Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Special Interests
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 […]
What’s The Matter with Kansas?
Posted on May 24, 2018
For over 100 years, some Kansans have either built or added to their journalism reputation by asking this simple question: What’s the matter with Kansas? The answer, however, is far from simple.
The first to ask was William Allen White, the publisher and editor of the Emporia Gazette. White, a mainstream Republican, posed the question as the […]
Might Over Right
Posted on May 16, 2018
One of the clearest memories I have as a second grade student is looking north from my classroom windows nearly everyday to see fellow second graders, Ricky W. and his sister, Regina, running to school, late as usual, with their arms, feet, and homework flying.
I also remember the two were usually met at the classroom […]
Wisdom Should Come with Age
Posted on May 10, 2018
In May 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus, a Pole living in Prussia, published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, a book that used mathematics and astronomy to postulate how the earth and the then-known planets rotated on their own axes as they orbited a stationary sun. Within days of its printing, however, Copernicus died.
His theory of […]
Plowshares Into Swords
Posted on May 3, 2018
Texan Mike Conaway, the Republican chairman the House Ag Committee, went full cowboy on committee Democrats after he learned all 20 of them would vote no on his 2018 Farm Bill if he presented it with what they said were 20 percent cuts in SNAP, the nation’s $68-billion-a-year Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Conaway’s reaction was like […]
The Terrible What Ifs
Posted on April 12, 2018
Spring arrived slowly this year. Then, late last week, its welcome warmth and longer light slipped in and winter’s bony fingers loosened their grip.
In farm and ranch country, however, spring brings tough questions and even tougher choices. Both could have been softened if our farm and political leaders sought compromise, not confrontation. Alas, they didn’t […]
Faking It
Posted on March 28, 2018
While we watch the cat-juggling carnival that is Washington, D.C. these days, real fake news experts—yes, there are experts in real fake news—are artfully mixing fact with myth to influence how Big Biotech’s mergers and buyouts play out in American agriculture.
The biggest merger, Dow and DuPont’s $150-billion hook-up, was completed last August. Another big one, […]
A Time to Choose
Posted on March 15, 2018
It’s difficult to improve on Mark Shields’ apt description of today’s Trump White House: “It’s like East Berlin,” observed Shields, a long-time political operative and pundit, during a recent interview, “there’s more people wanting out than wanting in.”
That was true Feb. 12 after the White House released its 2019 budget titled “An American Budget: Efficient, […]
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If 20% of all US ag production goes into export mkt, any threat to exports is a threat to all farmers. That’s the problem with an export-centered ag policy instead of a food-centered farm policy; pinheads everywhere you turn. https://t.co/IqubU1AL3X
No surprise; the best want the best & Foxwell Digital is exactly that. https://t.co/iYMakYToSL
Hey, it gives checkoffs another *issue* to spend $ on while farmers prepare to plant abt 5 million more acres of beans than we need, China tariffs remain, farm income cont to fall, & another USDA shutdown is 10 days away. #focus https://t.co/RYeEjKWp6i
Has any farm group big @FarmBureau, @BeefUSA, @NPPC, etc.) or small donated cash or food to help govt workers who haven’t been paid in a month? Seems even more like the thing to do now that USDA employees are working unpaid so farmers get paid. https://t.co/axmjhVaX7h
So many farmers have set rotations-w/ seed, fert., fuel locked in already-that lack of reports will not do much too farmers’ plans. Continued lack will raise mkt. volatility in March & April tho and only traders like that. https://t.co/L6PqDOUMbs