Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Special Interests
Welcome to the Fight; Now Get in Line
Posted on January 2, 2020
After 38 years in journalism, some events still cause shock. Many center on public officials holding private meetings where a “just-us-insiders” intimacy affords all a “better understanding”—read total control—of their policy initiatives.
Sorry (not sorry), but public policy doesn’t work that way. There’s no room for secrecy when public officials spend public money to […]
Milk Shake-Up Just Beginning with Dean’s Downfall
Posted on December 18, 2019
While many in the U.S. dairy sector focus on why the nation’s largest milk bottler, Dean Foods, filed for bankruptcy Nov. 12, the smart money—if there is any smart money left after four years of crushingly low milk prices—is focused on what’s next.
What’s next is what’s always next when your business is built on […]
“It’s Going to be a Long Winter”
Posted on December 13, 2019
Mother Nature turned a colorful, late fall into a bitterly cold, early winter as if to prove—after a planting, growing, and harvest season marked by floods, drought, and mud—that she’s still in charge and still not happy.
Not happy about what? No one can say but almost every American from Montana’s Western Slope to Maryland’s […]
Partisanship, Piffle, and Prattle
Posted on October 16, 2019
Some years ago, I wrote a column on how farm groups sternly preached the value of what they reverently called “sound science” but, in fact, usually endorsed only “science that sounds good” to the groups.
Not coincidentally, I noted, most of that good-sounding science was “science” tied to research bought-and-paid-for by the groups themselves.
Examples of this […]
Summer Fun with August Numbers
Posted on September 5, 2019
Ag Twitter had a big sandbox to play in after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) clobbered the agricultural futures markets Aug. 12 with its number-filled Crop Report and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, or WASDE.
The updated numbers—planted acreage, estimated production, and projected usage—hit the market like a hailstorm. Corn futures snapped […]
Down the Primrose Path
Posted on August 29, 2019
The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the yellow roses along the primrose path are dazzling distractions from what, in a matter of days, has already been a long month for farmers and ranchers.
Worse, a long harvest and bitter winter also loom as President Donald J. Trump threatens even tougher trade sanctions […]
Doing Your Civic Duty. Or not.
Posted on July 31, 2019
Look out, rural America, Congress is headed your way during its annual month-long break in August and its members want to talk trade, trade, and trade.
They don’t, however, want to talk about America’s flagging 2019 ag exports or the still-in-place, retaliatory tariffs that are clipping U.S. exports.
No, rural America’s almost entirely Republican […]
“Mother Nature Always Bats Last”
Posted on July 24, 2019
Call it what you will—coincidence, chance or just bad luck—but on the very day that President Donald J. Trump defended his Administration’s almost indefensible record on the environment, the Washington, D. C. metro area was deluged by rainfall not seen since Noah.
In fact, so much rain fell so fast on the nation’s capital […]
The Bum’s Rush, USDA Style
Posted on July 10, 2019
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue doesn’t need to hit the road this summer to find more than enough messy problems to keep him busy through harvest.
There’s the Chinese trade mess, the NAFTA 2.0 trade mess, the European Union trade mess, and the Japanese trade mess.
Also, there’s the mess Mother Nature made […]
“It Was Like Watching a Train Wreck Happen”
Posted on May 30, 2019
No one I know has ever witnessed a train wreck as it happened. As such, when a friend or colleague says or writes that an event “was like watching a train wreck happen,” I’m pretty sure it wasn’t like watching a train wreck happen.
Until Sunday, May 5, that is, when President Donald J. Twitter […]
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In the six yrs that Ernst has been on Senate Ag Committee, US taxpayers have sent farmers $109B in *direct farm program payments* ($60B in 2019 & 2020 alone). All the ethanol in the world, let alone Iowa, can’t fix that problem. https://t.co/B5P3nKd87Q
No surprise; the Cotton Gang historically has been the biggest winner in farm bailouts. Also no surprise, Corn & SB Gang whining they didn’t get as much. But biggest non-surprise? No one asking what’s wrong w/ ag policy that requires bailout after bailout. https://t.co/WdlK54MN5J
Equally disturbing is the fact that our farm and political leaders, food companies and eaters don’t care enough about its workers to reform a system fueled natural resource destruction and too much human suffering. https://t.co/pudgHxsUyJ
When you rob Peter to pay Paul you can usually count on Paul’s vote. https://t.co/7GFgFzcguX
Fine, but if any politician or farmer wants taxpayer money to bail out future weather-caused damage to US ag, each must sign a form that acknowledges climate change is real to least get these anti-guv socialists on the record... https://t.co/WUZTNFfuh9