Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
From the Column
Blood Washes Away, Lies Will be Remembered
Posted on January 22, 2021
Like any schoolboy, I was both giddy and awed when I walked into the U.S. Capitol for the first time. Here Abraham Lincoln walked and John Kennedy laid. This is where Henry Clay and Daniel Webster debated, where wars were declared, peace was cherished, and democracy watered.
Only I wasn’t a schoolboy; I was nearly […]
This Should be Obvious: It’s not 2009
Posted on January 22, 2021
While 2021 is not 2009, it’s easy to see how some Americans—and, in fact, many farmers and ranchers—might get confused.
After all, a quick look around Washington, D.C. late this Jan. 20 will reveal several similarities to the same day 12 years earlier: Joe Biden is in the White House, Nancy Pelosi reigns as Speaker […]
Happy Slow, Quiet, Dull New Year
Posted on January 22, 2021
The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day was wonderfully different than every other week of the year on the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth.
Overall, it was the slowest, quietest, and—especially for my hardworking parents—dullest week of the year.
Most post-Christmas weeks, Mom and Dad napped longer than usual, actually had time to enjoy […]
‘Why are you giving extreme voices so much attention?’
Posted on January 22, 2021
The last column of the year usually features comments from readers whose views differ from those found here the previous 50 or so weeks. Most point out, often in vivid language, the shortcomings of my ideas, opinions, and—increasingly—the “fake news” I peddle through both.
At least that’s how it has been for at least 25 […]
Howard’s Priceless Gift of Simple Giving
Posted on January 22, 2021
The Christmas tree was a scrub cedar hacked from the edge of the woods that bordered the farm. Big-bulbed lights, strung in barber pole fashion, generated almost as much heat as the nearby wood stove. Yellowed Christmas cards, saved over the years and perched like doves in the untrimmed branches, served as ornaments.
“I believe this […]
‘Political democracy can endure only as a guardian of economic democracy’
Posted on January 22, 2021
In early 1999, I wrote a column about lions and gazelles.
More precisely, I wrote a column on how, in the 1990s, American livestock farmers had become “gazelles… in the brutal world of global agriculture.”
What that meant was “Every morning the gazelle awakens knowing it must run faster than the fastest lion to live […]
Choose an Ag Secretary with Experience, Expertise, and Boldness
Posted on January 22, 2021
It’s a challenge to find one person with the combined skills of a farmer, rancher, forester, food aid administrator, tribal leader, attorney, economist, conservationist, miner, insurance expert, food scientist, and finance specialist to fill the about-to open job of the secretary of agriculture.
In fact, that person—described, in part, by the titles of the […]
Gambling on the Future of Food and Rural America
Posted on January 22, 2021
Three events on consecutive mid-November days show farmers, ranchers, and all Americans where U.S. agriculture now is.
Event One: On Nov. 18, the Iowa Capital Dispatch, a not-for-profit news website, detailed allegations on how managers at Tyson Food’s hog-killing plant in Waterloo, IA, literally gambled on employee lives as the coronavirus took root last April.
[…]
A Challenging Year but an Unforgettable Thanksgiving
Posted on December 9, 2020
Rural people often reminisce by years. The general rule for any talk about “good” or “bad” years is that good years rarely merit as much mention as great years and great years usually play second fiddle to bad years.
The reason that challenging or tough years like 2019 and 2020 leave an impression is not […]
November Winds are Blowing Big Change
Posted on December 9, 2020
One of the perennial certainties of any election season is how pundits chew over the politics of losing campaigns rather than discuss the policy implications of winning campaigns.
The biggest reason is the cleanliness of who’s-up and who’s-down as opposed to a messy dive into the greasy nuance of what victory means to legislative sausage […]
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AFBF swears by *sound science* & yet all the science behind this study, acc’ing to Reuters, is *...a four-month review by 10 of its farmer members...* The problem here isn’t NASS reports or USDA, it’s AFBF. https://t.co/co35NMHxGd
Great thread: Why ethanol-waivers or not, Supreme Court or not, green deal or not-will not make a comeback. https://t.co/Ul3tIkvuoq
The openness of the stinking campaign sewer in ag is almost more troubling than the sewer itself. It’s an in-your-face pay to play scheme that delivers public goods to private players & is both shameless and shameful at the same time. Nice trick, Kim. https://t.co/c2Y590b04e
The US isn’t the only democratic nation where the ill-intentioned make nation-altering change too quickly for the benefit of a politically privileged few. Brexit is a fool’s errand & UK farmers will soon be the first to learn that lesson. https://t.co/Ri8bev4wmi
Climate change, monopolistic practices & fair competition are neither right wing nor left wing. They’re mainstream and every farmer knows it. The problem is too few rely on science & law and too many rely on politics & gov’t subsidies. https://t.co/BHDE4KQ2Vc