Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Special Interests
Dwayne Andreas, The FBI, and Me
Posted on December 22, 2016
Dwayne Orville Andreas, the pocket hurricane that built a sleepy soybean processor, Archer Daniels Midland Co., into a global giant, died Wednesday, Nov. 16, in a Decatur, IL hospital. He was 98.
Andreas’s career was as long and profitable as it was remarkable and jaded. Just last week someone again asked me if it was true […]
Here We Are
Posted on December 22, 2016
To more than a few Americans, the phrase “President-elect Donald Trump” is as incomprehensible as “World Champion Chicago Cubs.”
Worse, these deniers only deepen their denial on being told (and retold) that, yes, the Cubs won the Series and, in fact, Donald Trump was elected president Nov. 8. These inconsolables continue to take Trump’s victory as […]
“You’re Wrong” Is the Wrong Message
Posted on November 30, 2016
When most of us hear the words “Have I got a great deal for you!” we grab our wallets because experience suggests any forthcoming deal won’t be great.
Similarly, when someone says, “Here’s the straight talk,” our baloney meters redline because we know the coming talk will be about as straight as a hound’s hind leg.
We […]
We Feed the World Is “Not a Harmless Myth”
Posted on November 16, 2016
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is using this harvest season to solidify its reputation as the biggest not-for-profit policy organization American farmers love to hate.
The hatred took root in 1995 when EWG published—on something called the Internet—a 10-year, searchable database of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) payments to all American farm entities. Farmers, especially the […]
Livestock’s Bleak, Industrial Future
Posted on November 16, 2016
The more the American meat and milk sectors industrialize—via integrated contract production, fewer bigger players, machine-centered scale—the more these key parts of American agriculture resemble industry itself: commoditized products, razor-thin margins, and extended periods of steep losses.
This shift from what we once quaintly called animal husbandry has also shifted economic and political power to a […]
Vote Like It’s 2018
Posted on November 2, 2016
As this year’s harvest and general election roll into October, key Capitol Hill farm policy players are looking past both events to stake out negotiating territory in the upcoming 2018 Farm Bill fight.
It’s not too soon. The Congress elected next month will rewrite the every-five-year law that divvies up $100 billion a year on federal […]
Close the Barn Door
Posted on October 19, 2016
One of the oldest truisms in agriculture is the simple, rock-solid advice that the time to close the barn door is before the cows get out. Closing the door afterwards, as everyone knows, is pointless because the cows are already long gone.
Everyone, except of course, the U.S. Congress which, on Sept. 20, hosted a Senate […]
Burning Down the Barn
Posted on September 28, 2016
If the prospect of either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton as president scares you, put down the television remote and pick up “Global Material Flows and Resource Productivity,” a new report from the United Nations Environmental Program. It makes the dour debaters look positively sunny.
OK, sure, the report’s title suggests it will be as dull […]
There’s No “Future” In the Futures Market
Posted on September 21, 2016
As the food industry continues to consolidate into fewer, bigger players, the price risk it once hedged in Chicago and New York futures markets is being pushed back onto the very farmers and ranchers it buys from.
The reason is simple: the Big Boys have the market power to do it.
After decades of Big Ag’s talk […]
The Last Free Trader in America
Posted on September 21, 2016
Can trade—free, fair, or otherwise—get some love this election season?
Fat chance.
In fact, the only national politician four-square in favor of global trade and its latest multi-nation deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, is no one anyone could have seen in that role: Barack Obama.
Holy cow, what’s next; the Chicago Cubs in the World Series?
Perhaps, and […]