Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Rural America
Spring Eternal
Posted on June 30, 2015
Spring’s fast run through April all but stopped two weeks ago when an inch of cold, November-like rain took most of a Saturday to fall. A noon survey of the backyard that dreary day showed nothing moving save two Canada geese grazing in the gray drizzle like two Jersey cows in sunlit clover.
Another stumble came […]
Kicking the CFTC Can
Posted on June 5, 2015
Confession time: Over the last three years I often have referred to the 113th and 114th Congress as either “do nothing” or “doing less than nothing.”
This is wrong because each passing day of continued Congressional nothingness clearly shows House and Senate leaders, then as now, busy as bees planning and implementing detailed action plans for […]
OK, When?
Posted on May 26, 2015
Spring is warmer days, blooming daffodils, and blue horizons. It’s also a good time to tap the season’s new energy and fresh hope to honestly discuss some of farming and food’s most pressing issues.
For example, global energy companies now spend more than $500 billion a year exploring for new oil, natural gas, and coal. At […]
Real Rural Development: Local Food
Posted on May 15, 2015
Unlike most farmers and ranchers today, Scott Laeser and Chelsea Chandler can see all their livestock and nearly every acre of their farm from their kitchen’s windows.
It’s not an expansive view. The entire farm, nestled in southern Wisconsin’s Driftless region a few crooked miles west of Argyle, is a 77-acre quilt of wetlands, prairie, woods, […]
Where’s The Love?
Posted on May 15, 2015
While kids always choose Christmas as the best holiday of the year, Christians everywhere celebrate Easter as the most important because, they teach, the anniversary of Christ’s “victory over death” on the hilltop called Calvary proves both His divinity and the promise of salvation.
Indeed, if you are Christian, Easter is where the ultimate sacrifice brings […]
Please, Just Bruce, Not Kingmaker
Posted on March 23, 2015
We will not be attending the “Iowa Agricultural Summit,” March 7 in Des Moines because, oh dear, this is embarrassing, we were not invited.
Yes, many non-farming, political types were invited and will be there. Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Jim Gilmore […]
Food Guidelines and Average Old You and Me
Posted on March 23, 2015
No one in farming or ranching buys a bag of seed corn or a couple of young bulls hoping for an average corn crop or an average calf crop. Both buy what each believes will best fit their farm and ranch’s unique circumstances to achieve the best results because average is, well, average.
Moreover, since the […]
Past Present, Present Future
Posted on March 23, 2015
As winter’s icy hands again strangle most of the country, I toss another log in the stove and grab the stack of old newspapers, aging magazines, and new books that has grown tall during winter travels.
The newspapers take little time. No trick to reading a two-weeks-old daily newspaper: headline… headline… recycling bin. The magazines are […]
Who Wrote This Mess?
Posted on March 10, 2015
The low whimpering and muffled whining heard in farm country this month are not the gripes and grunts of corn and soybean growers trudging through 2015’s purgatory of under-$4 corn and less-than-$10 beans.
Instead, it’s the rising complaints of cranky farmers as they trudge out of dull meetings where Land Grant experts and Farm Service Agency […]
Diverse, Concentrated–Big Ag, New Ag?
Posted on March 10, 2015
The Progressive Farmer magazine’s February issue resembles most mid-winter issues of most U.S. farm magazines. It features stories on how to grow more corn, how to whip soybean aphids, and how to “Drain Water in the Hydraulics.”
Interspersed between these tried-and-true farm favorites, however, are three stories that mark just how incredibly diverse our farm and […]