Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
From the Column
Gun closets across America
Posted on August 3, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, July 21, 2024
Like most southern Illinois farms of my youth, my family had a closet filled with guns.
It was just inside the living room and it held my father’s 12-gauge Marlin shotgun, his .22 caliber Remington pump rifle, brother Richard’s single-shot 20-gauge shotgun, brother David’s single-shot 410-shotgun, and my single-shot .22 […]
Your local USDA office may soon be your local federal courthouse
Posted on August 3, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, July 14, 2024
The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 28 ruling to overturn the Chevron deference was a business-favoring decision to upend 40 years of legal precedent and redirect federal power from agencies like the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to the courts and Congress.
Big Ag loved the news. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association […]
Farm Bill politics 2024 lean toward Project 2025
Posted on August 3, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, July 7, 2024
This year, like last year, is a Farm Bill year and this year, like last year, probably won’t deliver any Farm Bill.
The reason is the oldest one in Washington, D.C.: politics. Most Congressional Republicans aren’t interested in passing any bipartisan farm and food assistance bill when they believe a delay might deliver a GOP-controlled House, […]
The Fourth of July that saved the nation
Posted on August 3, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, June 30, 2024
As an end-of-the-road farm boy growing up deep in southern Illinois, the Fourth of July was more of a shadetree holiday from the alfalfa field than a noisy celebration of national independence. Besides, we were more partial to a local hero, Abraham Lincoln, than any frilly “Founding Father.”
That leaning […]
Mexico’s election delivers new leader to tackle old problems
Posted on August 2, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, June 23, 2024
While Americans still face a long season of political campaigning, more than 80 other nations have completed their federal elections this year or are about to go to the polls.
For example, France’s general elections will be held June 30, the United Kingdom’s on July […]
Hocus pocus and–poof–taxpayers pay for more crop insurance
Posted on August 2, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, June 16, 2024
A longstanding complaint here is the utter incomprehensibility of federal milk pricing policy. For years we’ve joked (mostly through tears) that only four people in the world understand its complexity and, worse, not one of them is a dairy farmer.
As if to prove our point, […]
Meet the ‘Barons’ Who ‘Corrupt’ Your Dinner Table
Posted on April 10, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, March 24, 2024
The first economist, Scotland’s Adam Smith, had it right almost 250 years ago when, as writer Eric Schlosser notes in the foreword of an important new book by Iowan Austin Frerick, that “…merchants and manufacturers were ‘an order of men, whose interest is never […]
On the Road: New Zealand’s South Island
Posted on April 10, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, March 17, 2024
If an important part of your business is flying between the U.S. and New Zealand–like it is for Air New Zealand–you get pretty skilled at making the tedious, 13-hour flight from Los Angeles to Auckland go smoothly.
Part of it is the late night departure […]
WTO Slides Into a Vacuum, EU Slides Into Nationalism
Posted on April 10, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, March 10, 2024
On March 2, the 13th World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial ended like most previous ministerials. After its 164 member-ministers discussed the burning need to change two, key international trade rules, everyone went home without changing any key international trade rules.
This actionless talkfest, however, carried […]
The Growing Disconnect Between Numbers and Soft Policy
Posted on April 10, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, March 3, 2024
Like much of the news anymore, the initial numbers from the 2022 Census of Agriculture were accurately reported, quickly downplayed–or even worse, ignored–by most Big Ag groups, and then just pushed aside by the rush of the next day’s news.
That’s a mistake because the […]