Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Farm Policy
High mileage chicken
Posted on September 15, 2013
Just before the Labor Day weekend began Friday, Aug. 30, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced that China was welcome “to export processed, cooked chicken to the United States.”
If USDA hoped this little nugget might get overlooked during summer’s last, languid holiday, that thought was deep-fried by noon when Politico, the fast-rising […]
OK, but how many people?
Posted on September 8, 2013
Our good friends at Progressive Farmer magazine fill 15 pages of their September issue with a well-researched, very well-written “special report” on “Feeding the World.”( http://www.dtnpf-digital.com/#&pageSet=26)
The four-color, four-story package hits all the humane highlights U.S. farmers and ranchers expect in these stories of manifest destiny and when “the world will look to the U.S. to help […]
Shut up, butt out, get lost
Posted on September 1, 2013
On Aug. 27, the late summer heat of Washington, D.C. was spit-roasting locals and tourists alike up and down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Inside the U.S. District Courthouse, a half-block off the main thoroughfare and just three blocks from the U.S. Capitol, however, all anyone from Mexico to Canada could talk about was COOL, the American law that […]
The Other Red Meat
Posted on August 25, 2013
A lean hog is not a fat chicken but the marketing geniuses hired by the National Pork Board sure sold a lotta’ hams, bacons and butts when, in 1987, they began to promote pork as “The Other White Meat.”
Now, 25 years after that brilliant slight of hand, the pork crowd wants to be known as […]
From Russia with Love
Posted on August 11, 2013
The July 30 news that Uralkali, the huge Russian potash producer, was pulling out of the global fertilizer cartel might be that nation’s richest gift to American farmers since the Great Grain Robbery in 1972.
Unlike the grain-buying deal that carried grain prices to 125-year highs 41 Julys ago, this July’s move will drain potash prices […]