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
Another $1 billion to refinance status quo won’t stop avian pandemics
Posted on August 2, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, April 7, 2024
When word came out of Texas on April 1 that avian flu had made another unwelcome hop–this one from a dairy cow to a human–the news seemed like an April Fool’s joke.
It wasn’t. In fact, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI or bird flu), the quick-killing […]
GOP House hardliners again threaten Farm Bill
Posted on August 2, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, March 31, 2024
Even when Speaker of the House Mike Johnson finds enough baling wire to lash together the votes needed to pass the split, almost six-months late 2023 federal budget, it’s little more than a signal to some of his GOP colleagues to heat up the […]
Meet the ‘Barons’ Who ‘Corrupt’ Your Dinner Table
Posted on April 10, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, March 24, 2024
The first economist, Scotland’s Adam Smith, had it right almost 250 years ago when, as writer Eric Schlosser notes in the foreword of an important new book by Iowan Austin Frerick, that “…merchants and manufacturers were ‘an order of men, whose interest is never […]
On the Road: New Zealand’s South Island
Posted on April 10, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, March 17, 2024
If an important part of your business is flying between the U.S. and New Zealand–like it is for Air New Zealand–you get pretty skilled at making the tedious, 13-hour flight from Los Angeles to Auckland go smoothly.
Part of it is the late night departure […]
WTO Slides Into a Vacuum, EU Slides Into Nationalism
Posted on April 10, 2024
Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, March 10, 2024
On March 2, the 13th World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial ended like most previous ministerials. After its 164 member-ministers discussed the burning need to change two, key international trade rules, everyone went home without changing any key international trade rules.
This actionless talkfest, however, carried […]