Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Farm Policy
2014 Farm Bill: “Immense Bundle of Subsidies”
Posted on November 14, 2014
In a series of toughly-worded articles published in Choices, the quarterly journal of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA), nearly every major element of the 2014 Farm Bill—from its expanded crop insurance program to its impact on global trade negotiations—comes under fire as either “perverse,” “false,” “vacuous,” “absurd,” “failing,” or “wasteful.”
The seven articles, overseen […]
Confused? We’re Not!
Posted on October 31, 2014
All right, listen up! We’ve got a lot to sort out here and little time to do it.
First off, sure, you’re confused. Hey, your neighbor is confused. Your uncle’s confused. Your dog’s confused. Fact is, everyone’s confused. But we’ve been confused worse than this before and we all managed to somehow find our way to […]
Want Reform? First, Audit.
Posted on October 22, 2014
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack stunned the cowboy crowd Tues., Sept. 30, when, in a one-sided meeting in his office, he told seven members of the nearly three-years-old beef checkoff reform effort that if they didn’t find common ground soon he might impose a second beef checkoff that would double the annual, non-refundable collections of […]
The Price of Access? $1.2 Billion
Posted on October 20, 2014
What did individuals and political action committees believe they were buying when, according to Sept. 30 totals compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), they contributed $755.1 million this election cycle to Republican and Democratic candidates for the U.S. House and $415.2 million to Republican and Democratic candidates to the U.S. Senate?
The answer offered […]
Who Knew…
Posted on October 13, 2014
… that Bill Gates, the Harvard drop-out who co-founded Microsoft, owns 8.4 percent of Deere & Co., worth about $2.5 billion and “at least 100,000 acres of farmland in California, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana and other states” that includes a 490-acre Wyoming ranch once owned by William “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Gates also holds a stake (oh […]
Slouching Toward Election Day
Posted on October 8, 2014
There are facts on which the world operates and there are facts on which politics operate. Spoiler alert: the two are not the same.
For example, key Republicans in both the U.S. House and Senate have fought every effort this year to allow Congress a vote to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour […]
So Choose
Posted on October 1, 2014
This summer delivered many significant, round-numbered anniversaries.
For example, June 6 was the 70th anniversary of D-Day, Aug. 1 the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, August 9 the 40th anniversary of the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, and Aug. 12 the 200th anniversary of the British burning the U.S. Capitol.
Most are […]
Say What?
Posted on September 18, 2014
Farmers and ranchers have a well-deserved reputation for straight talk. Saying what you mean and meaning what you say, after all, were essential elements in the handshake deals that were the hallmark of rural business for generations.
They still are.
Now, however, some folks outside the nation’s fields and fences are working overtime to wash—and, in many […]
800 Million People Can’t Be Wrong, Right?
Posted on September 4, 2014
When 800 million of anything moves in the same direction at the same time, the world changes.
In mid-May the 800 million voters in the world’s largest democracy, India, rejected the long-in-power Congress Party for the BJP, the Bharatya Janata Party, led by Narendra Modi, described by the Indian press as a ‘business-friendly” job creator.
The crushing […]
You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
Posted on August 27, 2014
Herman Melville was a pretty good fiction writer but his 1851 whale of a tale—something about a big fish and a peg-legged man named Ahab—was, in fact, based on the true story of the American whaling ship Essex that, in 1820, was attacked and sunk by a huge whale in the south Pacific.
I’m sorry, you […]