Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Special Interests
The People’s Department–For the Time Being
Posted on September 14, 2018
An early hallmark of the Trump Administration’s management of American farm policy is its uncanny ability to pick fights that are as costly to win as they are to lose.
For example, even if the President’s import tariff plans succeed, how many ag exports will American farmers lose before the White House declares victory and moves […]
Meet Your New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
Posted on August 23, 2018
The only Washington, D.C. area team having a worse year than the Baltimore Orioles, an awful 34-78 on Aug. 6, is big food’s biggest, richest lobbying arm, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, or the GMA.
Most American farmers and ranchers don’t know GMA by its acronym; they do, however, know its work: it was the organizer and […]
Checkbooks, Guns, and Baloney
Posted on August 10, 2018
The day U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced the White House plan to spread $12 billion of taxpayer salve on its festering tariff wound, November soybean futures ended their day completely unimpressed—down a sleepy 2.5 cents.
Farmers echoed the market reaction; they, too, were unimpressed with the bailout. “Trade, not aid,” was their polite, but […]
America’s Farming Soul
Posted on August 3, 2018
Sometimes it’s even hard for me to believe what I read in the newspaper. The latest “someone-really-said-that?” moment arrived courtesy of The Milkweed, the sharp-penned, monthly dairy newspaper owned and edited by Peter Hardin in Brooklyn, WI.
In its July 2018 edition, Milkweed writer Jan Shepel highlighted the controversy fueled by Marin Bozic, a dairy foods […]
It’s Hard to Tell: Is it 2018 or 2012 or Worse?
Posted on August 3, 2018
Every July, Congress begins to pack its collective bag to escape the scorching heat and suffocating humidity of Capitol Hill. And that’s just inside the Senate and House; outside it’s even worse.
Trapped in this year’s pressure cooker is the 2018 Farm Bill. While the Senate and House each passed their versions earlier this summer, neither […]
The Forgotten Lessons of the “Carter Embargo”
Posted on July 27, 2018
Once, when walking across the Charles Bridge in Prague, a friend asked if I knew the story behind the stunning, 14th century marvel under our feet. No, I replied, mostly because my education did not require much European history.
“Then,” my friend replied, “you are not educated.”
It wasn’t snobbery; it was a fact. Most Americans not […]
When Trump Starts Tweeting, Sonny Starts Packing
Posted on July 11, 2018
Prince Edward Island, caressed in eastern Canada’s provincial arms of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, is a lovely place to visit in June. Its sparkling red sand beaches, miles of white-blossomed potato fields, and rolling carpets of lush pasture form a color-soaked postcard for tourists and locals alike.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue caught a […]
Tanning Cowboys’ Hides
Posted on June 14, 2018
Forty years ago Waylon and Willie asked the nation’s mamas not to “let your babies grow up to be cowboys” because “… they’ll never stay home and they’re always alone, even with someone they love.”
That sage advice is even more true after a spring cattle market that’s been too wild to forget and too brutal […]
Make ZTE Great Again
Posted on May 30, 2018
If you think writing a farm bill makes for strange bedfellows, just look at who’s allied against President Donald J. Trump’s up-and-down trade talks with China: the deeply conservative Wall Street Journal and the decidedly undecided Financial Times, or FT.
On May 8, FT’s Martin Wolf described America’s “draft framework” guiding U.S-China trade talks earlier that […]
The Winning Losers
Posted on May 30, 2018
There’s something fundamentally wrong with a legislative process that delivers a Farm Bill so deeply flawed that groups as politically diverse as the ruby red Heritage Foundation and the ocean blue Environmental Working Group (EWG) join forces to publicly condemn it.
And yet on May 8, EWG’s Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Scott Faber moderated […]
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Read the story, then click on *reader comments* to see just how angry people are w/ today’s farmers for what they see as blue state billions supporting red state farmers. Many border on fury. https://t.co/LoeoIgOfhW
With all due respect, @ScottIrwinUI, yesterday no one could hay or graze prevented plant acres until Nov. 1. A day is a long time when USDA rewrites rules at the drop of a seed corn hat. https://t.co/Ub0B1K7A4z
Come on... has there ever been a USDA program that hasn’t skinned or scammed taxpayers? This announcement (read the string) is only hours old and the game is already on. https://t.co/TJegvilfxU
Memo to SecSonny: If you’re going to bend facts & make up math to blindly support bad White House politics, don’t do it against former ERS administrators who actually know facts and do math. https://t.co/2QCb5IMoFH
Stay away from the generals-General Mills, General Dynamics, General Motors, General Electric... They write the rules they then use to tell you they’re right. No thanks. https://t.co/Q2v4u8SO0N
This is a solution in search of problem greased by taxpayer money and a vengeful Administration that cares as little about *customers* as it does science and, now, the law. Let’s solve ag’s real problems before making fake ones. https://t.co/GLA8m8OyHJ