Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Special Interests
When Free Markets Hit the Frying Pan, Consumers Often Get Burned
Posted on October 28, 2022
On Nov. 6, 2018, 12 million Californians voted, by a 63-to-37-percent majority, to establish minimum welfare standards for livestock and poultry products–chiefly eggs, pork, and veal–sold in the nation’s most populous state.
The initiative, called Proposition 12 (Prop 12), was an emphatic endorsement of two previous actions (one by voters in 2008; the other by […]
A No-Ethanol Future Doesn’t Mean a No-Profit Future
Posted on September 28, 2022
It’s rare to find one Midwestern academic publicly questioning the economic and environmental impacts of ethanol.
It’s even rarer to find four academics–one from a corn state land grant university, three from a leading university in the leading corn-producing state–raising objections to the biofuel and its byproducts that will use one out of every three bushels […]
Our Money, Their Mouth, Your Choice
Posted on August 17, 2022
If the political polls are to be believed, November’s midterm election will sweep Democrats out of power in the U.S. House of Representatives and put Republicans back in charge.
If accurate, House Republicans will have a splendid opportunity to put your tax money where their collective mouth is by implementing their highly detailed, little-publicized “Blueprint to […]
Outside the Fence One Time Too Many
Posted on August 17, 2022
Contrary to folklore, three times is rarely a charm. The number three, in fact, often carries woe: “Three strikes and you’re out,” for example or “Bad news usually comes in threes.”
U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors rediscovered these portentous axioms July 7 when, for the third time in less than a year, a jury in […]
Nowhere to Hide at Low Tide
Posted on August 17, 2022
Mega-billionaire Warren Buffett has a well-deserved reputation as a genius “value investor” and pithy commentator. His annual reports to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders are highly anticipated for their market insight and expressive language, and often make news because of both.
For example, one of Buffett’s most quoted sayings colorfully explains that “You only find out who’s swimming […]
The Simple Answer to the Simple Question
Posted on July 15, 2022
Oftentimes the simple answer to a simple question is the simple truth.
Some people, however, don’t want the simple truth, so they bend facts or shave figures so their square pegs replace roundly accepted reality. It’s commonplace in ag.
For example, on April 12, President Joe Biden traveled to Iowa to announce an expansion of the ethanol […]
New Signs of Apocalypse: War, Famine, and Davos Man
Posted on June 15, 2022
On the very week the United States marked its one millionth Covid death and anxious American parents awaited a military airlift for baby formula, Davos Man, he of the pinstriped master-of-the-universe class, emerged from his bulletproof, bombproof office to report all was well in the world of intergalactic finance and handmade shoes.
Well, kinda’ sorta’ well.
There […]
‘I have said we have to see some results!’
Posted on June 15, 2022
It’s no surprise that the nation’s five largest meatpackers, according to a May 12 government report, “engaged in a concerted effort with Trump Administration political officials to insulate themselves from coronavirus-related oversight.”
After all, the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis (the Committee), the body charged with oversight of government’s response to the pandemic, released […]
Harvested Cattle, Slaughtered Markets
Posted on June 15, 2022
You don’t need to be a vegan to know that livestock and poultry aren’t “harvested,” the squeaky clean verb that’s become fashionable among farm and ranch groups to minimize the end–as in The End–of most animals their members grow.
Soybeans are harvested; pigs are slaughtered. Wheat is harvested; cattle are slaughtered.
It’s not a minor point, insists […]
If futures markets don’t work, your markets won’t work
Posted on May 6, 2022
Contrary to the woeful baying by Big Agbiz, the United States–and any nation with enough money–will not run out of food this year. This can be said without reservation for two reasons.
First, war or no war, there is no global shortage of wheat, the crop today’s Chicken Littles are cluck-cluck clucking about. In the last […]