Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Congress
First USDA Quick Fix: CRP Expansion and Reform
Posted on January 27, 2021
On his way out the door last month, former House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, just off a hammering reelection defeat, offered the nation one final idea: the incoming secretary of agriculture should be empowered to enroll up to 50 million acres in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) over the next five years.
Yes, 50—as […]
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 […]
‘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 […]
‘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 […]
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 […]
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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