Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Archives
The Plan is No Plan
Posted on October 16, 2019
You know you’re deep in the rabbit hole when bad news—say, a government report that shows steep cuts in anticipated 2019 crop yields—is good news because it will hopefully boost prices. Conversely, when good news arrives, like an unexpected week of perfect September weather, it’s actually bad news because it just drags already low […]
“Mother Nature Always Bats Last”
Posted on July 24, 2019
Call it what you will—coincidence, chance or just bad luck—but on the very day that President Donald J. Trump defended his Administration’s almost indefensible record on the environment, the Washington, D. C. metro area was deluged by rainfall not seen since Noah.
In fact, so much rain fell so fast on the nation’s capital […]
Crop Insurance Goes Global
Posted on November 23, 2015
It was the legislative equivalent of pulling an elephant out of a hat as the stage curtain was about to fall.
The day before the House of Representatives voted 266-167 to approve a long-sought, two-year federal spending deal, House and Senate ag committee members complained that the proposed deal—unseen and unaudited—contained an eight-year, $3-billion cut to […]
Diversity and Resilience versus Corn and Soybeans
Posted on October 14, 2015
By car, Quebec City, Quebec, is 1,840 miles from Bismarck, ND. I know because in the last two months I have seen every mile of highway between North Dakota’s state capital on the Missouri to Quebec’s provincial capital on the St. Lawrence.
Interestingly, as you drive west to east across arguably some of the New World’s […]
The Numbers Never Add Up
Posted on April 22, 2015
There’s little mystery to why many Americans distrust Congress: the numbers its members offer as hard facts are often exposed as pure fiction.
Take the numbers offered recently by Rep. Aaron Schock, the Illinois Republican who resigned his House seat, effective March 31, “following revelations of lavish spending, payments to donors for flights on private jets […]
Insuring Elephants
Posted on December 23, 2014
Federally subsidized crop insurance is the elephant in the Farm Bill pantry and anyone who had any role in pushing the law through the zoo called Congress knows it. What most didn’t know, however, was when Big Ag would finally acknowledge its huge appetite and suffocating presence.
Enter Mary Kay Thatcher, a long-time, well-respected Washington, D.C. […]
Read It and Pay
Posted on March 9, 2014
On Jan. 5, 2011, www.gop.gov, the website for the “House Republican Majority,” trumpeted news that its members had acted on their “promise” to “ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives.”
The […]
Ag’s New Math
Posted on January 20, 2014
It might be a new year but the old year’s weaknesses persist.
For example, I still try to type the word “separate” with one “a,” still can’t walk past a display of cherry licorice without buying some, and still can’t do high-end math like, say, division.
Part of that latter weakness goes back to the 1960s when […]