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 Best Way to Start is to Start
Posted on February 24, 2021
Forty years ago, two editors at Successful Farming magazine, Gene Johnston and Dean Houghton, won most major ag journalism awards with a story titled “Who will kill the hogs?”
The piece (not available online) tracked a new, potent shift just beginning to hit the 600,000 hog farmers in the U.S.: Local meatpackers were being squeezed for hogs […]
You’re in Charge of USDA; Where Do You Start?
Posted on February 17, 2021
The impossibly improbable has occurred and you’re now secretary of agriculture. What you think or say about farm and rural policy matters as much—and, often, more—than what other political and farm “leaders” think or say.
So what do you think about U.S. agriculture today?
You’re entering office with major grain markets on a bull run. Indeed, corn, soybeans, and wheat prices […]
Questions Surround Carbon Sequestration; USDA Needs to Find Answers
Posted on February 17, 2021
One topic most red, blue, and green politicians—and, even more strikingly, farmers—agree on is climate change; it’s real.
In fact, notes the Dec. 2020 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll, 58 percent of Iowa farmers and landowners now agree that climate change is both occurring and is caused by either human activity or nature.
Moreover, if you add […]
First USDA Quick Fix: CRP Expansion and Reform
Posted on January 27, 2021
On his way out the door last month, former House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, just off a hammering reelection defeat, offered the nation one final idea: the incoming secretary of agriculture should be empowered to enroll up to 50 million acres in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) over the next five years.
Yes, 50—as […]
Blood Washes Away, Lies Will be Remembered
Posted on January 22, 2021
Like any schoolboy, I was both giddy and awed when I walked into the U.S. Capitol for the first time. Here Abraham Lincoln walked and John Kennedy laid. This is where Henry Clay and Daniel Webster debated, where wars were declared, peace was cherished, and democracy watered.
Only I wasn’t a schoolboy; I was nearly […]
Follow Alan on Twitter
Read, please, then begin to hold those responsible-and everyone knows who they are-responsible. https://t.co/ivxkubMQ75
It’ll be interesting to see what the USDA bureaucrat in charge of meatpackers & $50B in farm program spending during the pandemic can teach ‘all Nebaskans.’ https://t.co/LuyETZpZdx
What part of *derecho* losses weren’t already covered by crop & property insurance carried by farmers & ag suppliers? Best guess: a lot. So aren’t we now bailing out insurance cos. more than farmers? https://t.co/cvAFw5mZGa
What’s confidential about a potential toxic spill across public land? Never heard such a Grade A baloney explanation in 40 years of journalism. https://t.co/XLy7Frh7gX
Would create a $60B/yr. White House slush fund to shower friends with taxpayer cash. This mean AFBF now favors BigGuv? Great; then it also back new regs for CAFOs, payment limits, cross-compliance, double CRP? Hey, free money ain’t free. https://t.co/bzd274FggY