Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
From the Column
Adventures in Ag Journalism: A Million Words Later, We’re Still Here
Posted on June 11, 2021
This week marks the 28th anniversary of this editorial effort. In round numbers that’s more than 1,430 columns, a million words, and who knows how many cold beverages.
Its start came about like many efforts in journalism: I got fired. It’s a long story, so you might want to get comfortable—and even grab a cold beverage.
[…]
Beware of Philosopher Kings and ‘Synthetic Alternatives’
Posted on June 11, 2021
Shortly after America’s largest private farmland owners, Microsoft billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates, acknowledged their pending divorce, some wag on Twitter wondered what might be the appropriate time to wait before he approached the soon-to-be-former missus to ask about renting some of her farmland.
While he was joking, it’s no joke that the about-to-split pair […]
Ag Groups Make a United, Hollow Call on Meatpackers to Play Nice
Posted on June 11, 2021
On May 17, six farm groups joined voices to call on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Congress, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to ensure a “more financially sustainable situation for cattle feeders and cow-calf producers.”
That’s make-nice farm talk for “Meatpackers are skinning U.S. cattlemen so badly now that we six, not-usually-friendly groups ask the federal government—swamp […]
China’s Buying Binge Continues… Until It Doesn’t
Posted on June 11, 2021
China is even hungrier, richer, and—to the delight of almost every American farmer—more impatient in today’s global food market than anyone thought possible even a decade ago.
In fact, according to the data crunchers at Agricultural Economic Insights (aei), China now imports “about 100 million acres worth of crop production, or roughly 25% of total […]
Organic Farm Rules Need to be Quickly Reviewed, Not Slowly Rewritten
Posted on June 11, 2021
Nearly everything about Francis and Susan Thicke’s southeastern Iowa, organic dairy farm whispers bucolic: a herd of Jersey cows and calves graze on rolling acres of green pastures amid fenced farm fields and acres and acres of tree-thick woods.
Even the farm’s name, Radiance Dairy, relays an easy calm.
But there’s nothing calm about the food fight the Thickes (pronounced […]
More Greenhouse Gas Comes from Rural Leaders Than Rural America
Posted on May 19, 2021
While everyone uses water, Americans use it up, noted Wallace Stegner, the preeminent writer of the West, in his 1992 book of essays Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs.
That shrewd observation is even more accurate today.
In fact, even though we’ve dammed every river west of—and including—the Missouri, pumped most underground aquifers to […]
Managing Climate Risk is Good for Business and Good for the Future
Posted on May 13, 2021
With the wave of a wand, you’re the boss of the Farm Credit System (FCS). You manage a portfolio of 592,000 ag-related customers holding 946,119 loans totaling $315 billion—$113 billion in real estate debt alone—according to Dec. 2020 FCS data.
Those numbers keep most people up at night but you sleep like a baby because your staff […]
The Boys of My Summer Arrive Every April
Posted on May 5, 2021
I was very young—I had just turned eight—to begin a torrid love affair but the St. Louis Cardinals made it easy. It was 1963, Stan Musial’s last year in baseball, and the young team began the season hot and stayed hot through July.
So hot, in fact, that the starting infield for the National League’s […]
Global Meatpackers Filet U.S. Taxpayers Again and Again
Posted on April 29, 2021
Like many global meatpacking companies, JBS SA, the giant Brazilian meat and poultry packer with extensive operations in North and South America, Europe, and Australia, spent most of the last six months buying its way out of trouble with U.S. customers and the American government.
Even a cursory examination shows JBS spent $221.5 million in […]
Big Agbiz’s Big ‘Price Fixing’ Settlements Need Big Fix
Posted on April 21, 2021
In a now too-common story in U.S agriculture, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) last month agreed to pay farmers $45 million to settle what the March 13 Wall Street Journal described as “price-fixing allegations leveled at its peanut processing division.”
While $45 million is, indeed, peanuts to ADM—its estimated 2020 revenue will top $65 billion—this isn’t the first […]
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More common sense from @cullen_art: The only mystery about our energy future is how so many political leaders choose clueless over the obvious. And it is a choice. https://t.co/R8Nxwapi9H
Even if true, who gets the 23 bucks, Chuck? Certainly not farmers because most hogs are grown under contract for packers. So faster line speeds mean fatter packers, not fatter farm income. Sell-outs used to be harder to spot. https://t.co/iYaiiMkKqs
Rock solid-and not just in Iowa but across several Midwestern states where local control was a strength, not a memory. https://t.co/GJSNAk9iPh
Oftentimes the simplest solution to a problem is to not create the problem. Manure digesters are a solution to a problem no one should have. And, please, not one penny of any infrastructure package to CAFO digesters. Not one penny. https://t.co/yVv3gY19nY
Backing a rule that all but guarantees dirtier water for every one of your constituents is nothing to brag about. You don’t do medicine without science, Doc, so why do you do ag policy without it? https://t.co/4JoAINk2cM
Solid reporting & writing on one aspect of the widespread fraud involved in federal biofuel programs. https://t.co/sm4tbUERM2