Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Special Interests
Finding New Ground
Posted on July 6, 2020
Some observers see the Black Lives Matter movement as a tidal wave washing away America’s original sin, slavery, and the systemic racism it fostered for more than 400 years.
Maybe, but as the last 75 years of the American civil rights movement has proven time and again—and often in blood—rooting out hatred requires more […]
“Feeding You Like Family” Often Requires a Family
Posted on June 10, 2020
While Tyson Foods says it’s “feeding you like family,” we recently learned that it and the rest of America’s Big Meat members sometimes need a war-like White House declaration just to cut a fat hog.
More striking than the order itself was its effect: it didn’t work.
A week after President Donald J. Trump ordered […]
Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Chains
Posted on June 10, 2020
For over a month now, nearly anyone who can lift a fork has asked what the “new normal” in American agriculture will be after Covid-19 loosens its terrible grip.
Six weeks later, we now have a pretty good idea that ag’s new normal will look like ag’s old normal even if it takes a […]
The Long and Short of It
Posted on March 26, 2020
If you’re a farmer or rancher, you might be in for a bad day when you open your Monday morning email and five of the six headlines sent by an ag news service read:
–“USDA declares Brazilian beef safe, lifts [U.S. import] ban;”
–“GAO launches investigation into Trump aid to farmers;”
–“China could purchase much […]
How Rural America Can Avoid “Another Century of Degraded Water”
Posted on March 4, 2020
Despite the presidential caucus debacle Iowa hosted Monday, Feb. 3, the too old, too-white, and too-rural (at least to pundits who drop by every Leap Year) Hawkeye State still finished its awful week with an act of political courage rarely seen in U.S. agriculture today.
On Feb. 7, the Des Moines Register published a clear, sharp […]
Going Green is About Getting Green
Posted on February 27, 2020
One thing Big Ag has gotten very good at over the last two decades is fighting what it sees as the “green” invasion of do-good outsiders into American farming and ranching.
You know who I’m talking about; these tie-dyed, righteous interlopers of Eastern Elites and Left Coast Libs riding impossibly white unicorns into battle in […]
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 […]
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A clear-eyed view of American agriculture from an informed outsider. Tough, true, and telling courtesy of @herdyshepherd1 and @CivilEats. https://t.co/jA5rnIh9U3
Thread. At its core, this is why US ag faces an ever-tightening spiral of industrialization: most in academy continue to search for reasons not to change rather than reasons why change is the great imperative. https://t.co/cFap0zjLxp
‘The plan would also increase income taxes for people making over $400,000 in taxable income annually from 37% to 39.6%.’ Oh, those poor Deeres, er, dears… https://t.co/oRRswMOhC8
American farms continue to be fertile fields for hucksters, shysters, and cheats. Unreal. https://t.co/1dLfFGUWYS
Terrific piece that captures Big Ag’s slow-&-dough strategy w/ environmental regs: Unless gov’t pays us to the right thing, we’ll continue to do the wrong thing. Hey, your choice! https://t.co/aeTvAEVEU0
And now, 25 years later, we’re back where we started. Big surprise. https://t.co/J3ZZm2c76Y