Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
From the Column
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.
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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 […]
What Exactly is China Buying on its U.S. Shopping Spree?
Posted on December 9, 2020
As political winners joust over election spoils, many Americans are tickled pink (or purple) to leave the costliest, most bitter campaign season behind and return to their lives of family, work, and dreams.
For U.S. farmers and ranchers that means a return to three pre-election realities: a strong, export-led rise in grain prices; another winter […]
Out of Many “Theys,” We
Posted on November 11, 2020
Ten or so years ago a friend asked if I would help him move a gun safe from his garage to his basement. I agreed not knowing what I was in for.
I had heard of gun safes; I just hadn’t ever seen one. My father’s “safe” was a corner living room closet where […]
Big Ag is Counting on a Purple Blue Dog
Posted on November 11, 2020
If there is such a thing as a 76-year-old poster child, Collin Peterson, the chairman of the House Ag Committee, could be the weatherworn face of today’s red-and-blue political divide in rural America. His qualifications for the job are, well, colorful.
For example, he’s a 15-term, incumbent Democrat in a rural Minnesota congressional district […]
Now Would Be a Good Time for Honest Dishonesty
Posted on October 28, 2020
Somewhere in southern Illinois there’s a high school yearbook that contains a photo of me and another student leaning against a classroom wall on either side of a 1972 campaign poster of a smiling Richard Nixon. The caption writer, another student, notes that my buddy and I are “standing” with our man, the then-incumbent president.
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Perilous Bounty is a Journey Well Worth Taking
Posted on October 28, 2020
Some books are worth more in your hand and on your shelf than they are as electrons in your e-reader. These books, and their authors, are valued friends and you return to them often for information, advice, and comfort.
Two downsizing moves in the last 15 years have pared my library to a few shelves […]
Election Year Crazy, Sure, But This Is Way Beyond Crazy
Posted on October 28, 2020
Just when you think 2020 can’t possibly get any crazier, autumn arrives with a carload of crazy in tow.
For example, does any farmer or rancher really know what the White House’s recently announced additional $14 billion in ag bailout money is intended to address that the previous $37.2 billion didn’t address?
That’s an honest question because we […]
The Big Meat Gang is Getting Awfully Smelly
Posted on October 14, 2020
In a year of too many dark days, Monday, Sept. 14 was a particularly dark day for every American for two reasons.
First, on Sept. 14, ProPublica, the non-profit, investigatory news group, published a 3,100-word expose’ on how global meatpackers used their clout this spring to get a White House order to keep workers on […]