipped a beat before returning to their usual grind.
For example, the U.S. and the United Kingdom (U.K.) just began talks on a bilateral trade pact prior to the U.K.’s Oct. 31 “Brexit” from the […]
Finding New Ground
Posted on July 6, 2020
Some observers see the Black Lives Matter movement as a tidal wave washing away America’s original sin, slavery, and the systemic racism it fostered for more than 400 years.
Maybe, but as the last 75 years of the American civil rights movement has proven time and again—and often in blood—rooting out hatred requires more […]
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Smart, informed thread that stitches together ethanol’s bleak future. US ag leaders need to accept this fact and develop better policies that rely less on yesterday’s industrial fuel mkts and more on tomorow’s global food mkts. https://t.co/CILpPgh5da
These are *single-purpose* buildings; when that purpose ends, the building’s life usually ends. Even then irony rules: many bulldozed into freshly dug, on-farm holes that almost anywhere else are called landfills. So dead CAFOs often live on. https://t.co/2rDzi0DbP1
Remember, too, @donpcarr, just hours into his Adm., Trump w/drew from Trans Pacific Part, a trade deal that hemmed in China and opened 40% of world economy to US farmers and ranchers. Costly, spiteful move that cost US ag untold billions. https://t.co/0Mq6GiFViC
What’s remarkable is most farmers’ continued faith in the awful trade policies of the White House. Years from now when we’re still sweeping up the mess, most farmers will say *Man, Trump was great.* https://t.co/PFcUYS166W
The merry-go-round is about to be refueled for another year of going absolutely nowhere. https://t.co/thuz70Zrzi