Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
From the Column
Ag’s New Normal Includes Trade Deficits, Not Surpluses
Posted on April 10, 2023
Nearly drowned out in all the farm group cheering that U.S. ag exports hit a record high $196 billion last year was the inarguable fact that U.S. ag imports also hit a record-high, $199 billion, or $3 billion more than ag exports.
That’s right, sports fans: during its biggest ag export year ever–when the value of […]
‘Right to Repair’ Fight Between Farmers and Machinery Giants is Just Getting Started
Posted on April 10, 2023
Before a January “memorandum of understanding,” or MOU, on a farmer’s “right to repair” his farm machinery, U.S. equipment makers and their farm and ranch customers were locked in a legal and legislative fight over who could fix today’s complex ag machinery–the customer who owned or leased it, or the maker that designed, built, and […]
It Will Take Guts to Fix Our Abusive, Cheap Food and Illegal Labor System
Posted on April 10, 2023
Less than a month after the revelation that a Wisconsin-based contractor, Packers Sanitation Services, Inc. (or PSSI), had illegally hired at least 102 teenagers between ages 13 and 17 to clean some of the nation’s most profitable industrial meatpacking plants, one middle school child at the center of the story has, according to a March […]
Paying the Price for Being Sick, Old, or Poor in Rural America
Posted on April 10, 2023
Rural America is just like the rest of America except it’s older, poorer, and often sicker.
Even worse, if you’re all three in rural America–elderly, poor, and ill–the odds that you will receive proper care from either a government agency or a private provider are dwindling with each passing year.
For proof, here’s how the non-profit National […]
Paltry Fine Proves What, Not Who, We Truly Value
Posted on April 10, 2023
A much-quoted by preachers and politicians alike rightly notes that “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
Curiously, a famous American politician, former Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and an even more famous attorney-turned-preacher, Mahatma Gandhi, are both credited as its originator.
It’s doubtful, however, that many in […]
Biggest Foreign Owner of ‘Ag Land’ Isn’t Who You Think
Posted on April 10, 2023
If an editor used standard punctuation to relate the emotion expressed by Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst in a recent Capitol Hill discussion of foreign ownership of U.S. land, it would look something like this:
“… foreign persons hold an interest in approximately 40! Million! Acres! Of U.S. ag! Land! That’s more total acres than make up […]
Didn’t Everyone ‘Fall’ Plow in Mild, Warm February?
Posted on March 3, 2023
Winter’s icy winds, stinging snow, and below-zero temperatures finally found our slice of the upper Midwest late last month. Unlike northern winters of the past, however, this Arctic blast was a quick slap of shattering cold followed by a warm, 40-degree hug of sunshine to melt its accompanying snow and icy heart.
A fast, almost 50-degree-turnaround […]
U.S. may have muscle in a trade fight, Mexico may have the law
Posted on February 22, 2023
If your best international customer–someone who accounts for 27 percent of your overseas sales–gave you three years to change the recipe of what it buys from you, it’s a safe bet you’d work together to meet their needs and deadline.
Not Big Agbiz, however, which is pushing, pressing, and prodding the Biden Administration to squeeze Mexico, […]
The Great Carbon Boondoggle – Part 2
Posted on February 22, 2023
Bruce Rastetter, Iowa’s longtime agricultural and political power center, has a sixth sense when it comes to making money.
In 1984, according to the Des Moines Register, Rastetter “started feeding hogs on contract… and within two years, 500 head grew to 100,000.” A decade later, his Heartland Pork was the 12th largest hog farm in the […]
The Great Carbon Boondoggle – Part 1
Posted on February 22, 2023
Many policy choices are made on politics alone while other key decision-making elements like cost, science, and even common sense play a lesser, or no, role.
In the old days, this political math resulted in–literally and figuratively–“bridges to nowhere” that cost millions and did little other than raise the local politician’s reelection odds.
Today, these exercises of […]