Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
From the Column
Threading Needles with Camels
Posted on August 27, 2021
Twenty-five years ago, when almost every American farm and ranch organization was denying the existence of climate change, William E. Rees and a colleague developed a method to measure how much “nature” was required to support a people or an economy. They called that measurement an “ecological footprint.”
That science–ecological economics, Rees’s career specialty at the […]
The Actual Costs of the ‘Industrial Mind’
Posted on August 13, 2021
In an essay in his new book, Hogs Are Up, Wes Jackson, founder of the Land Institute near Salina, KS, revisits a speech he gave in Coon Rapids, IA, in August 2009 to mark the 50th anniversary of Nikita Khrushchev’s famous visit to the Roswell Garst farm.
During that cornfield summit, suggests Jackson, Garst and Khrushchev chatted about […]
Bigger Means Bitter, Not Better
Posted on August 13, 2021
In a sweeping, 72-point executive order on competition, the Biden Administration announced it was taking dead aim at the heavily concentrated “multinational companies (that) increasingly dominate markets for crops, chemicals, seeds, and meat,” reported Bloomberg.
The competition order–that “reach(es) from the FDA to the Pentagon”–includes “directives… such as rules that would help chicken farmers and ranchers… […]
Riding the Metal Wave Left by My Iron-Bending Uncle Honey
Posted on August 4, 2021
One job on the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth was to walk just-cultivated corn or soybean fields to find the cultivator parts–disk blades, sweeps, even whole shanks–left broken and unseen by my quiet, iron-bending great Uncle Honey earlier in the day.
Honey was a skilled cultivator killer. The problem wasn’t the design of our Case cultivator. […]
Everything–Corn, Soybeans, the Truth–Needs Sunshine
Posted on August 4, 2021
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A local grain company does well year-in, year-out buying, storing, and processing a few million bushels of soybeans. Nearby farmers love it; a strong local processor means strong local prices.
As the years pass, the plant ages and–too soon for local farmers–closes. A statewide farm group, knowing the plant’s importance […]
The Ag Politics of Being Agriculturally Apolitical
Posted on August 4, 2021
It’s a widely held belief that if you want to get ahead in farm group politics, you can’t be political. Well, not overtly political, anyway. Quietly, sure; loud and you’re outta’ here.
For example, according to OpenSecrets.org, the best tracker of campaign cash in American politics, the nation’s largest, richest farm group, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), contributed a stunningly puny […]
This Time, The Scoreboard Tells the Whole Story
Posted on August 4, 2021
In farming, the late Farm Journal economist John Marten liked to say, we keep score with acres.
Right or wrong, acres–and the wealth they represent–have always been a measure of personal and professional success. The converse is true, too; the lack or loss of acres usually implies failure of sorts.
That critical measure is at the center […]
Worker Wages are Not the Cause of Higher Food Prices
Posted on July 7, 2021
After my first year at the Big U, I returned to the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth for a summer of work. The first task, however, was to ask my father to double my hourly pay from 50-cents an hour, the amount I’d been paid through high school, to $1 per hour.
“Well,” Dad […]
Truth in Labeling is the Opposite of Branding
Posted on July 7, 2021
If up is up and down is down, it makes sense then that organic food—especially food that carries the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s treasured “USDA Organic” label—is organic, right?
Not all the time, maintains Francis Thicke, an Iowa organic dairy farmer introduced here last month. In fact, Thicke and hundreds of other long-time organic farmers maintain […]
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.
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