Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
About Alan
Alan Guebert is an award-winning agricultural journalist and expert who was raised on an 720-acre, 100-cow southern Illinois dairy farm. After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1980, he worked as a writer and senior editor at Professional Farmers of America and Successful Farming magazine. In 1984, Guebert returned to Illinois to establish his freelance writing business and to serve as a contributing editor to Farm Journal magazine.
He began the syndicated agriculture column “The Farm and Food File” in 1993 and it now appears weekly in more than 60 newspapers throughout the United States and Canada.
Guebert previously wrote ”Letter from America,” a monthly perspective on U.S. farm and food policy for European and Asian publications. “Letter from America” ran from 1995 through 2007.
Throughout his career, Guebert has won numerous awards and accolades for his magazine and newspaper work. In 1997, the American Agricultural Editors’ Association honored him with its highest awards, Writer of the Year and Master Writer.
Alan and his daughter Mary Grace Foxwell collaborated and co-wrote The Land of Milk and Uncle Honey: Memories from the Farm of My Youth. Their book was published in May 2015 by the University of Illinois Press and the pair held 75 book events with farmers, foodies, and friends across the country. Their book is available for purchase online and at bookstores nationwide.
Latest from Alan
The outrage over White Rural Rage
Posted on August 2, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, May 12, 2024
Early in my first year at the Big U, a new friend from Chicago’s south side asked me what he thought was an innocent question. “You’re from southern Illinois,” began Vince, “so why don’t you talk like a hillbilly?”
Like a what? I asked.
“You know,” he explained, “why don’t […]
The failure to learn history’s simple lessons
Posted on August 2, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, May 5, 2024
Long before it became a cliché, there were many heroes who never wore capes.
I met one: the rail-thin, then-86 year old Theodore W. Schultz, in his sun-filled, University of Chicago office on a cold, January day in 1989, a decade after he had been awarded a Nobel Memorial […]
How to win the SAF game: Part 2
Posted on August 2, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, April 28, 2024
Federal policymakers and their Big Ag friends have a problem: Their hope to make corn and soybeans the feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) hit a wall when the aviation industry ruled that biofuel from either crop did not meet its “sustainable” guidelines. As such, there would be […]
How to win the SAF game: Part 1
Posted on August 2, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, April 21, 2024
The easiest way to win any game is to rig the rules.
That’s what Big Ag and its loyal boosters at the Department of Agriculture (USDA) appear to be doing to make sure their new project, Sustainable Aviation Fuel, or SAF, a hoped-for 3-billion-gallons-a-year jet biofuel market by 2030 […]
USDA still runs the most expensive manure-making program in the world
Posted on August 2, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, April 14, 2024
If the third time is a charm, Michael Happ might finally make an impression on federal lawmakers and administrators with his fact-filled, 24-page report on the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) continued financing of Big Ag’s big manure habit.
This is Happ’s third detailed look at EQIP, USDA’s nearly 30-year […]