Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
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Free Trade! Free Lunch!
Posted on February 24, 2016
We in agriculture talk about free trade agreements as if they are the international equivalent of a free lunch. All we need is a trade deal, we preach, and a full belly—easy profit—is an almost certainty.
This lovely belief, of course, overlooks the absolute certainty that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone […]
February (And the Coming Apocalypse?) In Sight
Posted on February 17, 2016
Despite claims to the opposite, the increasing chances of Donald—“You’re fired!”—Trump changing to “I, Donald—do solemnly swear—Trump” is not a sign of the coming apocalypse.
Granted, the end could be closer than we think when any billionaire steps off his Boeing 757 airliner and declares, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot […]
China Sees Woe, U.S. Ag Sees Red
Posted on February 3, 2016
The fireworks-filled, holiday celebration that is the Chinese New Year doesn’t begin until Feb. 8. Three weeks into calendar year 2016, however, key elements in China’s economy—its wildly speculative stock markets, less-than-transparent currency, sagging heavy industries—have gone boom.
That weakness is already being felt in U.S. farm and ranch country. Rural America, after all, is China’s […]
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 […]
Quantitative Spinning
Posted on December 10, 2014
Against all odds, economics, the dismal science, has become even more dismal. Since the Great Recession of 2008, what once was equal parts science and art is now equal parts politics and disdain.
What I mean is that nearly every economic report and analysis now comes freighted with political spin and partisan derision. Economic numbers—jobs, exports, […]
800 Million People Can’t Be Wrong, Right?
Posted on September 4, 2014
When 800 million of anything moves in the same direction at the same time, the world changes.
In mid-May the 800 million voters in the world’s largest democracy, India, rejected the long-in-power Congress Party for the BJP, the Bharatya Janata Party, led by Narendra Modi, described by the Indian press as a ‘business-friendly” job creator.
The crushing […]
Just the Facts Ma’am
Posted on May 5, 2014
As this space has often noted, facts, figures, and data are as essential to journalism as verbs, nouns, and dangling participles. In fact, journalism without facts is a cup of tea without tea.
We also understand that erudite farm and food conversationalists—like you, for instance—are often on the prowl for convincing evidence and fresh facts to […]